How can you own an intangible?
Rental or own but keep it on a cloud computer, a computer that is not on your desktop but in come super server farm, which you can access from anywhere on your smart phone, iPad, netbook or even less costly interface yet to be released on the market. You can access your "computer", your collection, your video and your audio from anywhere in the world, anytime,
Record collections, stacks of brittle 78's, 45 singles, LP's (33 1/r rpm), and CDs have given way to MPEG and iPods.
The generation that could not own movies unless they were wealthy, and even then poor Super 8 prints with scratchy audio tracks, were the innovators who gobbled up DVD's and now Blue Rays so they could own a piece of their own history, their own memories and their own passions. VHS started the trend, but it was a poor substitute for today's 720 and 1080p universe.
And now comes the next step.
Will we let go of knowing we own secure copies you can file, touch, possess and move on to "owning" digital files stored on our computers or out there in cyber space?
There were those who swore that CD's would never lose their magic, yet most music is now delivered computer to computer to portable player and cell phone.
We are growing ever closer to owning the intangible, the non-physical and feeling the pride of ownership without every touching a physical wrapper or product.
What will the future hold?
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WriteNOWMom
ohsillyme
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
Our entire economic system will slowly change to reflect new paradigms in ownership and products.
This is only the beginning.
good post!
That's basically what we already have with services such as Rhapsody and Netflix, just with less music and fewer movies. But the concept is the same. How the details would work out (e.g., how the creators would get paid) I'm not sure. But I think this is where we'll end up.
And that would be fine with me. For example, with favorite movies we often end up buying the same thing multiple times. We buy the VHS tape, then the DVD, then the director's cut, then the extended version, then Blue-Ray, etc., etc. Over the years you can be a hundred bucks into the same movie.