The idea of ownership is changing fast. We used to pay for things once and own them outright. Now, it feels like we're paying more just to keep using what we already bought. From Netflix to your car's heated seats, it seems like people are renting life itself.
Welcome To The Subscription Economy
In a recent post on Reddit’s r/Anticonsumption, one user summed up a growing frustration with modern consumer culture. “We have moved from Taxation Without Representation to Subscription Without Ownership,” they said. “We are basically digital serfs renting our own lives from corporations.”
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They argued that while Americans in 1773 were destroying tea in protest of taxes, people are now paying monthly fees just to keep access to products they’ve already bought. “You buy a movie, but the platform can delete it from your library tomorrow. You buy a phone, but software locks prevent you from repairing it yourself,” the person wrote. “You buy a car, but the heated seats are behind a monthly paywall.”
The post got hundreds of comments, many echoing the same concern: ownership is disappearing. Even when people pay full price for something, they often don't control it.
One person put it frankly: “If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing.”
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Many described hoarding media, building home servers, or turning to physical collections. “We literally bought a DVD player so we could own media again. Plus, no ads!” one commenter said. Another shared, “I basically just have my own Netflix that is only streamed to the devices in my house. If the corpo apocalypse ever makes internet access unobtainable, I have enough to watch to last the remainder of my lifetime.”
Technofeudalism
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis coined the term “technofeudalism” in 2023 to describe this exact dynamic. Tech giants like Apple, Facebook and Amazon have reshaped the economy to mirror medieval Europe’s feudal system. In this model, these companies act as the new lords, while everyday users are digital peasants–locked into their platforms, generating value but owning little or nothing in return.
Consumers now face a flood of services and apps, all requiring monthly payments. The result? Exhaustion and mistrust. As one Redditor said, “A company pays the service to show you ads and then you pay the service to not show you ads so the service gets paid twice and you still get ads.”
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This rejection of the subscription model is often tied to privacy concerns. The original poster mocked the idea that we now pay $15 a month just “to not be spied on in your own home.”
“They still spy on you, use and sell your data, and will find any way to monetize the time you spend with it,” another Redditor added. Others blamed what they call “late-stage capitalism” or unchecked corporate greed.
Many tied the issue back to systemic failures. “We now have a system with no oversight, where favorable regulations can be bought,” a person argued. “When criminal acts are ignored, it becomes morally and ethically acceptable for everyone to do the same thing.”
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