We gladly pay for digital content, but do we really own it? Not in the way we think — we are sleepwalking into a digitized ecosystem where ownership is disappearing. First our films and music, now our e-books.
In 2016, the World Economic Forum published a speculative fiction piece titled: “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy and life has never been better.”
The article presented a futuristic world where personal ownership is obsolete and society functions as a shared service. The writer describes a world shaped by automation, artificial intelligence and sustainability —one where clean energy is free, transportation is efficient and major humanitarian concerns like environmental destruction and economic instability have been eliminated.
It can be read as a utopia, but the undertones of privacy concerns, social displacement and the fate of those who reject this new way of life ring loudly between the margins.
At its core, the article is a looking glass into a possible future — one where unchecked capitalism
and environmental neglect disillusion us about what it truly means to have personal ownership in the digital world, or more importantly, the lack thereof.
We are living in late-stage capitalism, where companies are decimating the meaning of ownership, turning everything from entertainment to necessities into subscription models. The oligarchy drains our wallets, and as music, television, video games and films become more digitized — the last relic of traditional ownership in the digital age — are now being targeted by corporate greed.
With the global e-book market projected to reach 1.1 billion users by 2027, Amazon dominated the industry, controlling 79% of all US e-book purchases and 67% of the market share.
So when Amazon announced a new policy change where users are no longer able to download books to personal storage outside of Amazon’s ecosystem, people began to panic.
And although digital libraries remain intact, the change sparked uproar and concern not only over the inability to create physical backups of purchased books but also the permanence of digital libraries and the extent to which readers actually control what they buy.
While many readers worry about Amazon deleting books outright, an even greater issue lurks beneath: digital rights management (DRM).
DRM means digital content — e-books, music, movies and software — can only be used in ways authorized by copyright holders. When e-books are DRM-protected on Amazon (or any other platform), Amazon remains the sole proprietor.
Readers risk having their books altered or censored without their knowledge or permission. A passage removed here, a paragraph edited there — silently stripping away content from books they rightfully purchased.
In 2009, Amazon deleted George Orwell’s “1984” from its Kindle platform, removing the book from readers who purchased it from their own personal digital library. During this time, the topic of how easy it could be to censor in the digital age meant little as everything was still new, however as many southern states in the United States began to rack up numbers for which books should be banned or censored, this fear is justified now.
So, for those looking to push back, platforms like Kobo, Project Gutenberg and most independent booksellers offer DRM-free alternatives. But of course, the best option will always be to support your local library.
As a reader, I’ve been doing whatever I can to support my local library. With a library card and the Libby app (a free library reading app), I can check out e-books and audiobooks with ease. Before making the switch, I was paying $15 a month for Audible Premium Plus (for unlimited access to the Audible Plus Catalog), which gave me just one audiobook credit per month.
But nothing will beat the pleasure that is buying physical books.
There’s a peace that comes with owning something tangible, something you can mark with your own thoughts and opinions. Notes scribbled in the margins, with the most colorful or the most mundane annotations that trace your reading journey and experiences through the pages — because you can, because it’s yours.
You can break the spine of the paperback, you can crinkle the pages or dog-ear the corners of your hardback —because it’s yours.
You can share it with a sibling, a friend, a partner — because it’s yours.
You can let it collect dust on a shelf for years, or you can carry it with you wherever you go — because it is yours.
Categories: Opinion
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