Part of an article on the P2P Foundation website today struck a chord with me with regard to the importance of being able to OWN things and not simply stream or lease access to them. It’s this kind of thinking that caused me to introduce a 5th R, Retain, this last year. In Owning is the New Sharing, Nathan Schneider writes:
The notion that sharing would do away with the need for owning has been one of the mantras of sharing economy promoters. We could share cars, houses, and labor, trusting in the platforms to provide. But it’s becoming clear that ownership matters as much as ever. Whoever owns the platforms that help us share decides who accumulates wealth from them, and how. Rather than giving up on ownership, people are looking for a different way of practicing it.
+1 for ownership.