It’s difficult to read this article by Techdirt’s Mike Masnick without sounding a bit salty:
We’ve talked a lot on Techdirt about the end of ownership, and how companies have increasingly been reaching deep into products that you thought you bought to modify them… or even destroy them. Much of this originated in the copyright space, in which modern copyright law (somewhat ridiculously) gave the power to copyright holders to break products that people had “bought.” Of course, the legacy copyright players like to conveniently change their language on whether or not you’re buying something or simply “licensing” it temporarily based on what’s most convenient (i.e., what makes them the most money) at the time.
– Mike Masnick of Techdirt, ”The End of Ownership“
It seems important to note that this notion of unfettered, untarnished capitalism is good for the world, as is consumerism. It isn’t. In fact, you could easily make the argument that the capitalism/consumerism duo works antithetically to our environment — finite resources and all. At some point, we’ll need to wrestle with the idea that our environment (both literally and figuratively) needs to take precedence.
