Total ownership does not currently exist.

You’d think that once you buy something, it is yours in every way. But your ownership comes with a leash. Your firmware updates without you asking. Your repairs depend on parts that only the manufacturer can supply. Open the product, and your warranty is void. Some products won’t work at all without an app.    And when you’re done with it, what happens next is left to recyclers and landfills.

Now imagine a world where what you buy is unconditionally yours. Openable, fixable, resellable, inheritable, and fully functional long after whoever made it is gone. But that world comes with all the responsibility. You maintain it. You store it. You fix its bugs. You repair it without a manufacturer. You dispose of it responsibly.    And it has to be a world where you can afford it outright in the first place, which is exactly the problem EMIs, subscriptions, credit lines and BNPL apps exist to solve.

The beauty and the tragedy of commons.

Some things were never meant to belong to one person. A lake. A street. A language. A footpath. The groundwater under a district. A neighbourhood library. Wikipedia.    The open-source code running inside almost every product you have ever used. Yet today, almost everything we use is bought, owned and used alone. A drill machine spends its entire life in the cupboard, to be used for about 12 minutes in its lifespan. And nearly every home has one.

Now imagine a world where what you use belongs to everyone. One drill for fifty homes. Nobody pays the full price, everyone gets the benefit, and far less gets made. But that world comes with the hard part. If it belongs to everyone, who is responsible for it? Who maintains it? Who decides what happens when one person takes more than their fair share, lets it fall apart, or wants out?    Humanity has been wrestling with the tragedy of the commons for centuries.

You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.

In 2016, the World Economic Forum shared this line as one of its predictions for 2030, drawn from an essay by Danish politician Ida Auken. Ten years later, it no longer reads like a prediction. It describes the ownership most of us already live with. The flat is the landlord’s. The music is the platform’s. The film you bought is a licence.    Your work laptop belongs to your employer. The road belongs to the state. The game you love stops existing the day its publisher switches off the servers.

Now imagine a world where everything works this way. Nothing to buy upfront, nothing to repair, nothing to store, nothing to dispose of. Always the latest version. Access to far more than you could ever afford to own, and someone else, often an expert, takes care of any issues. But that world comes with the hard part. You use everything on someone else’s terms, and terms change. Prices rise. Features move behind paywalls. Access gets revoked.    Nothing can be modified, passed down or kept once the custodian loses interest, shuts down, or decides you’re no longer welcome.