Those who collected music in the 1990s recall what it was like to own stuff. We collected CD, cassette tapes, DVDs, and even vinyl. We stacked them in CD towers and framed them in DVD binders. Milk crates were used for vinyl in those days, not milk. And then one day - I’ve got mail - a friend emailed me a link to download Napster. As a young person without much spare money, this was the dawn of an exciting new era.

I was still in high school in 1999. The idea that I could share digital copies of the music I loved was incredible. Record companies were suddenly forced to rethink their business model. $20 CD albums that we bought just to hear the popular 1 or 2 bangers was no longer viable. As consumers, we felt like we now had the power and MP3 players were our torches.

Of course, publishers would find a way to stop this anti-capitalist madness and make us pay unfair prices for music again. Digital Rights Management (DRM) was how companies turned the tables and imposed copyrights on digital artwork, music, and movies that were being shared widely. By implementing DRM, a publisher could lockdown the purchase and use of digital materials on certain devices. Such centralized systems enable publishers to block legal behaviors such as making a back-up copy or converting a song from one medium to another (e.g., from MP3 to Mini Disc).

In many digital industries, like music and video, the business model has shifted toward a subscription model. My wife and I pay $12/month for a household subscription to Spotify. By the end of the year we will have spent $144. The thing is - we didn’t really spend that kind of money on music before. $1 or $2 on a good song every month would be much less money over time.

Of course, Spotify has playlists of music to discover and subscribers can temporarily download songs to play off-line. They even have podcasts now! There are definitely other services wrapped into this subscription. But it is still a subscription and we don’t have anything to show for the money we’ve spent in the end. We now rent the music instead of owning (a copy) of it.

Google is even more engrained in our digital lives. It started with superior search as the gateway to the internet which replaced “front pages” like Yahoo or AOL. After we started relying on Google searches all of the time, we were introduced to Gmail. Gmail was also superior to competing internet companies and there were no ads or licensing fees. There was the Microsoft-way, which was to charge for software, and then there was the Google-way. At the time I found myself preferring the Google ecosystem because their approach was natural for the internet. Everything at least started free there.

The business model was based on the incredible success of Adwords. Google made enough money from search to give away Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, and Slides! Then Google maps became good enough to replace printed directions from MapQuest and ultimately GPS devices in cars. They also evolved Picassa into Google Photos, which is a consumer-friendly photo storage, sharing, and searching tool. Now I only store photos there and delete the originals from my devices.

We’ve always understood this deal. Our clicks earn the company money while we remain in the ecosystem doing productive things that require searching. And it’s still a cash cow - Google (Alphabet) made $283 billion just in 2022. [abc.xyz]

Now these free programs are beginning to cost money through - you guessed it - subscriptions to a package of services. 100GB storage, access to support, and other benefits. Once my photo albums exceed 15GB I must pay to keep these files in Google’s cloud storage every month until I move them on my own storage at home. This is the play book. As soon as you begin to rely on these services regularly, the model changes and we are told to pay rent. So now, we are not only on the menu but we’re being asked to pay, too.

The lack of true ownership is becoming very common. Too many products and services are now simply rented, not owned. And this business model complements digital goods and services well. Even though this all feels a bit dystopian there is reason to be cheerful.

Increasingly, thanks to innovations on public blockchains, digital goods can be made scarce and ownership can be proven without a company involved. Artists can earn more income from fewer fans - cutting out the parasitic middlemen. Communities can claim ownership of a network (e.g., ticket selling and reselling), share the fee revenue, and make decisions on how their protocols should operate.

The rules are changing and we get to be part of this change if our minds are open to it. This is the promise of Web3: decentralized applications, autonomous organizations, money on digital rails, and digital assets. These are only some of the tools we need to begin owning things again and paying less rent.

Benjiming is an advisor to Bankless Academy and can be reached on Twitter @BenjimingDefi and GM.xyz @Benjiming.

Those who collected music in the 1990s recall what it was like to own stuff. We collected CD, cassette tapes, DVDs, and even vinyl. We stacked them in CD towers and framed them in DVD binders. Milk crates were used for vinyl in those days, not milk. And then one day - I’ve got mail - a friend emailed me a link to download Napster. As a young person without much spare money, this was the dawn of an exciting new era.

I was still in high school in 1999. The idea that I could share digital copies of the music I loved was incredible. Record companies were suddenly forced to rethink their business model. $20 CD albums that we bought just to hear the popular 1 or 2 bangers was no longer viable. As consumers, we felt like we now had the power and MP3 players were our torches.

Of course, publishers would find a way to stop this anti-capitalist madness and make us pay unfair prices for music again. Digital Rights Management (DRM) was how companies turned the tables and imposed copyrights on digital artwork, music, and movies that were being shared widely. By implementing DRM, a publisher could lockdown the purchase and use of digital materials on certain devices. Such centralized systems enable publishers to block legal behaviors such as making a back-up copy or converting a song from one medium to another (e.g., from MP3 to Mini Disc).

In many digital industries, like music and video, the business model has shifted toward a subscription model. My wife and I pay $12/month for a household subscription to Spotify. By the end of the year we will have spent $144. The thing is - we didn’t really spend that kind of money on music before. $1 or $2 on a good song every month would be much less money over time.

Of course, Spotify has playlists of music to discover and subscribers can temporarily download songs to play off-line. They even have podcasts now! There are definitely other services wrapped into this subscription. But it is still a subscription and we don’t have anything to show for the money we’ve spent in the end. We now rent the music instead of owning (a copy) of it.

Google is even more engrained in our digital lives. It started with superior search as the gateway to the internet which replaced “front pages” like Yahoo or AOL. After we started relying on Google searches all of the time, we were introduced to Gmail. Gmail was also superior to competing internet companies and there were no ads or licensing fees. There was the Microsoft-way, which was to charge for software, and then there was the Google-way. At the time I found myself preferring the Google ecosystem because their approach was natural for the internet. Everything at least started free there.

The business model was based on the incredible success of Adwords. Google made enough money from search to give away Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, and Slides! Then Google maps became good enough to replace printed directions from MapQuest and ultimately GPS devices in cars. They also evolved Picassa into Google Photos, which is a consumer-friendly photo storage, sharing, and searching tool. Now I only store photos there and delete the originals from my devices.

We’ve always understood this deal. Our clicks earn the company money while we remain in the ecosystem doing productive things that require searching. And it’s still a cash cow - Google (Alphabet) made $283 billion just in 2022. [abc.xyz]

Now these free programs are beginning to cost money through - you guessed it - subscriptions to a package of services. 100GB storage, access to support, and other benefits. Once my photo albums exceed 15GB I must pay to keep these files in Google’s cloud storage every month until I move them on my own storage at home. This is the play book. As soon as you begin to rely on these services regularly, the model changes and we are told to pay rent. So now, we are not only on the menu but we’re being asked to pay, too.

The lack of true ownership is becoming very common. Too many products and services are now simply rented, not owned. And this business model complements digital goods and services well. Even though this all feels a bit dystopian there is reason to be cheerful.

Increasingly, thanks to innovations on public blockchains, digital goods can be made scarce and ownership can be proven without a company involved. Artists can earn more income from fewer fans - cutting out the parasitic middlemen. Communities can claim ownership of a network (e.g., ticket selling and reselling), share the fee revenue, and make decisions on how their protocols should operate.

The rules are changing and we get to be part of this change if our minds are open to it. This is the promise of Web3: decentralized applications, autonomous organizations, money on digital rails, and digital assets. These are only some of the tools we need to begin owning things again and paying less rent.

Benjiming is an advisor to Bankless Academy and can be reached on Twitter @BenjimingDefi and GM.xyz @Benjiming.