Gen Z really doesn't own anything

There is something important I’d like to clarify about this column: as much as it is about Gen-Z, what life is like for us today and the challenges we face and overcome, it is also about the problems of the future left up to us to solve for those who will come after us.

It’s with that we come to ownership, and the fact that people don’t own anything anymore. You think you own your stuff, but do you have complete control over it?

Leases on cars, leases on homes, entertainment and media subscription services, and anything that needs electricity or water to work and you’re paying a bill that covers it... you don’t own it. You can’t use your phone without a phone bill, so you don’t own your phone, to say nothing of monthly banking fees.

That’s right. We have to rent our own money.

But what is the issue? Is this just another knock-on effect of late-stage capitalism, planned obsolescence of things like fridges and computers making their way into other aspects of daily life?

It sounds extreme when laid out as I’ve done, but in my view, it comes down to people: we chose and continue to choose short-term, piecemeal conveniences that contribute to our culture of disposability and misuse. For the Gen-Z aspect, look to our tendency, compared to our elders’, to delay gratification, and the fact that we are generally more willing to abandon the thing that everyone uses.

Take the example of streaming services. No free advertising, just think of one, then list the stable of shows or programmes on it making you keep that subscription.

Not very many, is it?

As soon as I encountered the idea of ‘the end of ownership,’ I immediately cancelled three of my six subscriptions, leaving me with one I pay for, one my sister pays for, and one I have with a super cheap yearly bill that I’m never giving up.

But like a rent-controlled apartment in the 90s, if you leave, the price goes up.

Now, think of how much you’ve spent on that streaming service, then how much it would cost you to buy a DVD-player and physical media. Or, as many never stopped doing, take to the internet high seas and pirate what you want to watch, whether downloaded securely or streamed online (everyone should have a good ad blocker downloaded anyway), and do what I mentioned a few weeks ago and find something niche you can support, where you can see your money being used to its full extent.

This problem of not having physical media is doubly objectionable because of why media being kept online and accessible by its creators is dangerous. First, so entertainment and media companies can more easily alter content — this was just done on a British reality TV programme, in which a contestant’s Palestine watermelon shirt was edited into a plain black T-shirt.

Second, so companies can more easily remove content altogether, robbing artists, animators, musicians, and actors — people whose labour has the same value as yours or mine — of residual cheques that have long been a supporter of these artists. Once a show has been syndicated by a TV network, every time someone tunes in to watch the same episode for the umpteenth time, everyone who worked on that episode gets a little slice of the ad-dollars pie. The case is the same when you bought physical media or watched live TV and dealt with commercials.

Overwhelmingly though, what is most insidious is how easily things can be altered. Records, even history. If it’s not physical, anyone can change it.