When I was younger, I remember reading a report that in the UK, some low-income families could only afford to buy electricity by the hour rather than a monthly subscription. This shocked me greatly. Since then, I have witnessed the unsettling rise of a society in which people are defined solely by their subscriptions. We can all observe this trend: it is often more profitable for profit-driven corporations to force consumers into subscriptions rather than to sell them products they truly own. This applies to streaming media, video games, software licenses, groceries—you name it.
Today, we are starting to see a similar phenomenon not just in the consumer space but also in the labor market. The traditional notion of full-time jobs and the stability they represent is fading. Thanks to AI-based productivity tools, corporations are poised to buy your services on an as-needed basis. The cycle is now complete—you sell your services so you can afford to purchase the subscriptions that define your existence. It’s frustrating, and I see no hope as I watch corrupt and incompetent politicians, driven by lobbyists, fail us. What could have been an opportunity for genuine progress and societal evolution—by allowing algorithms and robots to take over tedious tasks and implementing a work tax to fund a universal basic income—seems increasingly unlikely to happen, especially not in a peaceful or well-planned manner.
But I digress. This post is meant to share a fun video from a few weeks ago promoted by Louis Rossmann (here), who is known for his advocacy for the “Right to Repair” movement. In addition to his activism, he supports the Consumer Rights Wiki, which has the motto, “Creating the internet’s largest dedicated repository of information on anti-consumer practices, one edit at a time.” You can check it out here.
It’s an interesting read, and you may want to contribute to it. A representative scenario would be a company selling you a connected device and, for some reason, disabling a feature over time and converting it into a subscription-based service. The Norwegian Consumer Council‘s video humorously depicts this problematic trend. Enjoy!