Lies, Damned Lies, and Subscriptions
Everybody hates paying subscription fees. At this point most of us have figured out that recurring fees are miserable. Worse, they usually seem unfair and exploitative. We’re right about that much, but it’s worth sitting down and thinking through the details, because understanding the exceptions teaches us what the problem really is. And it isn’t just “paying people money means less money for me”; the problem is fundamental to what “payment” even is, and vitally important to understand.
Human Agency: Why Property is Good🔗
or, “Gio is not a marxist, or if he is he’s a very bad one”
First: individual autonomy — our agency, our independence, and our right to make our own choices about our own lives — is threatened by the current digital ecosystem. Our tools our powered by software, controlled by software, and inseparable from their software, and so the companies who control that software have a degree of control over us proportional to how much of our lives relies on software. That’s an ever-increasing share.