I'm gravely disturbed by how our culture is becoming more and more dominated by vast McSuperCorporations whose sole purpose is to amass more and more of the culture under their gathering skirts! They fight to reduce ownership of ANYTHING (except the worth of the shares of their McSuperCorp) and create endless cycles of RENTAL AGREEMENTS. It's getting ridiculous when they try to make people rent the right to listen to a song, or watch a movie-- to assure that the money owed them is never "done."
The way things are going, I can easily imagine a world where we'll be renting everything: clothes, houses, cars, dental work... The point being of course, that if you don't OWN something, it can be taken away from you by the few or one who does own it, and that threat over one's head is supposed to induce complicity.
Instead, the harder they squeeze, the more they directly encourage consumer rebellion-- piracy, smugging, and freeware black markets. They seem incapable of grasping that their greed is what fuels the problem. (Beginning with CDs that take $2 or less to produce with songs, including packaging!-- and charging $11-$23 for them! And they wonder why people download music for free!??)
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branchandroot
rent-a-society
Date: 2006-03-23 03:33 pm (UTC)The way things are going, I can easily imagine a world where we'll be renting everything: clothes, houses, cars, dental work... The point being of course, that if you don't OWN something, it can be taken away from you by the few or one who does own it, and that threat over one's head is supposed to induce complicity.
Instead, the harder they squeeze, the more they directly encourage consumer rebellion-- piracy, smugging, and freeware black markets. They seem incapable of grasping that their greed is what fuels the problem. (Beginning with CDs that take $2 or less to produce with songs, including packaging!-- and charging $11-$23 for them! And they wonder why people download music for free!??)