Why the ownership vs. access economy debate is not a simple one

On an in any other case unremarkable Friday in July 2009, amazon.com executed a digital disappearing act, silently eradicating two books from each Kindle e-reader throughout the United States. The rationale supplied — improper addition by a writer — did little to quell the irony that these very texts, Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell, which explored themes of censorship and management, had themselves vanished into a digital “memory hole”. The incident starkly dropped at mild a elementary fact of the digital age: the act of “buying” as we speak is typically much less about ownership and extra about buying a license, revocable at the whim of the supplier. Amazon’s subsequent pledge in opposition to future silent deletions supplied some reassurance, but the e-commerce large retained the rights to take action anyway.

Filmmaker Kabir Mehta, 34, skilled a comparable digital dispossession round 2012. Leveraging a U.S.-based iTunes account by way of a relative, he had painstakingly uploaded his CD assortment, trusting the software program to recognise and combine the tracks into his digital library legally. The launch of iTunes in India a few months later abruptly severed this access, localised contracts rendering his meticulously curated playlists clean. “I didn’t bother holding on to the physical versions of many tracks once I had added them to iTunes. I was quite devastated to see my library empty,” recounts the Goa-based director and screenwriter.

Mehta’s expertise foreshadowed a broader pattern. The conventional idea of ownership has change into more and more nuanced in the intervening years. Physical media resembling DVDs have largely ceded floor to streaming platforms, private music collections to subscription providers, and tangible books to digital thumbnails. Simultaneously, exterior financial pressures and shifting existence are reshaping our relationship with bodily possessions. A 2024 TechSci Research report highlights a surge in renting, from houses and automobiles to electronics and furnishings, pushed by skyrocketing property costs, rising mortgage charges, and a rising choice for versatile dwelling preparations.

“Cost of living has not matched up with salaries in the country, and a minimum living wage for all is still a far-fetched dream,” says Hyderabad-based economist Kumar Gautam. “A person with a dependent child finds it difficult to run their household even with a ₹1 lakh monthly paycheck — where does Gen Z even begin to plan for the future?” The financial pressure is evident in the rising tide of shopper debt. According to TransUnion CIBIL, India’s excellent bank card debt reached roughly ₹2.92 lakh crore as of final December, a important leap from the earlier yr’s ₹2.53 lakh crore. In this unstable financial panorama, coupled with the relentless push of consumerism, the prospect of long-term funding feels more and more distant for youthful generations.

“It is only normal that we are more interested in consuming digitally — we have run out of mental and physical space to give tangible things the attention they deserve.”Shweta Kapur, 37Fashion designer and founding father of Delhi-based ready-to-wear model 431-88, who focuses on launching aware capsule collections

Shweta Kapur
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Courtesy @shwetakapur

The dying knell of ownership

For generations, ownership was a key marker of success and stability. But as we speak, it is dying out. Technology, financial stagnation, and shopper choices have created an period of access, as an alternative. And the attract of the access economy, with its promise of immediate gratification and boundless choices, is undeniably robust. “I have never had an issue with renting or subscribing to things, I don’t really think about what I will own 50 years from now — imagining even two decades into the future feels like an existential crisis,” says Haroon Sharma, 22, a faculty scholar from Ahmedabad, including that he needs to have the ability to decide out, strive new providers, transfer to a different metropolis (if that’s higher for his profession) with out the burden of ownership. “But not having the option of owning at all is not something any of us asked for,” he states, highlighting the inherent pressure between the comfort of access and the potential lack of company — assume diminished decisions, probably increased costs, and a lack of transparency.

Bengaluru-based Sushmita Bhalerao, a company technique analyst at Goldman Sachs, observes a elementary shift in generational values, too. “While once owning something was the largest marker of financial security, the digital native generation has got comfortable with not keeping things for good.” She additionally factors to the financial incentives driving this shift. “Most corporations have realised how financially beneficial subscription models can be in a capitalist economy. Keeping consumers on the hamster wheel, getting them to buy carelessly and buy more is a sure-shot way to keep making profits.” This company philosophy has manifested in eyebrow-raising methods, from BMW’s try to cost a subscription for heated seats in 2023 — a proposal the German automobile producer deserted after clients complained about having to pay $18 a month to make use of in-built options — to HP’s “Instant Ink” service, the place customers need to pay a month-to-month web page allowance on their very own printers.

Technology, financial stagnation, and shopper choices have created an period of access
| Photo Credit:
Illustration: Srishti Ramakrishnan

The software program trade was one of the early adopters of the subscription-based mannequin. While it eradicated the want for upfront purchases, it additionally got here with its personal set of ‘expensive’ issues. “As a graphic design student, it is terrible not to have the option to buy software like Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign. It costs about ₹734 per month for a single software, and about ₹1,916 per month for the bundle,” laments Saniya Kakkar, 23, a Mumbai-based graphic designer. Even user-friendly choices resembling Canva, which started with reasonably priced subscriptions, have now amped up charges. Its Teams characteristic, which price ₹4,000 for 3 customers now expenses the similar charge for a single consumer.

We are slowly heading in the direction of a world the place “everything can only be borrowed”, warns Gautam. “And these costs never trail off. You keep paying for things consistently if you want them, down to the albums that store your photos,” provides the economist. This perpetual state of borrowing contributes to important nervousness, notably amongst youthful demographics. “Even though most older generations assume younger people have it easier, this is adding to major financial anxiety alongside living in a politically volatile world,” notes Delhi-based psychological well being therapist Ruchi Ruuh.

Moreover, the fixed inflow of recent digital content material solely fosters a sense of fleeting engagement. “We constantly need the newest thing… [to] signal our ‘status’. With digital purchases, we barely keep count of what we are buying, and we don’t use things to their full potential as much as we used to. We don’t reread a book or listen to the same track because so much more is available at our fingertips. We own so recklessly that nothing holds value,” she provides.

“I am a magpie for beauty, and wherever I find it, I pick up little pieces of joy, whether it’s clothes, art, books, jewellery, tchotchkes — anything that will physically remind me of the moments I have lived.”Kaustav Dey, 42VP of selling for Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, primarily based in Bengaluru, for whom journey experiences transcend digital documentation

Kaustav Dey
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Courtesy @kaustav.dey

Nostalgia has its place

Delhi-based entrepreneur Kalyani Saha Chawla, 50, TV persona and founding father of Rezon Luxury Silverware, has all the time understood the significance of permanence. “When I look at books from my grandparents, with the little handwritten messages on the opening pages, it speaks to me. With digital purchases, there is a lack of personalisation alongside a lack of control,” she observes. The ephemeral nature of digital ownership additionally breeds a sense of vulnerability. “We live with this fear that if there is a glitch in our cloud, we might lose all our photos, our memories of cherished moments.”

Shrimoyee Chakraborty, 35, advocates for a balanced method, emphasising the significance of valuing the analogue world whereas embracing the advantages of the digital. “I do not have a television at home; I make sure to play the classics — from [Martin] Scorsese to [Satyajit] Ray — on a projector for my four-year-old daughter to grow up and appreciate our cultural inheritance,” says the Mumbai and London-based chef and flimmaker. “She can have an iPad and still value owning a film or art.”

Shrimoyee Chakraborty
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Courtesy @shrimoyeec

Meanwhile, Delhi-based dressmaker Mayyur Girotra, 44, is of the thoughts that in an more and more digital world, the significance of tangible possessions is amplified. An concept cemented by the stone plate illustrations he despatched for his New York Pride present invite lately. “Real luxury lies in permanence. Since we are obsessed with fast access, the things we can hold in our hands and hearts matter deeply,” he asserts.

Mayyur Girotra
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Special association

However, for a lot of amongst Gen Z, this appreciation for tangible permanence feels more and more out of attain. Anish Gawande, 28, a nationwide spokesperson for an Indian political celebration, factors to alarming financial indicators. “Savings are at a 50-year low, and most young Indians are borrowing to meet consumption expenditures, not to buy a house or gold.”

Anish Gawande
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Special association

He believes these are clear markers of an upcoming international recession. “People invest in smaller luxuries when they can’t even plan on investing in a big-ticket purchase.”

“Previous generations did not have someone else constantly controlling their data. Nobody could swoop into my house and take away my copy of Rushdie’s Satanic Verses when it was banned for a while, for instance.”Kabir MehtaFilmmaker, highlighting the tangible safety that bodily ownership can afford

Shifting goalposts of life

Access economy, as information platform Medium put it final yr, is “changing our economic incentives, our social behaviors, our family dynamics, and the nature of our communities. Some — most notably those who profit from the shift — argue this transition is creating a new level of freedom, flexibility and sustainability. But the truth is, we’re losing the economic mobility and stability that ownership traditionally provided.”

While the confluence of a number of elements are shaping this generational shift, “we must remember that the environment, the world and mainly the goalposts of life have moved”, says Pooja Dhingra, 38. The patissier and founding father of Le15 India has witnessed the shift in shopper behaviour first-hand by way of her enterprise. “Home ownership, financial security, and even building savings have all become much tougher. This impacts how we consume. There’s a focus on access because stability feels out of reach. Flexibility is survival.”

Pooja Dhingra
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Special association

Research from the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland, helps this statement, projecting that Gen Z will doubtless obtain milestones resembling first homeownership and beginning households considerably later than earlier generations, with a better reliance on parental help. As 19-year-old IT intern Somaya Khatri says, “I’d like to own things just like my parents — I’d love to leave a record collection for my children. But right now, a Spotify subscription for ₹119 per month seems too good to forgo.”

Ultimately, the pressure between ownership and access displays deeper energy dynamics. It’s no coincidence that prevailing forces discourage ownership at its core. The consolidation of land, tradition, and even our digital recollections in the palms of a few raises a elementary query: in a post-ownership world, who will we belong to?

The Mumbai-based author, artist and editor experiences on style and tradition.