Topic: Americans own less stuff because of the Internet. Is that a worry? (Read 409 times)

It should've been expected, people always lose jobs and something they own due to technologies development, it's very difficult to find something that is really valuable and non-dependent of time, that's why gold is so precious and good investment, it was worthy ages ago and it's price is only increasing due to its limited source, but things that can be replaced with something else won't stay for long. Books are now replaced with E-books, some mechanical tasks are being replaced by automation of different processes, maybe someday people will invent something much more powerful, than computers and even such companies like Microsoft or Apple won't be in need anymore. It's not a reason for concern, though, it's developmental indicator that should be accepted as a given.

I was actually interested in reading the article until the website cut it short and blocked the rest of the article with a pop out telling me I need to log-in and subscribe to access the "exclusive" article nevertheless I'll still try and contribute my opinion about it. It is true the internet is actually affecting our lives in a bad way the more we are stuck doing nothing and just entertaining ourselves with websites such as Facebook and Youtube we will actually be less productive as the time being consumed doing those activities takes a lot instead of doing something more productive like try to earn money in other ways besides our job. The internet trapped us from products we really don't need to social media websites/apps we think is now part of our lives.

I'm sure that paper books will never be banned because, in fact, there are many of them who do care about consumer rights/freedom these days. The first thing that comes to mind it's probably lawyers who would be more than happy to appeal against such a ban. The thing is that it's good for your health to take brakes from the Internet and computer in general sometimes, and paper books serve as one of the best substitutes.

All in all, I think that if more and more stuff appears in a digital form and people can use it either for free or for a fraction of the previous price, it's a good thing. But there always will be a demand for something in its physical form, even though its digital clones will be available.

I think this is generally good. Why accumulate so much to one's self. It is a really nice development. A reduced sense of ownership and thirst to acquire more and more. Ultimately, we all know we are taking nothing to the grave. So, it looks like the right way to live. Forward thinking. It kinda helps one focus more on what they need and disregard the excesses.

We are living in interesting times, technology and its ability to mass produce almost anything has brought a world where you can buy almost anything if you have the money to buy it and this created the consumerist society in which we live today, but at the same time that technology now is creating a society where people are owning less, after all why have a shelf full of books when you can store them all in a convenient device that fits in your pocket?

So it is entirely possible that we are heading to a future in which we own less stuff but it is made of superior quality or at least that is what I hope for since I hate having useless stuff in my house.

Every new invention has its pros and cons.Likewise technology does have.By this way,the profit sharing goes to only one or two giant companies and the others remain left with empty hand.

I'm thinking that it is not mandatory to have many objects or things in your flat, I'm living in Post Soviet apartment, and I have so many things that are not needed I want just to throw everything away.

Things are changing with time. Just like books and magazines are replaced by online reading on the facebook, similarly fiat currency will be replaced by digital currency very soon

I may not be totally practically to do without the STUFF because some materials are better kept on paper if not for anything as a backup

If in my life things are not worth anymore. It's best to replace it and give yourself something more valuable. Especially it helps in life. And the topic is the same, whether people use the internet less or not, nor too worried.

Perhaps you are right but I do not consider that we should worry about it. Modern gadgets, mobile devices, notebooks, personal computers outclass books very significantly otherwise this devices would not substitute paper books. I also have noticed that especially young people spend much time surfing in Internet by using their smartphones. I remember how earlier I went to a library and gave several books to find answers for my questions. Now I can do the same for several seconds or minutes by using Google or other online services. I think it is normally that some kinds of material property becomes digital because it is easier to use and a digital format is suitable for various algorithmic analyses. I think that people will continue releasing from useless things because it is a progress which we cannot stop.

No one will force you to use physical books or online sources.The usage of physical book is reduced to avoid carrying of lot of books.If you want,you can buy huge numbers of book.And their is no limit in it.You can't say ,Americans own less stuff because of the Internet.If you use Internet, it will reduce the cutting of trees for the sake of papers.You can learn huge things from the internet itself.

I am not worried at all, the example you are given can be easily avoided by buying actual copies of an electronic book that you store locally and that no one can take from you, it is very similar to what we are doing with bitcoin already, you just need to do the same, instead of streaming a movie buy it if you like it that much and store a copy in your hard drive that you can watch anytime you want.

People are following that path because that path gives the illusion to them of more choices but that is simply not true, lets take Netflix as an example, there are studies that show that people spend more time deciding what they want to watch than watching shows or movies, they could avoid all of that by just buying whatever they actually want to watch and eliminating 99% of the stuff they will never watch.

Why do we need to own stuff? There are a lot of people who lead a minimalist lifestyle.
To me there is way too much consumerism.

I hear of a guy from a few years ago who decided to get rid of stuff he didnt actually
need. Everything he sold he took a picture of so that when he thought about again
ge would look at the picture.

its good for nature. IF we do not print out or dont read physical books. less number of trees will cut out..  One tree = 10,000 paper.. just think it we waste lot of paper daily.. but we never plant new tree..

Second drawback of this
People need to use internet. then they will follow up other things also like facebook. and after-all its machine we are using this and we see this light all day result , low eyesight

Sometimes change is good.

As for me personally I love to have the minimum of different staff in my home if I would be having a total Freedom I would leave on the three or four furnitures at my house and it would be enough for me.

That reminds me of recent pushes to create a "cashless society" where paper money is banned or illegalized. I can already imagine an argument for this developing.

"Paper books come from chopped down trees. This is bad for the environment and so paper books must be illegalized like plastic bags and straws to combat climate change, drought and global warming."

If paper books were banned, amazon would receive an even larger profit boost from its kindle store. Jeff Bezos would be proud. It would be bad for consumers but I don't think there are many who care about consumer rights/freedom these days.

Let's make sure we're talking about the same thing here. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines 'lazy' as "not liking or willing to act or work". They also have this definition for kids, "not liking or willing to act or work". Let's we take paper books vs. electronic books, for example. Better yet, let's compare paper books to the internet. It would take you much longer to find something in paper books that on the internet. If you're looking for a quote in a book you many spend an hour, whereas on the internet you may find the quote in a couple minutes. How would finding information more quickly make you "dislike" or make you less "willing to act or work"? I don't see how you can connect these two things. It just makes you more effective.

I completely agree. I completely overlooked the fact that if people are that concerned, they could always just buy paper books again. Haha.

I guess I have some positive views about this kind of happening or changes in the world. The world that we live in is already changing very fast and eveyrhign is becoming digital one. I guess there should not be any problem with this kind of upgrade where everything stays in the cloud and owned by third party. Its actually good thing that we dont need to manage or take care of things and the sole purpose of it, is still left out as untouched, or more or less its preserved at some safe location. Now this is just example of books but may be the world is big and there are many things which are being replaced with the digital stuff. Its good and modern I guess.

This is technological progress, every technology developed by humans is actually to facilitate human life, and I think internet technology greatly facilitates human life. but because it's cool with the internet world sometimes we often ignore traditional ways. For example, now there are too many young people who only focus on playing in front of a laptop or cellphone and they start leaving games that can make healthy.

It's not only not a big problem, it's not a problem at all in my opinion.  In fact, anyone can still own a physical book if they want to.  There's nothing stopping people from buying paperbacks and magazines or anything else.  Has anyone here had to move and they have boxes full of books?  It's a nightmare because of the weight.  Sort of like having to move boxes of vinyl records, which is another 'problem' that has been solved by technology.

This article is a puff opinion piece, much like almost everything else you find on the internet these days.  Very little thinking involved, biased, and designed to provoke some level of outrage.  Media has always been that way, but on the internet it's everywhere and on many sites there aren't even any journalistic standards.

If individuals ever think they are being stiffed by not actually owning their books, they will probably revolt and start buying them again.  This just isn't the problem the article thinks it is.

The article describes how this contract-dictated ownership is a bad thing because it undermines capitalism and individualism, but this is so dumb because contracts are the corner stone of anarchistic individualism theories like voluntaryism, agorism and anacho-capitlalism. In fact, imposing some regulations in this field would actually be a step towards socialism.

This problem with contracts should be solved by market means like educating the population about unfair terms, calling for boycotts, promoting alternative products, including those that are free and open-source, etc. This problem is not exclusive to digital world, for example the similar happens with physical items when companies prohibit buyers from doing repairs and modifications.

Look at the way internet have reduce money use for printing books and magazines. The internet is of great benefit to humanity generally. Cryptocurrency will reduce the cost of producing fiat currency if Government allow it to function.

I think that the purchasing power and consuming will just switch direction.  This may actually help the common man as they can attempt to monetize the internet.  They may own less stuff but in the end spend the same amount. 

This makes the people lazy,I am talking about it general the new technologies will make the people more lazier.If we are in the 19th century we will be like that?And also we won't go through all the pages in the electronic books unlike the paper books (in my opinion).

That's why it's powerful to read any EULAs or Terms and Conditions before doing any purchases online because you just don't know what you're getting roped into. Many companies are taking advantage of people not keen enough on reading any ToCs or EULAs to still have some say on any purchases the owner did, especially when it comes to software and digital ownership. It's quite saddening that most people tend to just go over Kindle and buy a digital book rather than keep a physical copy of it which I think can be resold if ever the need arises. Consumers' purchasing knowledge has since declined, and are allowing capitalists to capitalize on these habits that the average consumer have developed since the advent of the internet.

What is the "it" you're talking about here? Electronic books? How can electronic books make people more lazy? Now people don't need to go to the store to buy books, but they'll probably spend about the same amount of time reading as they did before. If you're talking about the internet in general, how is looking things up online a symptom of laziness? What would be the "non-lazy" option? To go to the library and look things up? I think, in this sense, technology is just saving our time and giving us instant access to the information of the whole world.

It would be nice if that were the case. If you're talking about fiction, news and recreation then the market is controlled by the consumers.  There will always be pirating, and backlash against digital rights management - torrenting sites and PS4 vs Xbox One come to mind, when the latter cancelled their digital rights management in response to consumer-backlash, making their games easier to pirate or resell. Steam incentivizes buyers with sales, achievements, and the ability to download to any computer. I think if a company is focused on making their game pirate-proof then it means they don't trust their users to support their product  

But it would be nice if consolidating entertainment and media on the internet led to less consumerism, since buying excessive manufactured goods has led to mass extinction and runaway climate change   I think the services that sell best indicate where the demand is. Bookstores can only shelve so many books. Without the internet we wouldn't have the quick growth of new sub-genres in literature, and it would be much harder for indie producers to reach their target audience. Internet streaming services gives consumers a much greater level of control over what they watch. It is nice to see what other fans of the same light novel have réad.

I'll ask a question. Do you agree with Gary Kildall or with Bill Gates, and which strategy is most successful in entertainment and media? Does the industry leader support to product creators (OS supporting app makers), or does the industry leader monopolize everything (cable news & pop music)? I think whichever method you choose, you have to please the consumers.

Saving trees can one advantage of involving into more internet stuffs for reading rather than go with the traditional books were saving trees and lot of man power expenses,but it has the disadvantage of making people more lazy and getting addicted to the internet by just looking at the internet for everything.So this has positive as well as the negative we need to use the advanced technology in more beneficial way.

Interesting perspective.

There are many similar trends. Consumers used to be able to repair their own cars. Today its more difficult with automakers making an effort to lock consumers out of their own vehicles. Specialized computer hardware is often necessary to diagnose issues much less fix them. While tesla and Elon Musk have achieved some good in terms of shifting power consumption from internal combustion engines in vehicles to more efficient powerplants with less of a carbon footprint, tesla is also known for having very stringent terms of purchase. In some ways tesla owners are locked out of their own vehicles by software and EULA.

There are producers of goods who want to completely shut down 2nd hand markets where products are sold in flea markets or yard sales.

There are other examples of consumers perhaps losing rights and freedom. While large corporations, banks and governments perhaps are gaining more power.

Is it a trend people should worry about? That's up for debate. I think its something not many are conscious or aware of.

This is a very good thing if it's true. because the internet can reduce the use of goods that can cause pollution that affects the environment but can also harm some parties because some parties depend on the profits generated from these items. not used. but also beneficial for those who make amazon kindle.

Its true that digital world is bringing a sense of having nothing in your own hands but just 0'z and 1'z I guess. All you have is the device which connects you and those 0 and 1 number codes. It is not just about the books but also about all kinds of knowledge hubs, and now a days fiat money too. With the digital world, we are using more digital money rather than physical notes. So that doesnt mean we dont having anything because with those digital money also we have valued currencies with which we can buy valuable stuff too. This is why its either some stuff or no stuff at all.

That's what I'm interested in. Mostly homes and vehicles and daily activities. There are few other things that are not too important. And that certainly does not matter because everything is conjecture, not real.

Exactly, not everyone wants to own or read books, we cannot dictate them on what they should have after all its their life and because of our technology is growing maybe they find this thing more convenient. I'd rather focus on my life, well nothing to worry about our growing technology we just need to know how to balance our social life.

You are right. Technologies keep developing, and everything gets smaller and more advanced.
People are getting rid of cash too. We start leaning toward to credits and virtual currency.

I think it should not be a worry. Holding stuff is in fact more dangerous than hoding nothing. Imagine it is like having $10k in your wallet is way more dangerous than having $10k of credits in your bank account.

You are worried because people own less books and magazines?What's wrong with you?
I would be worried if the people don't own their homes and cars,if they don't have any property.
Anyway,that's how capitalism works.Money,power and resources are going to a rich elite,while the majority becomes poor..

One should also understand the benefits of modernization. It is true that people are owning less every year as digitalization of books and magazine is a thing now, not to mention even data storage such as cloud. One of its benefits is ease of access and bringing an eco friendly solution because in the past we would need to cut ton of trees to publish books and magazines, and not to mention the ton of wasted paper for files.

Good points. It's certainly better for the environment.

I don't think this is such a big problem. It may actually be a good thing. Imagine how much paper we are saving by not printing so many books. I can see that the worry could be that theoretically Amazon could just say, "The books are ours, you can't read them anymore." I don't think they could do that legally, for one thing. The other thing is that, even if they did do that, there's plenty of competition. Everybody would just go to another company. That is the main reason that Amazon would never do that. They want to make money. I think owning less things is actually a great thing. Do you think that to be a "true American" you need to own lots of things? The bigger the better? I think that's a relatively new idea. Did the founding fathers think like that?

Some social problems are blatantly obvious in daily life, while others are longer-term, more corrosive and perhaps mostly invisible. Lately I've been worrying about a problem of the latter kind: the erosion of personal ownership and what that will mean for our loyalties to traditional American concepts of capitalism and private property.

The main culprits for the change are software and the internet. For instance, Amazon's Kindle and other methods of online reading have revolutionised how Americans consume text. Fifteen years ago, people typically owned the books and magazines they were reading. Much less so now. If you look at the fine print, it turns out that you do not own the books on your Kindle. Amazon.com does.

https://www.afr.com/opinion/americans-own-less-stuff-because-of-the-internet-and-thats-a-worry-20180812-h13vkd