Latest / Kvetch & Release / 610 CKTB | You'll Own Nothing and Be Happy: How Digital Feudalism is Replacing Ownership

Transcript

610 CKTB | You'll Own Nothing and Be Happy: How Digital Feudalism is Replacing Ownership · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday morning, and at this time it's time for
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: another edition of Letkey's Got to Take. Good morning, John,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Good morning Jeane, fantastic take this morning. I can tell
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: you this one already. We're talking about digital devices. You know,
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  Speaker 1: we consume content on our devices. We drive to work
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: in cars that are you know, more like cars and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: more like computers and cars. Everybody has a smart device
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  Speaker 1: in their home. But then we see headline after headline
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  Speaker 1: of people having their digital movies suddenly wiped from the libraries,
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  Speaker 1: features locked on their cars. Even printers stop printing if
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  Speaker 1: you don't pay for your subscription and order your ink online.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Why does it feel like we're paying for things like
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  Speaker 1: rent on things that we already.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Own, Well, because we are, thanks for having me on Gene.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I'm reading a piece about this right now.
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  Speaker 2: I'm calling it you'll own nothing and be happy. How
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  Speaker 2: digital feudalism is replacing ownership and you know we are
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: paying rent. We just didn't realize that we sign the
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: lease on it. From a corporate perspective, though, I get
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  Speaker 2: the business strategy. Why make money off of a customer
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  Speaker 2: just once when you can bleed them dry every single
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  Speaker 2: month In perpetuity. But here's the reality check. Back. In
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the physical era DVDs, VHS's blu rays, if a movie
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  Speaker 2: studio lost the distribution rights to I don't know, Terminator two,
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  Speaker 2: they wouldn't be sending a repoman to kick down your
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  Speaker 2: front door, raid your living room, and snatch the disc
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  Speaker 2: off your shelf. But today you click a giny g
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  Speaker 2: giant button on a site that says buy in all caps,
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  Speaker 2: but buried inside of the sixty five page terms of
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  Speaker 2: service agreement that no one reads, you actually find out
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  Speaker 2: that you actually just rented a temporarily revocable license by
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  Speaker 2: the company itself. So the second a corporate licensing deal
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  Speaker 2: expires or a server shuts down, poof, it's gone. You
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  Speaker 2: paid the full retail price for the illusion of property.
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  Speaker 2: And Silicone Valley is sitting back laugh because we voluntarily
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  Speaker 2: turned our homes into rented storage units for their software.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, now, hey, listen, I know why tech companies like this.
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  Speaker 1: Back in the day, we used to call this autoship
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  Speaker 1: on products, and continual revenue is a lot better than
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  Speaker 1: a single sale. But when companies install things like extra
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  Speaker 1: horsepower in your car at the factory, but then you
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  Speaker 1: have to charge a monthly fee to unlock it. You know,
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  Speaker 1: where's the line between smart, modern business and flat out extortion?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that line has been crossed like five
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  Speaker 2: exits back on this highway to dystopian madness. Gene. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: when we build out, you know, the physical seat heating
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  Speaker 2: coils in a car, for example the factory, or the
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  Speaker 2: self driving mode in Tesla's the cost of that part
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  Speaker 2: that was into it. It's been baked into the sticker
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  Speaker 2: price of the vehicle. So when it comes to you know,
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  Speaker 2: something like actual horsepower being unlocked or heated seats, you
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  Speaker 2: already own the metal, you own the wires. You're paying
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  Speaker 2: for the gas and the electricity to haul the dead
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  Speaker 2: weight of that around from A to B. But then
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  Speaker 2: the automaker turns around and says, hey, if you want
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  Speaker 2: to use that stuff to get warm and the cold
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  Speaker 2: Canadian January winters, hand over twenty bucks a month. And
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  Speaker 2: this is not innovation. This is holding our own property hostages.
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  Speaker 2: Fifteen years ago, Intel tried this with chips in our computers,
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  Speaker 2: where you could buy a scratch off card with a
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  Speaker 2: code to unlock twenty five percent of the chip that
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  Speaker 2: you already had that was laughed off back then, But
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  Speaker 2: fast forward to today, the tech bros are looking at
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  Speaker 2: that sled extortion racket and going, why not make that
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  Speaker 2: the entire business model?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you call this digital feudialism. And you know, with
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  Speaker 1: a handful of tech guys holding I guess we could
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  Speaker 1: call them remote control switches over our living rooms, cars
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  Speaker 1: and entertainment, how big of a thread are we actually
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  Speaker 1: dealing with here?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? Look, you know, corporate tech took the dystopian prediction
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  Speaker 2: from the WEF World Economic Forum that you'll own nothing
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  Speaker 2: and be happy, and they turned it into an enterprise
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  Speaker 2: revenue model. And we have become digital nomadic surfs. We
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  Speaker 2: wander platform to platform, holding out our digital bowls like
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  Speaker 2: tiny tim begging please circuld I please have a little
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  Speaker 2: bit more access to the things that I've already bought.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it's the absolute worst manifestation of unfettered capitalism
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  Speaker 2: that the socialists yell about, and they're right in this case.
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  Speaker 2: This is operating like a high interest payday loan, but
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  Speaker 2: for basic everyday utilities and entertainment. And when a handful
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  Speaker 2: of our you know, silicone valley tech cartels can hold
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  Speaker 2: these kill switches over our living rooms, our appliances, and
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  Speaker 2: our cars, and they can brick them with a single
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  Speaker 2: line of code three thousand miles away. That's not an inconvenience.
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  Speaker 2: That's an erosion of private property rights and you know,
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  Speaker 2: sovereignty and autonomy. And if government regulators don't step in
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  Speaker 2: soon to crush this, we're gonna end up owning nothing
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  Speaker 2: we touch.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know this just is a squeezing individual consumers.
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  Speaker 1: It's also hitting independent mechanics, repair shops small businesses. When
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  Speaker 1: companies use software keys to digitally lock replacement parts directly
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  Speaker 1: to a motherboard, preventing anybody except an authorized corporate dealer
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  Speaker 1: from fixing it. What does that do to the local
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  Speaker 1: economy and our basic right to repair?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is the biggest problem, right, I
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  Speaker 2: mean it's an absolute small business killer. Gene this practice,
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  Speaker 2: this hardware serialization through software as well, it's corporate sabotage
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  Speaker 2: and it's not security. I mean, if we crack our
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  Speaker 2: screens or need a basic part replaced in our car,
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  Speaker 2: we go to a local independent mechanic or a neighborhood
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  Speaker 2: repair shop if we want to. But now that's how
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  Speaker 2: it used to be. But now with you know, all
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  Speaker 2: these computers in it you're being forced to go great
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  Speaker 2: to your dealer. And it's the same way with these phones.
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  Speaker 2: And it's a problem because the serial code on the
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  Speaker 2: chip doesn't match the offices you know kill switch that
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  Speaker 2: they have there. The software will cripple the ability to
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  Speaker 2: have it repaired. So this is designed to do one thing.
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  Speaker 2: It wipes out local competition. It crushes our local repair shops.
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  Speaker 2: I think to your region in Niagara and like, how
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  Speaker 2: much better it could be if we had actual rights,
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  Speaker 2: repair laws and legislation put into place with real teeth
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  Speaker 2: to put an end to this. You could see a
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  Speaker 2: whole new economs me start to flourish.
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  Speaker 1: Now if you take a look at europe regulators or
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  Speaker 1: hitting monopoly digital store friends with massive anti trust lawsuits,
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  Speaker 1: you know it's all about telling they want to pass laws,
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  Speaker 1: telling buyers that they're only renting, not owning. Meanwhile, it
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  Speaker 1: was not doing too much. How solow are we compared
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  Speaker 1: to the rest of the world when it comes to
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  Speaker 1: these sort of laws.
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  Speaker 2: We are glacially slow. And the problem for it is
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  Speaker 2: that we have always acted here in Canada as an
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  Speaker 2: obedient child waiting for permission from the Crown before taking
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  Speaker 2: a step. I mean, look at our history, right. I
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  Speaker 2: think we've talked with this before through a different lens,
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  Speaker 2: But I mean, we didn't have the US's wild manifest
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  Speaker 2: destiny go west to my son. We didn't have the
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  Speaker 2: imperial muscle of the United Kingdom itself. We waited for
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  Speaker 2: Ottawa on the railway to tell us when it was
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  Speaker 2: time to move further west. And that passive, polite, bureaucratic
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  Speaker 2: DNA is still baked into our federal government today. So
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: while the EU is handing out multi billion anti trus
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  Speaker 2: dollar anti trust fines to tech monopoly, and while California
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  Speaker 2: is actually passing legislation that matters to ban misleading buy buttons,
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  Speaker 2: we're just sitting and waiting to see what works. And
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  Speaker 2: other jurisdictions almost like waiting for the grownups in Washington
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  Speaker 2: or Brussels or London to solve the problem and tell
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  Speaker 2: us what we should do next. And meanwhile, Canadian consumers
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  Speaker 2: are stuck in our consolidated, low competition market, dominated big
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  Speaker 2: telcom legacy retail market that squeezes us from every single angle.
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  Speaker 2: So we've got to grow Backboney.
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  Speaker 1: Youre gene yeah, very quickly. I mean, I'm out of time,
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  Speaker 1: but I just have to bring this up briefly. Five
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  Speaker 1: states are taking Facebook madea all the social media apps
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  Speaker 1: to court today, suing them for two hundred billion dollars,
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  Speaker 1: alleging it was all designed to get kids addicted to
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  Speaker 1: social media apps. Now, if these states win, that could
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  Speaker 1: have an effect on every single app we know that's
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  Speaker 1: out there.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it very well could, and I think they have
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  Speaker 2: to realize that their chickens might be coming home to roost.
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  Speaker 2: Let's be honest. I you use social media just like
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  Speaker 2: I do. These apps are designed to get you addicted,
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  Speaker 2: and we have to be honest. It's not just children
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  Speaker 2: that are addicted. But the problem is is when you
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  Speaker 2: get hooked as a young person, it becomes a lot
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  Speaker 2: harder to get out of it.
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  Speaker 1: Yep. The first one's for you is they see absolutely
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  Speaker 1: another great take this morning. Thank you, my friend, thank you. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: John Lecky. Letcky's got a take. We'll talk to him
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  Speaker 1: again on Friday morning at nine fifteen