When I was a younger lad, I remember movie nights with my family. We would all pack into a car and make our way to Blockbuster where we would spend up to an hour deciding which movie the five of us could agree on. It was a treat to go out and find a movie to watch on our TV as a family. And yes, sure, we owned a nice little collection, but even the best movies get old. Going out and renting was the weekend activity that made the weekends fun and made Saturday night stand out from any other day.
The fanfare of renting movies and games, however, has died over the last decade or so as renting, or subscription-based services have increased in popularity and prevalence.
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It’s becoming more common for individuals to choose to subscribe to a service than to own items of the same type. Rather than owning movies, for example, or even renting them, people pay monthly to have unlimited access to Netflix. The same can be said about TV; cable is out, Hulu (and, again, Netflix) are taking over. It’s become a norm to have one of these streaming services on any number of devices. Why own a large collection of movies when you can simply power up your TV, Xbox, or even your phone to watch a huge library’s worth?
The subscriptions don’t stop there, either. Countless other services are offered through a subscription-based system. From anywhere to food, with companies like “The Mantry,” “Kona Kase” and “Conscious Box,” to clothes, with services such as “Sock Panda,” “Trunk Club” and others. And that’s to name a few. There also exist services for monthly make-up, baby supplies, geek gear, healthy foods, work out gear, dog supplies and toys, and even menstrual supplies. The list of items and services goes on forever. Never again do you need to leave your house to get any number of things you may need. Just wait for the next month’s supply to show up at your door!
What does this say about the path society is taking as a whole? There are self-driving cars in the works that, someday, may make owning a car of your own obsolete. Imagine just setting a time you need the car on your phone and the car being parked where you need it ready to take you wherever you need to go.
Things that people would only need to own one or two of (a car, a suit, nice perfume, etc.) now are “hand chosen by experts” (as many of the services will claim) for you. There’s no more hunt for the perfect style or color, no more need to go out and buy anything and no more need to really own anything. The question remains is, is that such a bad thing?
The short answer: I have no idea. With the advent of automated cars and the possibility of no more personal vehicles, the roads could be safer and cleaner. That’s a positive. It may be I’m used to the way things are (in that I like owning my things), but subscription-based living could easily become the social norm at the level Netflix is now. It’s a weird thought, but it may not be too far in the future either.
