Kevin Kelly Gets Me Thinking About What I Own

Kevin Kelly has a great post on the notion of moving from an ownership-based world to an access-based world.  Here’s a taste:

Very likely, in the near future, I won’t “own” any music, or books, or movies. Instead I will have immediate access to all music, all books, all movies using an always-on service, via a subscription fee or tax. I won’t buy – as in make a decision to own — any individual music or books because I can simply request to see or hear them on demand from the stream of ALL. I may pay for them in bulk but I won’t own them. The request to enjoy a work is thus separated from the more complicated choice of whether I want to “own” it. I can consume a movie, music or book without having to decide or follow up on ownership.

In many ways, a lot of us are already there.  The truth is I haven’t bought an media in a physical format in ages.  Not a CD or DVD to speak of and even my dead-tree book purchases have plummeted.

Just what has replaced all of these hard-good purchases? My NetFlix subscription, Pandora, Boxee, Stanza, ITunes and all the rest.  When it gets right down to it about the only things I really buy-to-own these days are food and alcohol and I don’t really “own” those for long.

Of course, the idea of a subscription-based life works for goods that have little-to-no scarcity factor it seems less likely that rental will replace all aspects of ownership.

Check out KK’s whole post.

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David Pogue to Experiment with the Digital Age

After being widely lambasted for his column a few weeks ago explaining why he was opposed to releasing digital versions of his books, NYT tech writer David Pogue has had a bit of a rethink.

Wired founding editor Kevin Kelly was instrumental in this change of heart, claiming that Pogue had no personal data to back up his claims:

“Take one of your books you have historical sales data for, release a viral PDF version and then measure what happens. Then either celebrate or curse the results — but at least it will be based on evidence.”

Well, Pogue is going quite that far:

“Early next month, the company [Pogue's publisher O’Reilly] will also start selling electronic versions of certain books with no copy protection. For a single price (cheaper than the printed-book price), the package will include the book in three formats: PDF, Mobipub (compatible with the Amazon Kindle), and Epub (soon to be compatible with the Sony Reader).

Anyway, I’ve agreed to try an experiment involving one of my books (”Windows Vista: The Missing Manual”): to offer it as part of that buy-the-electronic-versions program.”

Glad to see Pogue staying open to these shifts in the winds and can’t wait to see what the data shows.  The biggest challenge facing those looking to try out new business models is that there is very little previous date from which to draw.

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