You're basically describing the exact opposite of my paradigm. To me, individual ownership of assets is required for power to remain distributed throughout soci

You're basically describing the exact opposite of my paradigm. To me, individual ownership of assets is required for power to remain distributed throughout society. Specifically, individuals retaining a surplus that can be used on a whim, without coordination, is required for personal freedom. The backlash to "you'll own nothing and be happy" is not because people are lamenting that (distributed) capitalism is fading away across the board. Rather it's because the quip describes the dynamic that is being pushed onto the masses, as ownership/control of assets is concentrated into fewer hands (late stage centralized capitalism). > Ownership is right to exclude all others from using a resource, even if you are not using it. So if I own a bike, no one else who needs it can use it, it just sits in the closet, thus more bikes are required to be sold to society. With CitiBike, or other bike sharing programs, bikes are rented on demand. This exclusivity is exactly what allows one to take the availability of the bike for granted without wondering if it will be available. To use the bike for frivolous reasons for a tiny incremental cost. To have the bike customized for your own needs, comfort, and performance. To buy in at a lower price (a solid used non-electric bike) and then upgrade capabilities (ebike) down the line. To be able to continue using it (while even reducing its carrying costs by say doing maintenance yourself) if you lose your source of income and need to save money. To loan to a friend ride while you ride your other bike, encouraging them to try biking without the hurdle of them needing to spend money (per the article). To know that the price of using the bike isn't going to gradually creep up because someone else wants higher margins, or that you might be outright banned due to an unaccountable fickle "algorithm". Financially - lets say an ebike is $1500 and lasts two years. If I'm reading the Citibike prices correctly, a yearly membership is $205 and then it's still $0.17/minute to ride? So breakeven is around 54 hours a year, which is only one to three trips per week?! And in actuality, at the end of two years the maintenance on the self owned bike will likely cost less than another yearly membership fee. I'm certainly not disputing that there are advantages to the rental model for many types of use (which is why they're popular in cities to begin with). But you are ignoring all of the benefits of asset ownership. > The millennials and later generations are fine to rent on demand, even including clothes (“rent the runway”). Is this state of affairs preferred, or is it due to them being much poorer while making poor long-term financial decisions that have been advertised to them (lucrative for the counterparty) ? > They join clubs like SoHo club that let them use facilities on demand when they travel. Routine travel is the domain of the young and rich, spending extra resources. The longstanding name for shared temporary housing is "hotels". Most everyone still aims to have a primary residence - being short on housing a terrible long-term idea as government policy has guaranteed it inflates. > Eliminate the shareholder class, and let everyone own the network. Socialism online, without violence of the State You're ignoring that there is still necessarily a controlling class - eliminating management/agency is impossible. In any social structure, regardless of how you try to mitigate it, some people will be more powerful than others. For the most part people want to extract themselves from dealing with bureaucracy, not sign up for more. So sure, advocate for replacing shareholders with cooperatives! But stop thinking it's a good idea to introduce the centralized ownership dynamic where it's not needed in the first place.