Here’s something I’ve thought about recently: I use Spotify, Netflix, and HBO GO a lot…yet the consumption models that define these platforms are totally different from when I was growing up.

To elaborate: when I was younger, I used to love owning things. I adored buying VHS’s, and getting a music album and importing it into my iTunes library. These pieces of entertainment were mine to own, and I could replay them whenever I wished.

Now, titles come and go from Netflix, and I can’t access them whenever I want — thanks to all sorts of licensing restrictions. Despite paying $10 a month (or whatever the cost is), the titles are never really mine. Something is on Spotify one day, it might be gone the next.

It just endlessly fascinates me how new technologies and value propositions shape consumer culture.