You’ll Own Everything and Be Happy

You were never meant to rent your life. It’s time to build and own it!

“You’ll own nothing and be happy.”

Depending on who you ask, it’s either a bold prediction, a dystopian warning, or a marketing blunder of historic proportions. First made infamous by the World Economic Forum, the phrase captured something many were already feeling: a creeping sense that the world was slipping out of reach.

For a generation priced out of home ownership, burdened by debt, renting their tools, their time, and often their peace of mind - it wasn’t just a slogan. It was salt in the wound.

Because actually owning nothing is the problem.

We are no longer customers - we’re subscribers to life. The software we use to work, the cars we drive, the devices in our pockets - all leased back to us in exchange for control we’ll never fully have again.

I pay annually for Microsoft 365. Not because I need AI copilots or cloud syncing or cutting-edge features. I use Word and Excel - the basics. The tools haven’t changed much in ten years. What used to be a one-time purchase is now an annual fee. Miss a payment? Lose access. This isn’t innovation - it’s dependency.

Apple is no different. The iPhone upgrade cycle trains us to think we’re “owning” a device, when in reality we’re leasing status on a rolling contract. Trade it in, pay more, start over. Who really owns the device if it’s not yours to keep?

Even cars - BMW, Audi, and others - are rolling out SaaS models for vehicle features. The heated seats are already built in. But unless you pay the subscription, they’re locked behind a paywall. You don’t buy a car anymore. You buy access to your own steering wheel.

This is more than frustrating. It’s structural.

Cory Doctorow calls it enshittification - the natural lifecycle of digital platforms. They start off delightful: focused on users, community, creativity. Then they pivot to business customers - advertisers, data brokers, brands. And finally, when their position is unshakable, they extract everything they can from both sides. Everyone loses except the platform.

It's not just digital platforms. It’s happening everywhere. Slowly. Perceptibly.

Ownership has been redefined - not as empowerment, but as liability. Don’t buy. Subscribe. Don’t own. Rent. Don’t install. Access (until we say you can’t).

But real ownership means sovereignty. It means deciding when to upgrade, not being forced to. It means choosing tools that last, not cycling endlessly through engineered obsolescence. It means not being punished for opting out of the “new.”

Ownership means the thing is yours. You decide when it's time to change. That matters.

Because in this techno-feudal system, you don’t own your tools, your data, or even your digital self. You rent them back - at interest. From lords in lanyards who’ve never built a thing with their own hands.

This is not a healthy system.

And yet - there is a better way.

This piece explores what ownership could look like in futures we build for ourselves - not imposed from above, but seeded from below.

What They Took From Us

Ownership, in its modern form, has been inverted.

Homes are no longer homes - they’re investment vehicles for hedge funds. What was once the foundation of family stability is now a pawn in a game played by corporations like BlackRock, gobbling up entire neighbourhoods to turn shelter into yield. In many cities, owning a home isn’t just difficult - it’s systemically out of reach.

Jobs no longer provide real security. They rent our attention by the hour. And even that’s conditional. One algorithm change, one shift in economic headwinds, and you’re gone. Contracts are short-term. Benefits are optional. Work has become a subscription - we pay in time, energy, and identity.

The commons? That’s a word we barely remember. Land, water, electricity, public transport, education, health - these are not shared inheritances anymore. They’re assets in someone else’s portfolio. You don’t own your energy. You don’t own your internet. You don’t own the tractor you farm with, the data you generate, or the device you hold in your hand. You’re licensed in. Paywalled. Tethered by terms and conditions.

Even the right to repair - to fix what you bought - has been stolen. Locked behind DRM. Blocked by legislation. Life is no longer something we co-create. It’s something we rent back, piece by piece.

And while all this unfolds, we’re told it’s progress. That frictionless convenience is worth the cost. That shareholder value somehow lifts all boats.

But this model of progress has a nervous system cost. It keeps us in a low-grade state of alert - never quite safe, never quite settled. When your rent, energy bill, food, or train fare can spike on a whim, what does that do to your sense of agency? Your sense of peace?

This isn’t about utopia. It’s not about getting everything for free. It’s about basic infrastructure being accessible, stable, and designed around people - not shareholders.

Because while any of these foundational services remain privatised, they are structurally extractive. They are built to serve quarterly earnings, not long-term wellbeing. They do not belong to us - and they are not designed for us.

And in that, we are no longer citizens. We’re tenants of life.

And maybe it’s time we stop accepting that.

What Ownership Could Look Like

But what if we could reimagine ownership?

What if we stopped treating it as a zero-sum game - mine versus yours - and started seeing it as stewardship? A pattern of mutual care, agency, and contribution?

Because ownership isn’t the enemy. Extractive ownership is. Ownership without care. Ownership that exists to dominate or withhold. But true ownership - ownership rooted in place, people, and purpose - is something entirely different.

Imagine turning 18 and being assigned a small piece of land. Not as a handout, not as a prize - but as a rite of passage. A space you could steward for life. Maybe you build a home on it. Maybe you join a housing co-op and fold your land into a shared plot in exchange for a beautifully designed apartment. You don’t pay market rent - you just contribute to the build costs and basic maintenance.

This isn’t fantasy. Models like this already exist. In Vancouver, community land trusts offer non-market housing designed for intergenerational resilience - not profit.

And what if the land you steered wasn’t shackled by archaic zoning laws?

Take Tokyo. Its light-touch zoning has created a dynamic urban patchwork - street-level shops, maker studios, homes stacked above workshops, cafes spilling into courtyards. Instead of sterile, siloed zones, you get living neighbourhoods. When land use is flexible, life becomes flexible. You see a need, you meet it. You want to teach, you open your front door. You want to make, you build a workshop.

You don’t own the land. You steward it. You own what you build - and when you pass, your next of kin gets first refusal. If they want it, they take it - and give up their own plot to do so. If not, the home returns to the commons, re-assigned by a citizen council. The cycle continues. Stewardship, not speculation.

Now imagine your commons - the water, power, food systems, public transport, even internet infrastructure - being community-owned, not corporately controlled. Run by citizen cooperatives, with local councils overseeing operations but with true democratic oversight.

Not “vote every 5 years and hope for the best” - but dynamic, digital, daily democracy. Referenda as needed. Community vetoes. Public accountability. Models already used in Estonia and Switzerland.

You still pay for these services - but fairly. Reasonably. Because they’re not designed for shareholders. They’re designed for you.

Entrepreneurship doesn’t disappear - it flourishes. With the rise of decentralised manufacturing and industrial replicators, made-to-order production returns to the local scale. You don’t need to import plastic junk from across the ocean. You design, make, and sell within your own micro-economy.

And every business that operates in the community does so with a local license. It’s not overbearing - it’s simply safeguarded. If a business becomes extractive, if it harms people or place, the community can vote to revoke its license. That’s not red tape. That’s responsibility.

What we’re talking about is a culture of contribution over extraction. A localism not born of isolationism, but of care. Because ownership isn’t about possession. It’s about participation.

This isn’t a utopia. It’s already happening, in pockets. In places where people stopped waiting for permission.

Ownership doesn’t mean rejecting technology or moving off-grid. It means designing systems that serve human beings first - not algorithms, not quarterly earnings reports, not faceless investors.

It means agency.

And it means that what you build, what you give, and what you leave behind - matters.

Self-Governing Communities

Zoom out for a moment.

Imagine a region composed of smaller, self-determined communities - around 150,000 people each. Large enough for diversity, innovation, and economic resilience, but still small enough for cohesion, mutual accountability, and a shared sense of identity. Each with its own commons, public services, and cultural rhythm.

In these communities, healthcare, education, and transport aren’t centralised by distant bureaucracies or subcontracted to faceless corporations. They’re managed by the people who use them - teachers, nurses, drivers, administrators - embedded in place, informed by context, and responsive to the needs of those they serve.

Every business - from software providers to cafes to local delivery services - must hold a community licence to operate. This isn’t about gatekeeping or red tape. It’s about alignment. If a company exploits its workers, pollutes the environment, or engages in unethical practices, the community has the right to withdraw its licence. That’s not bureaucracy. That’s sovereignty.

Private enterprise doesn’t disappear. But extractive models - where profit is siphoned off to remote shareholders - give way to regenerative ones, where value stays in circulation. Tech companies, for example, could partner with local manufacturers in each territory, creating custom production lines to assemble laptops or phones on-site. This not only ensures local jobs and skills, but also means taxes are paid fairly within the community - not funnelled into tax havens.

The idea isn’t punitive taxation. It’s reciprocity. A fair contribution in exchange for access to community infrastructure, services, and talent.

And instead of governance being reduced to a five-year political pantomime, participation becomes a normal, integrated part of life. Inspired by models like Estonia’s digital democracy or Switzerland’s frequent referenda, community members can propose, vote on, and track decisions in real time. Accountability isn’t something we hope for - it’s built into the design.

Gibraltar offers a glimpse of what this could look like. While not a fully self-governing community in the way described here, its small scale and partial autonomy allow it to function with notable resilience. In April 2025, when most of Spain experienced a national blackout, Gibraltar remained online. Power, internet, and public services continued uninterrupted - not because of luck, but because of localised systems designed to serve the territory itself.

This is what governance by design could mean. Not the inheritance of broken systems. Not technocratic oversight. But human-scale communities, capable of meeting their own needs - and defining their own future.

Contribution Over Extraction

In a healthy ecosystem, everything contributes.

Trees don’t hoard sunlight. Rivers don’t invoice the valleys they nourish. Mycelium networks don’t extract - they connect.

What if our economy worked more like a forest?

What if the central question shifted from how much can I take? to what can I give - and still thrive?

This isn’t about self-denial. You can still earn well. You can still travel. You can still build something remarkable.

But your success doesn’t need to come at the cost of someone else’s dignity.

Because when value circulates, the system grows stronger. Healthier. More resilient.

When value is hoarded, systems decay. Soil turns barren. Water stagnates. Trust erodes.

We feel this in our bodies. We feel it in our towns. We feel it when we look around and wonder why everything feels so brittle.

Maybe it’s not because we’re broken - but because the systems we’re in were never designed to nourish us.

Maybe it’s time to design new ones.

How We Regain Our Sovereignty

This isn’t a call to revolution. It’s not about storming palaces or tearing down what exists.

This is about building something new - in parallel.

We don’t need collapse to create change. We need permission - or the courage to act without it.

All it takes is one government, one territory, to say yes.

Give us a plot of land. Let us pilot a Self-Governing Community.

Let it exist within the nation’s laws, but designate it a special economic zone - one that allows a local tax system, local licensing, and local stewardship of the commons.

We don’t need subsidies. Just the space to try.

Let us build our own water systems, grow our own food, power our homes from the sun and sea. Let us steward our own data, elect our own councils, and license the businesses that align with our values.

We won’t force anyone to join. We’ll attract, not extract.

And when people come - because they will - we’ll build a better life together. And we’ll be happy.

And when we grow past 150,000 people, we won’t centralise. We’ll ask for another plot. And we’ll seed another SGC with the same principles.

In a hundred years, perhaps there are hundreds. In two hundred, maybe thousands - each rooted in its own culture, its own land, but woven together by a shared ethic of contribution, agency, and care.

Maybe we don’t need to own everything.

But maybe we do need to own this moment.

And plant the seed of what comes next.