The importance of ownership in the age of AI

We increasingly don't 'own' anything. Between subscriptions, required online activations and streaming, we've swapped ownership for access. That used to be intentionally the goal. Why own and be on the hook for everything that it entails (upkeep, maintenance, storage, obsolescence, etc..) when you can access anything you need for a fraction of the cost?

Except it's not playing out like that. Access can be manipulated and variable pricing means it's not uniform. Companies can dynamically price access according to your desire to purchase. Why do I still have to pay to rent what I want when I subscribe to 5 streaming services?!?!

Even when physical products are bought, companies are locking you out of them and requiring expensive ongoing payments just to keep using them. This isn't reserved to high-technology products either, as the recent right-to-repair rulings against John Deere have shown.

So this sucks a bit, but what's the real harm? If I can access my beloved music from the 90's and movies from the 80's whenever I want, that's still a win over the costs of buying them all right?

Not so fast. What can be granted can revoked, altered or made more expensive. See Sony removing purchased content from owners libraries as an example. Even when you buy, you don't own.

So how does everyone's favorite bug-a-boo, AI, impact this? Well, you know what AI is good at? Analyzing data at scale and identifying similarities and patterns. You know what is made up of patterns? Music, TV, movies and books. Exactly the largest group of things that we've swapped out ownership of.

Increasingly consolidated entities are going to throw AI models at all things digital, with potentially monetizable IP. Thus will begin the sample wars. If the Marvin Gaye estate can sue someone over a songs' "vibe" , not even an actual sample, what do you think is going to happen when AI starts identifying obscure (and not obscure) samples in your favorite music? What about uncleared music in your tv shows & movies? Copyrighted likeness in your books? The lawsuits will start to fly.

What if someone, anyone, doesn't pay up? The access we've traded for will be pulled like that. They'll be pulled from Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and the rest. Top tier musicians will pay up to make sure people can listen, but what about that random UK DJ coming out of Bristol in '96? Gone.

Thankfully I've seen this trend coming for a few years and have spent that time gobbling up physical CDs from every swap meet, thrift store and ebay bulk buy I could. Most from my favorite genres, Hip-Hop and Electronic, from the 90's. Stuff that will never be litigated over because it's a blip in the era of billion count streams. Without my CD, there's no ownership AND no access. So think about how you can bring back a little ownership to your life for the things you love before its too late.

Business Update

FeedGeni - Oh boy, not a great month. Biggest month of churn I've seen since I've owned it. AI SaaSpocalypse or just a blip? Time will tell.

SPT - Shipping, shipping, shipping. Lots of growth, both in customers and functionality. Launched an integration with the huge API for a customer and continuing the refine the product offering, especially in B2B.

No Fixed Plans - Going through a few deals in the ERP space, both services and software. Nothing jumping out but we'll see.

Watching / Listening

Furious - Currently streaming on Hulu and it's incredible. Not a light show and touches on some intense but man is it good. Glad to see Shameless fave Emmy Rossum and Say Nothing (another incredibly but also heavy watch) star Lola Petticrew again.

Endtroducing..... - In honor of the sampling topic above, this DJ Shadow album is approaching it's 30th anniversary. It was produced entirely from vinyl record samples, the first of its kind and a prime target for LLMs to extort. Good time to pick up the deluxe edition

An Ask

I'm casually looking at full-time roles. 😱 I know. A few reasons why:

• After ~8.5 years of running NFP, I'm a little bored and could use some fresh problems to tackle.
• I'm interested in working on something larger with a team again. Yes, I could grow NFP headcount, but it'd still be my ship and all my decisions. If you've ever run your own thing before, you know how hard & exhausting it is to making every single decision. Wears you out after almost a decade.

So if you know of anything that fits the below, I'd love an intro:

CTO/CTPO type role working within a company making, shipping, etc.. physical products in a growing but, preferably, privately held business. Something with some traction, not a fresh startup flush with funding. Remote preferred, but some commute / office time is expected.

Obviously the above is an ideal role and I'll end up with a mix of the above, but it's a start.

That's all for this update. Peace out and a happy "Kids returning to school" to all those to celebrate.

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