Kindle and ownership vs access

by Bill Wren on March 26, 2009

On Tuesday I posted Reasons to think Kindle. It was basically a quick look at Kindle from a practical viewpoint because of problems I’m having with my left hand.

But yesterday I came across a commentary titled Kindle e-reader: A Trojan horse for free thought, a look at what Kindle and similar e-readers might mean (and by extension just about everything available digitally). I recommend reading the commentary regardless of whether you agree or disagree with what is argued.

One of the main reasons I found this piece interesting was the sentence, “In our rush to adopt new technologies, we have too readily surrendered ownership in favor of its twisted sister, access.” I hadn’t really considered the difference between owning and access.

Is what we “buy” actually a purchase of something, or is it really a variation on rental because, what we really have, is access? And if it is access, does it matter?

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