So you just bought a new laptop and you think that it’s yours? You genuinely think that you are the ‘owner’? Well let me clue you in on something, you don’t. I’ll do you a favor and cut out the part where I pen out carefully thought out euphemisms and funny quips to dazzle you and amaze you with this quirky brain of mine, let’s just get to the meat of it all. YOU DON’T OWN ANYTHING. Your phone can be 6 months old or a month old, that’s irrelevant, because out of the blue it would start displaying a weird phosphorescent green line and then you’d have to get its screen replaced for your fault of owning it. Now you might make it out to be an innocent little issue of your device malfunctioning, but there’s something way more insidious hiding under the surface. Companies today are thoughtfully rolling out updates/patches/security patches that are conspicuously malicious and have no inherent utility. The only reason they are rolled out is so that your devices start acting up and then the companies get to mint money out of you, which you didn’t need to spend in the first place. That is precisely why I began with the statement that you don’t own anything, you merely possess it, think of it like leasing or renting something. You get to use your device for as long as the corporate mafia overlords deem fit.
Late-stage capitalism has various symptoms, including but not limited to: excessive greed, moral depravity, lack of empathy, the idea that work = life, and that there is nothing in the world more delicious than money, a true capitalist in today’s day and age will have no moral qualms even in selling out their own family members, provided the remuneration is juicy. Your cars, your phones, your laptops, your tablets, your smart watches and Bluetooth speakers are living on rented time. When the moment strikes and the bald-headed billionaire wants a new yacht, oh boy, you’re on your own.
Nothing is sacred or worthy of respect anymore, the only thing that really matters is cold hard cash. Capitalist overlords get away with these shenanigans primarily because of the boot-licking offered for free by the masses. Try criticizing a billionaire on twitter and you would have to face the wrath of some optimistic delusional cockamamie IT employee from a tier 1 city, who will criticize you instead and educate you on how necessary it is to have multi-billionaires walking around who sometimes have portfolios synonymous to entire nations. About how amazing they are and how their mere existence is a blessing, such unemployed spokespersons work 24/7 to make sure that no one gets away scot-free after abusing their favorite billionaire online. That billionaire probably isn’t even aware of the existence of Manoj from Infosys, but Manoj stands undeterred, he stands unfettered, with broad shoulders and a pompous grin on his face, for he has defended the meek and lowly multi-billionaire single-handedly. Such bootlickers make our fight against planned obsolescence even more difficult.
So in effect, stop being delusional, stop assuming that you own anything, your devices are much like you, living on borrowed time. Enjoy it while it lasts, because the day is not far when that billionaire might even profit from your death, and then well, farewell!
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