The World Economic Forum and Klaus Schwab made headlines a number of years ago with the statement "you will own nothing and be happy".
This actually was an accurate assessment of technological progress. Schwab took this concept and altered it, believing that he (and his people) could control everything. This is the mindset of elitists.
Fortunately, for humanity, his misunderstanding of the concept is what led to his downfall. Things are shifting in ways he could not have envisioned.
For this reason, let's dig into the idea of what ownership means in the future.
Ownership is a strange concept. It is something that changes over time, necessitating evaluation over what it truly means.
We could take this from a philosophical perspective, one that views everything as temporary. After all, even our bodies are only loaned to use for a number of decades.
In this article, we will take a more practical approach.
One thing that separated the wealthy from the masses is when it comes to ownership. Someone like Klaus Schwab actually owns little. This is one of the techniques of the rich. Holdings are not personal. Instead, they place assets in trusts, corporations and whatever other legal entities they require. The key is to not "own" anything; they have access (and control).
The masses seem to get upset at not owning stuff. I guess it is something to sate the ego. At the same time, it seems absurd at what some get upset at "not owning".
There was a time when people spent vast sums of money compiling a music collection. These albums were bought by individuals, thus owned by them. Music changed completely with entry into the digital realm. Does anyone really care about not owning music? We have access to tens of millions of songs for free. Having 5,000 songs on 500 albums sitting in our den seems to make little sense.
We can say the same about video. People once purchased films, establishing a library to view repeatedly.
Car ownership is common today. Over the next 10-15 years, we will see this wane. As autonomy enters, we are going to see personal vehicles ebb. Ultimately, it is broken down into rides. People will have access to transportation at a fraction of the cost.
A car is a diminishing item. The value at purchase drops the second the paperwork is signed. Throughout its life, this continues until one takes it to a dealership and gets next to nothing on trade.
The key, naturally, is to own assets of value. We are seeking things that can appreciate over time or put forth some type of return.
Crypto-assets offer huge opportunity. Here is where Schwab's view of the world faltered.
We have the ability to tokenize anything. In fact, it is likely that most things end up as tokens. This allows for fractional ownership which is a game changer. People will undertake the effort to establish valuable assets, then selling off a portion in the form of tokens.
Investors will be able to get involved in the underlying asset, in small increments. For example, New York City real estate is outside the financial reach of most. However, a significant portion of the world could scrape together $100 to buy some tokens in Park Avenue apartments.
The aforementioned transportation is another example. While individual total vehicle ownership is likely to disappear, having a portion of an autonomous vehicle providing rides will be possible.
Things that are disposable are not to be focused upon. After all, we can say that we "own" the food in our fridge. What happens to it? Either it goes bad, ending up tossed or we eat it and goes into the city sewage system.
So what do we really own?
Crypto will allow us ownership of things we never thought possible. When we look at the cooperative concept, this can be applied to most anything around the world. There is a global marketplace to tap into. At the core is the idea of "community". Tokenizing social layers (and relationships is going to be a big part of the future.
In the next article, we will look at the tokenization of robots.
