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April 2000

Age of Access: How the Shift from ownership to Access is Transforming Capitalism By Jeremy Rifkin J.P. Tarcher Click on the title to buy the book

According to Jeremy Rifkin, a peculiar shift, notable especially in the last decade, has taken place in the way that businesses and consumers view physical property and the exchange of goods. "[P]hysical property," he writes, "is going to steadily migrate from the assets side of the ledger to the expense column... while intangible forms of capital will increasingly find their way onto the assets page." Physical goods have always served as "containers" for services. For example, a CD has no intrinsic value, only the value of delivering music to your ears. In the age of downloadable music, though, the CD loses its value as a container for music. This trend towards sacrificing ownership of containers for access to their contents, and the undesirable personal and social consequences, form the heart of Rifkin's arguments.

The central reasons he identifies for this change are an increasing pace of technological innovation and a consuming public sated with physical goods. The speed of technological change means that, whether you're a consumer or a business, there is a great risk that your property will become obsolete before you have a chance to break even on what you paid for it. Why plunk down thousands of dollars for a computer today when you know it'll be half the price or even free in six months?

The second reason is closely tied to the answer to "what do you buy the person who has everything?" in an age when (at least in the most affluent countries) many people have close to everything they need. When even the simplest goods provide much of everything a consumer could want from a utilitarian perspective, what people buy more and more are "lifestyles" or culture. While an Acura may be a fine car, mechanically, it differs little from the Honda on which it is based---in fact, you may be surprised by the name that's stamped on many of the parts under the hood. What consumers are chasing more and more when they buy luxury is not physical comfort, but access to a way of life.

Rifkin argues that, unchecked, these trends lead to a world where the cultural sphere is strip-mined for experiences. Commercialized networks of access then process these experiences and deliver them to captive consumers who companies have spent years profiling and prodding. The results, in Rifkin's mind: millennia-old cultures destroyed and the emergence of a society where empathy and compassion find themselves deadened because sanitized, commercial, paid-for experiences have replaced human interactions.

Rifkin's conclusion is a call to re-distance the cultural sphere from the commercial and to fight against a world where access is always negotiable and controlled by a small group of multinational corporations. But nobody forced consumers and businesses to live in this world where constant change and technical innovation make property a liability rather than an asset. Individuals and corporations looked at the costs and benefits of upgrading to the latest and greatest technology and (eventually) made the decision that the benefits won out. Did they make the right decision? Rifkin would presumably say no, based on the social and psychological implications, but it is hard to argue against a decision that will soon place the power of a 1980 supercomputer in your palm and, with it, instant, virtually free connections to family and friends around the world. In fact, because access-providing companies are more interested in a long-term relationship with you, they may well treat you better than if you had just bought their product.

Rifkin has written a thought-provoking book that is well worth reading. But owning nothing really might not be such a bad thing.