Tolga Sahin | News Intern
I remember the first time I watched “Star Wars.” For my 6-year-old brain, it felt like a door opened into something new, something that did not have to explain itself to be real. Today, finding something that feels truly new can feel like a small quest, because even a great film first forces you to hunt for where it lives.
That hunt comes with microdecisions: Which platform has it? Which tier hides the thing you actually want? Which “free trial” will quietly renew, and which reminder do you need so you do not get charged for a year you did not mean to buy? Being an adult should not mean learning to dodge traps set by billion-dollar companies.
This is what non-ownership looks like in daily life. You do not buy and keep; you rent and renew. Access is the product, so access can be repriced, restricted or removed, sometimes with a cheery email that calls it an “update.” The customer becomes an account to manage, not a person to serve.
Let us start with “Star Wars.” George Lucas built it from scratch, from outside the system. After Disney bought Lucasfilm, the saga turned into a factory. For many fans, including myself, the sequels retreaded the original trilogy and the uniqueness fell away. The name grew. The stories did not.
The same incentives also affected Marvel Studios. It started with the gradual development of superheroes everyone loves, but then the fate of every grand franchise hit Marvel Studios, too. At one point, there were so many titles coming up that most people could not even catch up with them.
This environment forced the same tepid coffee to be served to the fans. Streaming services produced almost identical series while canceling the titles where creators are bold enough to make unique decisions. Before the pandemic, it felt like these platforms had dozens of great choices; now I log in to watch what I already planned, not to find something worth discovering.
Major consolidation deals keep reshaping the market, including WarnerMedia combining with Discovery Inc. to form Warner Bros. Discovery. When libraries consolidate, fewer boards decide what exists, what gets marketed, what stays and what costs extra to access again and again.
Similar purchases also happened in the gaming industry. Microsoft’s Xbox first bought Bethesda, and then Activision, and the logic was the same: fewer competitors at the top, fewer alternatives below and more leverage over what players can access and what they must keep paying for.
This phenomenon of major consolidation is not only about entertainment. Major news chains own large shares of local media. In addition to the old media, X began with a 140-character limit and now sits in an ecosystem crowded with bots promoting “their” political agenda. Pew Research Center found 70% of users never or rarely post about political or social issues, so loud comments get misread as the majority.
Betting extends the same attention economy into sports and predictions. Gambling ads and sponsorships push constant wagering, including around games watched by kids. The menu has expanded past simple winners and losers into bets on trivial moments, elections or if a random celebrity will say a word.
U.S. illegal and unregulated betting is more than $650 billion. We are putting so much money into an insignificant cause.
From entertainment to politics, the pattern of non-ownership is growing. When a few companies control libraries and distribution, they reward what is cheap and punish what is unique, and the trend keeps feeding itself because they frankly own or buy their competitors.
Do not forget to pay your monthly subscription to smile; you do not own your smile anymore.
