Had a conversation over Christmas and have seen some threads on here that have made me start wondering how we’re often buying ‘nothing’.
With physical goods you buy something that has further value, a physical book has an intrinsic value once it’s been read. You can pass it on, you can use it to rest a mug on, you can sell it etc... but an electronic book only has value at it’s point of sale, some you can send to a limited number of people, but you cannot sell it.
If I buy a physical CD, again I can sell it but I cannot sell digital music on so in effect I never really own it, I am merely renting it for as long as the technology it is on works.
Children seem to be the most affected by this, a niece buys thousands of ‘skins’, as far as I can tell she is spending money on something that has no value past the moment in which she decided to buy it.
I wondered whether others had thought about and what the general opinion was - good, bad, indifferent.
I’m unsure about it, it makes me feel really uneasy that vast amounts of money are being spent on things that have no intrinsic value. If I have a bunch of physical books, I can sell them if I am feeling a bit poor, I cannot do that if I spend the same amount on a kindle book.