It’s Their Fault

A great Economist article.

I think in a couple decades, though, we’ll be saying the endowment effect is obsolete. It seems like only a matter of time: at least when it comes to media, we are moving confidently and happily from “possessing” media (CDs, DVDs, etc.) to having universal access to a sort of shared (Internet) media library–streaming videos, Netflix, etc. And us younger generations are taking to it strongly. This sort of group possession philosophy is one of the defining traits of this generation; to be sure, we still love our things, but I also sense a glimmer of the potential for a possessionless society in our outlook. We want to be mobile and unencumbered…we HATE moving our crap from place to place and use online auctions and craigslist sales as a way of making our “things” more of a community-centric entity than an “us” centered entity.

Let the baby boomer red baiting begin…