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The Meaning of Owning

With Netflix, I have access to thousands of movies and TV shows; I don't own them, but as long as they remain available in my instant queue, what's the difference? I can watch them as many times as I want, and for all real purposes, they are "mine."

Now, think about the future of e-Books. As much as I hate to jump on board, it's all but inevitable that the e-Book will replace the paper book in the very near future. What will this do to libraries? Libraries are already lending out e-Books.

Question: why would anyone buy an e-Book if the library will lend it to you for free? Sure, the e-Book will delete itself off your reader after the lending period is over, but so what? If you want to read it again, just "check it out" again. No need to take up space on your reader's hard drive...

Technology is changing the way we think about ownership. Pretty wild.
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