[twh270]

I don't know the first thing about such things, but I'll bet if companies were pushed on this they'd suddenly start asserting that it's a lease, which I think is typically taxed similarly to a sale.

I hate the "everything's a subscription" business model that's taking over everything. We'll achieve peak serfdom when the air we breathe, water we drink, and food we eat is bought on a subscription model.

[Qwertious]

Water is already a subscription model.

Food sometimes is, and honestly a more centralised food subscription system could drive down the cost of food by making demand more predictable and enabling better economy of scale.

[xigoi]

How is water a subscription model? You pay for the water you take from the tap. After you take it, it’s yours.

[CatWChainsaw]

If it were feasible to charge you for your own heartbeats, companies absolutely would. Infinite growth is a poison pill idea - it brought us to where we are today, and would drag us to the future you outlined, unless the folly is abandoned.

[datavirtue]

Nothing wrong with growth,it's natural. The population grows and so does the money supply in turn. This is good. What is not good is when a particular company is trying to retain ALL growth of certain segments for themselves through abusive leverage.

A principle that stuck out to me as a child was that our society prioritized lower prices for consumers as a whole over the prosperity of any one company or industry.

We let companies grow to the point where they now subvert the will of the people.

[CatWChainsaw]

Growth is good until it's not, cancer would like a word.

The only thing that seems capable of growing forever is the amount of space in the universe. Line go up increasingly fast always forever is a bullshit fever dream that needs to be culled with prejudice.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> I'll bet if companies were pushed on this they'd suddenly start asserting that it's a lease, which I think is typically taxed similarly to a sale.

A lease allows for the buyer to own the product, free and clear of the seller.

[lotsofpulp]

Not in real estate. There is technically no difference between leasing and renting, other than the things that are colloquially associated with. A lease agreement (or rental agreement) may or may not have a clause offering the borrower an opportunity to take ownership.

Rent might also refer to the price portion of a leasing agreement (or rental agreement). So in shorthand usage, “the lease” might encompass all terms of borrowing something, including the price, but “the rent” might just refer to the price.