Late Stage Capitalism

This whole "elites" talk is a very convenient way to redirect systemic criticism toward individualized justice and action. Liberals respond positively to these narratives as it presents a system that is functional save for the few naughty ne're-do-wells who are intentionally making it worse.

The reason why ownership is threatened is because the material limitations of production are quickly confining an economic system that relies on infinite, progressive growth to exist. Yes, ownership is "dangerous" to this system in that it presents a potential endpoint of profit when the product has been purchased once and never again, as opposed to an ongoing revenue stream, but the control is incidental to the digital age, not emergent from it. What this meme refers to is "debt," which has always been used under capitalism as a form of control, but ownership remains a concept as it always has. You do legally own a license to that service, the same way you own a license to your electricity, water, and internet services, and because of that precedent, access to a thing qualifies as an ownership in of its own. All ownership is arbitrary, since it isn't actually a real thing, which means pathologizing one arbitrary form of ownership over the other inevitably validates the concept of ownership at all, which was the root problem.

Also, I can't help but scoff at the proliferation of this kind of discourse now that middle-class people's toys are getting more expensive. Material insecurity and rent seeking certainly functions in this system in the way described above, and that insecurity has been intentionally inflicted on marginalized and vulnerable groups historically, but that isn't why they're doing it to middle-class and above property owners who have a vested material interest in maintaining this system anyway. It's just a consequence of the unreality of capitalism as there is not actually an infinitely continuous material world to draw from and create new commodity demands through. They need profit streams for this system to continue, so they eat into the product itself and commodify elements of it to create those streams.

I'm glad more privileged people are finally talking about this, but it's important to remember that they will also subscribe to narratives that reproduce as much of their way of life as possible while addressing the perceived injustice they've now experienced. "Elites" as some vague, disembodied benefactors of this system neglects the reality that yes, your middle-class parents and their suburban home on dispossessed indigenous property bought through materials and labour extracted from colonized spaces in the global south are also "elites," in that they benefit from the way this system is organized and distributes material necessities. Be careful about accepting populist narratives that will inevitably reproduce the inequities and violence of this system which will inevitably result in the power and wealth disparity this meme references as the real cause of society's problems.