"You'll Own Nothing and Be Happy": Welcome To The Subscription Nightmare They've Been Planning All Along Review -

Fellow techies, buckle up because we need to talk about something that should terrify every single person who values actually OWNING their stuff. From your laptop to your car to the literal computing power running your business—they’re taking it all away. And they’re doing it with a smile while telling you it’s “convenient.”

Remember that quote from the World Economic Forum back in 2016? “You will own nothing and be happy.” Everyone laughed it off as conspiracy theory nonsense. Well, guess what? It’s happening right now, and nobody’s laughing anymore.

Let’s talk about how corporations are systematically converting ownership into rental agreements, and why this might be the biggest scam of the 21st century.

You Don’t Even Own Your Laptop Anymore

HP just went all-in on the subscription laptop model, and it’s exactly as bad as you think. HP launched a U.S. consumer laptop subscription in late 2025 that rents select PCs for a fixed monthly fee—with upgrade options after roughly 12 months but no buyout or rent-to-own path.

Let me make this crystal clear: HP retains ownership of the laptop for the duration of the subscription. Customers lease the device and must return it if the service is canceled. You’re not financing a laptop. You’re not building equity toward ownership. You’re just… renting. Forever.

And it gets worse. If payments lapse beyond a defined grace period, HP reserves the ability to restrict access. Translation: miss a payment and HP can literally lock you out of “your” computer. The one with all your files, your work, your photos—sorry, not yours anymore.

The gaming version is even more insulting. HP’s OMEN Gaming Subscription is structured more like a lease than a phone installment plan. Monthly payments are tied to specific configurations, but there is no point at which cumulative payments convert into ownership, even when the total paid matches or exceeds the going sale price.

So you could pay $130/month for an RTX 5080 gaming laptop. Over two years, that’s $3,120. You know what a comparable gaming laptop costs to buy outright? About $2,500-$3,000. Except at the end of your rental period, you own nothing. HP gets their laptop back and you get to start paying all over again for the next one.

This is insane.

Your Car? Also Not Yours

Remember when you could just buy a car and it came with… all the features? Yeah, those days are over.

BMW made headlines for trying to charge a monthly subscription for heated seats—seats that were already installed in your car. Obviously, the car already had the necessary hardware from the factory, but it was blocked behind a paywall.

Think about that. The hardware is sitting right there in your car. You paid for it when you bought the vehicle. But BMW decided you don’t actually get to use it unless you pay them $18/month.

After massive backlash, BMW’s heated seat subscription lasted barely a year, but here’s the thing: despite admitting the heated-seat subscription fiasco was a mistake, BMW is still pushing other subscriptions.

Now they want to charge you monthly for:

Adaptive Suspension: £25/month
High-Beam Assistant: £10/month
Parking Assistant Professional: £25/month
360-degree camera, remote start, and even Adaptive M Suspension—features already built into the car

And it’s not just BMW. Mercedes, Audi, Tesla—they’re all doing it. Tesla charges £75/month for Full Self-Driving (Supervised). Mercedes wants you to pay annually to unlock more horsepower in your EV. Volkswagen charges monthly for power upgrades.

Your $60,000 car? It’s got $80,000 worth of features built in. You just don’t get to use them unless you subscribe.

Even Computing Power Isn’t Yours

Amazon Web Services is literally the poster child for “rent everything, own nothing.” You want to run a website? Rent server space. Need computing power for your business? Rent it by the hour. AWS pricing is similar to how you pay for utilities like water and electricity. You only pay for the services you consume.

On the surface, that sounds reasonable, right? Pay for what you use! Except here’s what they don’t tell you: Amazon foresees $200 billion in 2026 capital expenditures, mainly in AWS. They’re building massive infrastructure that you’ll never own; you’ll just rent access to it forever.

And you’re locked in. Try moving your entire business infrastructure off AWS once you’re dependent on it. It’s designed to trap you in their ecosystem, paying monthly fees that never end.

This is the model they want for everything. Not just cloud computing—everything.

The WEF Wasn’t Joking

Let’s circle back to that World Economic Forum prediction. The first prediction in a 2016 Facebook video said, “You will own nothing and be happy. Whatever you want you’ll rent and it’ll be delivered by drone.”(of course, WEF has scrubbed this from their website)

People dismissed it as dystopian fantasy. But look around. It’s not fantasy anymore.

Stellantis estimates it’s going to earn an additional €4 billion each year by 2026 with its “monetizable connected cars,” rising to €20 billion annually by the end of the decade.

Twenty billion euros. From subscriptions. For cars that people already bought.

This isn’t about making products better or offering consumers a choice; this is about converting one-time purchases into permanent revenue streams. It’s about making sure you never stop paying. This is about corporate greed.

Why This Is Absolute Garbage

Let me break down why the subscription model for physical goods is a scam:

1. You pay more, get less

The HP gaming laptop? You’ll pay more over time than buying it outright, and you never own it. Same with cars. BMW’s adaptive suspension at £25/month costs you £300 per year. Over a 5-year ownership period, that’s £1,500 for a feature that costs maybe £500 as a one-time option.

2. They can take it away anytime

Miss a payment on your laptop subscription? HP can restrict access. Your files, your work, your everything—gone. You don’t own it, so you have no rights to it.

3. Built-in obsolescence goes nuclear

Before, companies had to make products fail to force you to buy new ones. Now they just… don’t let you own them. Your subscription ends, you return the device, rinse and repeat. Perfect for corporate profits, terrible for consumers and the environment.

4. Privacy nightmare

HP retains administrative control of subscribed devices. Your laptop. That you’re paying for. They control it. They can see what’s on it. They can access it remotely. Does that sound like ownership to you?

5. The costs never end

Buy a laptop for $1,500? You own it. Use it for 5-10 years. Your cost is $1,500. Rent a laptop for $75/month? Over 5 years that’s $4,500. Over 10 years? $9,000. And you still don’t own anything.

The Endgame: Total Control

Here’s what they’re really building: a world where you don’t own anything, which means you have zero control over your life.

Can’t pay your car subscription? No heated seats in the winter for you. Can’t afford your laptop payment? Sorry, you’re locked out of your work files. Don’t like the new terms of service? Too bad, you don’t own the device, so comply or lose access.

This isn’t about convenience. It’s about control.

When you own something, it’s yours. You can modify it, repair it, sell it, or keep it forever. When you rent something, you have exactly as much power as the company decides to give you. Which is to say: none.

They’re Banking On You Not Noticing

The scary part? A survey conducted by S&P Global Mobility last year revealed 82 percent of the respondents were willing to get a subscription.

Eighty-two percent! People are so conditioned to subscription services from Netflix and Spotify that they’re just accepting this as normal for physical goods.

But it’s not normal. It’s not okay. And if we don’t push back hard, this becomes the permanent reality.

What You Can Do About It

Buy, don’t rent. Seriously. If you can afford to buy something outright, do it. Don’t fall for the “low monthly payment” trap.

Buy used. Pre-subscription-era products still exist. A 2020 car doesn’t have feature subscriptions. A used laptop is yours, not HP’s.

Support right-to-repair. Companies hate this because it extends ownership. Which is exactly why we need it. Repair.org

Vote with your wallet. Don’t buy from companies pushing predatory subscriptions. BMW wants to charge you monthly for heated seats? Buy a Toyota.

Spread the word. Most people don’t realize what’s happening. They see “low monthly payments” and think it’s a deal. Show them the math. Show them what they’re giving up.

The Bottom Line

The World Economic Forum said you’d own nothing and be happy by 2030. We’re in 2026, and they’re right on schedule.

Your laptop? Rented. Your car features? Subscription. Your computing power? Leased. Even the software you use (Adobe), the entertainment you watch, the tools you need for work—all rental agreements with no end date.

This isn’t progress. This is corporations realizing they can make way more money if you never stop paying. And they’re betting you won’t notice until it’s too late.

Well, I’m noticing. You should be too.

Because once everything is subscription-based, once you truly own nothing, you won’t be happy. You’ll be trapped in a system designed to extract maximum profit from you until the day you die.

And Klaus Schwab and his billionaire buddies? They’ll still own everything. They just won’t let you.

Sound Off

Drop in the comments: Are you falling for these subscription scams? Have you actually calculated what you’re paying over time? Or are you refusing to play their game? I want to hear from you because this affects all of us.

Stay nerdy, friends. And more importantly, stay free—while you still can.

“A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free.” – John Stuart Mill