On Existential Neo-Serfdom and Subscription Services

Erich Fromm's Modal Confusion, Revisited

My life had been reduced to boxes. A towering hunk of brown polyhedrons loomed over my living room, sad and forlorn. It was time to move.

Existence had been reduced to its most material aspects, in a strange Marxist analysis of my time on planet Earth. Where had all this stuff come from? I touted myself as an Epicurean Minimalist, capable of resisting consumerist temptations. The planet is metaphorically on fire and we need people to be more conscientious of their purchasing acts. I thought I’d done my part. Yet here it all was, my attempt at building an identity by having things.

We’ve already talked about Erich Fromm’s theory about modal confusion. The German thinker distinguished the having mode from the being mode, and explained how confusing these two creates existential angst. People want to be in love, so they have a lot of sex, thinking this is the way to fill the hole in their souls. They’re sad, so they try to buy their way out of sadness by having things. We think as soon as we get the nice house or car or whatever, we’ll finally be able to relax and be happy. When this doesn’t work, we substitute being happy with buying more stuff.

Standing smack in the middle of my apartment was my attempt at being someone by having all these things. These are not valuable articles, mind you: we’re talking about old, worn down accessories, appliances that I held dear to my heart and a huge amount of books and CDs (I don’t even have a disc player, anymore).

It’s more nostalgia than modal confusion. I know I’m not identified by all the things I have, I just can’t let them go. Am I supposed to throw away the CDs that helped me make sense of my life during the ‘90s? The singers and troubadours who gave me life lessons in their lyrics, accompanied me on my first dates, showed me how to be a man?

I have DVDs of obscure movies you can’t even find on streaming services, a CD by Chucho Valdés I bought in Havana that wasn’t sold outside of Cuba and rare Miles Davis concerts and the like. It took me a long time to build my collection, and when my CD player broke, I started using streaming services. However, you won’t find any of my favorite albums on Spotify or YouNameItMusic, and whenever I’ve tried to rewatch some of my favorite films, I’m supposed to pay extra for them (as if a Netflix and Disney subscription wasn’t enough). Recently, I wanted to watch Spike Jones’ Adaptation as well as Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. This would cost me about 10$ on top of the already expensive Prime subscription! I guess I can watch all the Fast and Furious films instead, or the trash comedies that keep on popping up on my feed.

We’re all well aware of the renting and subscription model that has supplanted owning property. You don’t own the albums you stream; these can be taken off the platform at any moment, and this doesn’t sit well with me. I still use my iPod, one of the best technologies created by Steve Jobs, and it still works. That’s how I listen to my CD collection, after spending lots of time (and money) digitizing old albums at the beginning of the century.

This is obviously the economic model being thrust upon us: just pay forever, own nothing, and use apps. This is even expanding to real estate, where big conglomerates are trying to convince us that homeownership is has-been. Why own a house? Just rent, they say! Or, take out a fifty-year mortgage, which is practically the same thing.

How does this new state of affairs affect Fromm’s modal confusion? We’ve gone from confusing having and being to confusing subscribing to services and being, which seems worse to me. At least before you had your damn house and pretended to be rich, now you’re just renting one.

I think many of the afflictions befalling contemporary Man (anxiety, fear, loneliness, regret…) stem from this change in Fromm’s modal confusion. How can you not feel anxiety when you’re expected to fork over hundreds of dollars per month in subscription services while the media keeps on talking about how terrible the job market is? If you lose your job, you’ll lose your music playlists, your movie watch list, your car and house… Now try and stay calm!

Where are the Libertarians on all of this? I thought their whole shtick was defending private property and building a warped and screwed up ethos around this Randian idea.

Nowadays, you don’t have the right to own your music and films: you’re supposed to buy them again and store them (again) on your hard drive! However, the format will probably change in the near future, as well as the hardware, and we’ll all have to rebuild our collections from scratch or keep on using old technology while we pray it doesn’t break down (nobody’s going to repair my iPod if it breaks).

This is existential neo-Serfdom: you have the right to own stuff until the billionaire in charge of the app decides it’s time to throw all this away and migrate to the Metaverse or something.

So I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve started downloading music and videos again, like in 2005. I’d rather take the risk of finding a way to play my media collection than being subject to the whims of a rich kid who wants a bigger yacht.

All in all, this is probably me just getting old. I’ve gone off social media (it’s been amazing) and am scouring the web for music and films, like in the post-Napster era.

I know I am not the stuff I own, and I fight against modal confusion every day (they’re criticizing your work, not you personally, etc). However, I’m absolutely not the stuff billionaires own, or decide I can enjoy.

Existential neo-Serfdom is at the heart of the meaning crisis tearing through our societies. People might not understand this consciously, but deep down inside, we know we don’t own our Spotify playlist. Try and play the Neil Young album in your “library” if you don’t believe me.

The truth of the matter is, this isn’t your media library, it’s theirs. Billionaires own it and will do with it as they please, you can either put up with it or… What, exactly? “Create your own app”? Sure.

We all know how Serfdom gets abolished after a revolution. If I were a billionaire, I’d be weary of people harnessing digital pitchforks and riling up against our tech overlords.