There is a new class divide. Can we risk it becoming entrenched?

So went an excerpt from a controversial World Economic Forum (WEF) think-piece, published in 2016, which presented a prediction of how our lives might look in the year 2030.

As it turned out, lots of people didn’t particularly like the idea of consulting a Microsoft Calendar to find out when Janet from accounting might be using their sofa. Nor were many thrilled by the suggestion that we would have no need for possessions like appliances or clothes, because we would simply hire them when we needed them.

Eight years later, we’re over halfway to the date of this fantasy future and, I hate to say it, but if any of that sounded dystopian to you, the reality of the trajectory we’re on is looking much worse.

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The vision so described by Ida Auken, a Danish Member of Parliament, hinged upon the premise that essential goods and services would be socialised, and that all of our resources would be pooled and shared.

This has so little bearing on the way things are headed in the world that nothing short of a global revolution would be required to realise this vision in the next six years.

However, there are aspects of this imagined scenario which ring true and which, frankly, send a chill through me – precisely because our mindless march towards an AI-driven service economy is accompanied not by an egalitarian redistribution of wealth but by the rapid expansion of what can only be described as “turbo capitalism”. Already, those with the most wealth are frantically hoarding resources and monopolising markets so that ordinary people can be extorted for the right to subscribe to them, or to purchase “licences” which can be revoked just as easily. The world of entertainment and digital media is an obvious example, but perhaps a sign of things to come.

CDs and DVDs are fast approaching obsolescence, physical books are going the same way, and video games that don’t require digital downloads and online subscriptions are positively retro.

The most valid argument in favour of these changes is environmental – if, by reducing the production of objects which will eventually find their way to the landfill, we can protect the future of our planet, this is a worthy endeavour.

However, with this comes the risk of exploitation by “service providers”, and we are already witnessing this in action.

(Image: PA)

Today, your favourite films are owned by Amazon, or Netflix, or Disney. Every month you can pay for the pleasure of watching them, and the company can delete them any time.

Even if that means wiping it from the face of the earth (see: Disney+ and its removal of several original series, like Willow). Even if it means removing something you have technically “bought” (see: Amazon’s policy where films purchased digitally can be deleted whenever licensing agreements change).

Meanwhile, the company can jack up the price whenever it likes, even if its media library is reduced, or require you to pay extra for “bonus” features that were included in your original subscription.

There are similar issues with the purchase of e-books. If you’ve amassed a library of books on Kindle, you better think twice about deleting your Amazon account – ever. All the books really belong to their library, not yours, and they’ll disappear right along with your account.

This is a lesson which some users have learned the hard way, and through no choice of their own, when Amazon erroneously closed their account for them.

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Those old anti-piracy ads come to mind, which admonished: “you wouldn’t steal a car”. A retailer wouldn’t come into your house, bundle your stuff into a van and drive off, as if this was all perfectly normal – but in the digital world they can do so without consequence, because the legislation simply hasn’t caught up with the realities of our new, and fast-changing, economy.

IN the gaming industry, some are trying to rectify this. Gaming YouTuber Ross Scott has launched an international campaign to ‘Stop Killing Games’, focused on the need for greater regulation to prevent publishers from deleting major parts of a game’s content (or the servers required to access it) after customers have purchased it.

A petition in support of this was made to the former UK Government earlier this year. The response said, in summary, that as long as video games companies and other software providers don’t “omit or hide information which the average consumer needs to make an informed choice”, they are in their rights to stop supporting older versions of their systems or connected products.

This raises more questions than it answers about whether existing consumer protections are fit for purpose in a digital economy where people routinely agree to lengthy Terms and Conditions without ever reading them or, realistically, having any opportunity to question them.

(Image: Canva)

All of this leads me to wonder what sort of future we’re headed into if we don’t start challenging this now. As “smart” appliances in the home become more commonplace, perhaps we’ll soon need to subscribe to an operating system to make use of our own fridge, or central heating, or doorbell.

We’re already seeing how that process works: we all get hooked into a new way of doing something because it seems more “convenient”, or because it sounds like the road to a utopian world, and as soon as the old way is almost out of reach, companies can demand more and more money from you, because you scarcely have a choice.

In many ways, the functioning in practice of this “service economy” mirrors the direction of travel in the housing market. The prospect of being able to own your own home amid rising house prices and stagnant wages is now so remote for anyone under the age of 40 that we’ve been branded “Generation Rent”. For those who are able to buy, the outlook is a lifetime spent paying off a mortgage. Meanwhile, wealthy landlords are able to take advantage of the situation by charging exorbitant rent.

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At this rate, a more realistic vision for 2030 is one where people are expected to pay to hire out different rooms of a home in time slots, rather than one where property is communally shared at no cost.

This is the problem with imagined futures which fail to reckon with the fundamental economic imbalance that exists in our world – they will only replicate the injustices of the past and present.

The new class divide, it seems, is between those who own, and those who rent, subscribe, or borrow. While the billionaires running the multi-national corporations behind our digital media, our social networks, and our omnipresent, essential technology are getting richer and more powerful, most of us are sleepwalking into a future where almost every aspect of our lives is dependent on their goodwill. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?