Fodder for the Machines

Back in 2024 I wrote a post called Media Ownership. It was a rant on how you don’t really “own” any of the online digital media you consume through streaming services like Spotify, Netflix, and the like. Because these companies can (and often do) remove and modify the media they host, without your knowledge or consent, anytime they wish to do so.While writing that post I realized that this doesn’t just apply to just streaming and entertainment, but to file hosting on the internet in general:Of course, it’s easy enough to grasp that the shows you watch on Hulu or the songs you stream on Tidal aren’t yours. But what this also means is that you don’t own all of your half-finished Google Docs on your personal Google Drive, or your favourite vacation albums shared on Google Photos, or the billion Notes you’ve written to yourself that are now on iCloud. These files belong, first and foremost, to Google and Apple. If you lose your Gmail or iCloud account tomorrow, you lose access to these…