Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Warns “You Are Owned” in Subscription Era

[Lee]

Steve Wozniak says today’s tech industry is moving control away from users and into the hands of companies, and he believes people no longer truly own the tools they rely on. He points to a clear shift from personal ownership to subscription-driven access, where software and services change over time without user control.

In a recent interview, he explained how things worked differently in the early days of personal computing, when users had full control over their devices and how they functioned.

From a Fox Business interview, Steve Wozniak said:

“For the first two decades of personal computers, you bought a product, you owned it, you set it up your way, and it always ran that way, and it solved your problems… It was yours.”

Wozniak says modern tech companies now rely on subscriptions, which puts users in a position where they depend on ongoing payments and company decisions. As a result, features change, interfaces shift, and even access to personal data can disappear.

From the same interview, he added:

“Now you have to subscribe to services and pay something per month… They’ll take things away, features that you were using… They’ll even take your data away sometimes…”

“You are owned,” Wozniak says

Wozniak makes his position clear and does not support the current direction of the industry, especially when users lose control over their own data and tools.

“No, I don’t like the business models of today where you don’t own it. You are owned. Whoever the suppliers are, you have to go through them on the cloud, up to the internet, and they own it. So the internet came, and things were beautiful, beautiful looking at first, and they came in all the business models. So I’m not a super fan of when I don’t feel like I own something.”

A commenter noted:

I covered this next item earlier today at Instapundit, so I'll keep this brief. But now that Walmart owns TV-maker Vizio, you'll need to sign into your Walmart account on new Vizio TVs if you want to use the "smart" features like the built-in Netflix, YouTube, Plex apps, or the like. Vizio uses Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) to "fingerprint" everything you watch. Now that data will be tied into your Walmart account, so Walmart will be better able to show you more tailored ads — on "your" TV! — and sell you more stuff while maximizing profits via dynamic pricing. 

Vizio is hardly alone in this. Smart features allow TV makers to effectively own their consumers, instead of the other way around. The same is true of set-top boxes from Roku, Amazon, and anything Android-based.

"You are owned," indeed.

TVs have never been bigger, brighter, or cheaper. 30 years ago, I paid $750 (roughly $1,500 in today's dollars) for a 27" lo-def Sony Trinitron that seemed to weigh about as much as a small car. If you had told me then that in the future, that same money would get me a 70" 4K HDR screen so thin and light that I could hang it on the wall, I'd have said, "Bring it on!"

But if you'd also told me that today's TVs would report to the manufacturer every show and movie I watch, and they'd sell that information to any and every advertiser out there… Well, I'd have been a lot less enthusiastic. 

https://www.macobserver.com/news/apple-co-founder-steve-wozniak-warns-you-are-owned-in-subscription-era/

[Old55]

Good one Lee. 

Although I own a large amount of physical media we are all truly owned and controlled by corporations. And those corporations actively collect information from us to an extent I don't even want to think about. 

 

Edited March 26 by Old55

[scott h]

At the risk of opening up a can of worms, but so what? How does this really impact me in a significant way? It is not like they are reaching into our fidges and taking our beer.

[Jeff_G]

2 minutes ago, scott h said:

At the risk of opening up a can of worms, but so what? How does this really impact me in a significant way? It is not like they are reaching into our fidges and taking our beer.

Immensely.   What the article doesnt really touch on are the algorithms currently being used, developed, and refined to manipulate and control.   Don't take my word on it, look it up.   We are owned, and it is getting worse each passing day.    It is being used by corporations all over the world.  Just for example, look to see how Elon Musk has used algorithms (I pick him because he is the richest man in the world).      

[scott h]

1 minute ago, craftbeerlover said:

Immensely

But I still have my beer

[Jeff_G]

4 minutes ago, scott h said:

But I still have my beer

Hell of a trade off:  Beer over independent thought.     Personally I want both

[GeoffH]

Back in the day Apple people (which was what I used for work) fell into two camps, the Jobs fans (slick and corporate) and the Woz fans (nerds and academics).

I'm still a bit of a Woz fan to this day and his quoted comments about modern tech show part of the reason why.

And he makes a good point (as he generally does).

[Mike J]

50 minutes ago, scott h said:

But I still have my beer

Good one.  

[Mike J]

On 3/27/2026 at 6:02 AM, craftbeerlover said:

Hell of a trade off:  Beer over independent thought.     Personally I want both

I still think of myself as independent.  Maybe some truth to that as it seems both democrats and republicans tell me " . . . but you don't know the whole . . . . "  etc. etc.

Edited March 27 by Mike J

[BrettGC]

Enshitification: is a term popularized by Cory Doctorow to describe how online platforms and services tend to degrade over time. It refers to a predictable cycle where a platform initially prioritizes users, then shifts to favour business customers or advertisers, and finally extracts maximum value for itself—often at the expense of both groups—resulting in a worse experience for everyone involved.

48 minutes ago, scott h said:

At the risk of opening up a can of worms, but so what? How does this really impact me in a significant way? It is not like they are reaching into our fidges and taking our beer.

Well, remember when you used to buy MS Office for X dollars, and could use that for years without paying another cent - I'd typically buy a new edition every 4 or 5 years at a cost of around $45AUD due to the then Defence discount but a non-discount customer paid around $200AUD.  For a single user annual subscription, not ownership, it's now around $100USD and goes up from there. 

Yeah, you still have your beer mate, but you're buying (leasing) from the most pretentious and expensive microbrewery on the planet. 

The Adobe suite is even worse. 

I've gone to open source for everything - Libre for office stuff, Kdenlive or Shotcut for video editing (I edit videos for a mate every now and then - yes he pays me), Audacity for sound and Blender 3D stuff and the light picture editing I do.  I was using all of these before I switched to Linux.