数字异化的资本主义：为何订阅制成当代最险恶的产权剥夺神器

今天接着聊昨天的话题——为什么订阅制是一个糟糕的商业模式？当我们将目光投向社会制度层面，这个议题将变得更具批判性。经过数十年的红色教育和当代左派思潮的复苏，在大多数人印象中，"资本主义"似乎已成为一个负面标签。但如果我们客观回顾人类文明发展史，无论是东方皇权专制社会还是西方封建社会，物质生活水平的整体跃升始终发生在资本主义确立之后，这恰好印证了自由市场经济对人类繁荣的决定性作用。

那么到底什么是资本主义社会？其核心制度特征是以私有产权为基础的生产体系，而社会主义则通过消灭私有制实现根本对立。这种制度差异在数字订阅制领域显现得尤为明显：消费者支付费用购买的数字商品并不具备完整产权。所有数据资产都寄存于互联网云端，本质上由平台账号体系管理，这种架构模式让生产资料完全脱离用户控制。以亚马逊Kindle电子书商店为例，该平台曾出现大规模删除用户数字藏书的案例，其官方说辞仅是用户违反社区协议。当购买的内容随时可能被平台收回，这样的消费模式显然背离了资本主义的根基。

更值得警惕的是，订阅制将用户隐私彻底置于商业资本监控之下。互联网企业的数据采集系统在创造便利性假象的同时，正在成为构建新的信息茧房和大数据杀熟的技术基础。尽管某些互联网大V声称这是用户为获取服务主动让渡的隐私权，但面对"接受这种模式才能使用"否则不用的唯二选项，所谓的自愿其实充满强迫性特征。这种制度设计不仅损害消费者权益，更深层地动摇着资本主义的核心运行逻辑。

根据奥地利经济学派的观点，真正的资本特指用于生产的"资本品"——那些能提升生产效率的设备与工具，而非直接转化为消费的货币本身。工业革命中蒸汽机、铁路网等基础设施大规模应用，印证了资本积累对消费品增长的催化作用。当社会资源更多投向资本品生产时，短期内会有消费抑制，但长期将创造更大物质财富。这种基于延迟满足机制的资本积累，正是人类生活水平持续提升的关键。

但订阅制正在破坏这种宝贵的选择平衡。其商业模式鼓励即时消费而非资本积累——用户支付费用后只能限期使用商品/服务，到期权限自动失效的机制催生了"有权不用过期作废"的高时间偏好消费心理。这种模式导致社会资源持续流向短期消费终端，而资本品更新反而缺乏投入动力。时间偏好效应加剧的结果，是整个社会生产力增长的停滞甚至倒退。更严峻的事实在于，这种制度设计本质上比传统共产主义更具侵蚀性：消费者既无法获得任何实物资产，又要持续为临时性使用权掏钱。这种既没有所有权又持续消耗现金流的新模式，正在悄然改写我们的经济行为本质。

可以说，订阅制是一种更加恶劣的共产 主义。你不光不拥有任何属于自己的东西，你还要为那些不属于自己的东西。支付真金白银。

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Today, let's continue from yesterday's topic - why is the subscription model a bad business model? When we turn our attention to the level of social institutions, this issue will become more critical. After decades of red education and the revival of contemporary left-wing thought, in the minds of most people, "capitalism" seems to have become a negative label. However, if we objectively review the history of the development of human civilization, whether it was the autocratic society of the imperial power in the East or the feudal society in the West, the overall leap in the material living standards always occurred after the establishment of capitalism. This precisely confirms the decisive role of the free market economy in human prosperity.

So, what exactly is a capitalist society? Its core institutional feature is a production system based on private property rights, while socialism achieves fundamental opposition by eliminating private ownership. This institutional difference is particularly evident in the field of digital subscription: The digital goods purchased by consumers with payment do not have complete property rights. All data assets are stored in the Internet cloud and are essentially managed by the platform account system. This architectural model completely frees production materials from user control. Take the Amazon Kindle e-book store as an example. There was once a case of large-scale deletion of users' digital book collections on this platform. Its official statement was merely that users violated the community agreement. When the purchased content may be reclaimed by the platform at any time, such a consumption pattern clearly deviates from the foundation of capitalism.

What is more alarming is that the subscription model completely places users' privacy under the surveillance of commercial capital. While the data collection systems of Internet enterprises are creating the illusion of convenience, they are also becoming the technical foundation for building new information cocoons and big data price discrimination. Although some Internet influencers claim that this is the right to privacy voluntarily ceded by users to obtain services, in the face of the only two options of "accepting this model to use" or "not using it", the so-called voluntariness is actually full of coercive features. This institutional design not only infringes upon consumers' rights and interests, but more profoundly shakes the core operating logic of capitalism.

According to the perspective of the Austrian School of Economics, true capital specifically refers to the "capital goods" used for production - those equipment and tools that can enhance production efficiency, rather than the money itself that is directly converted into consumption. The large-scale application of infrastructure such as steam engines and railway networks during the Industrial Revolution confirmed the catalytic effect of capital accumulation on the growth of consumer goods. When more social resources are invested in the production of capital goods, there will be consumption suppression in the short term, but in the long term, greater material wealth will be created. This kind of capital accumulation based on the delayed satisfaction mechanism is precisely the key to the continuous improvement of human living standards.

But the subscription model is undermining this precious balance of choices. Its business model encourages immediate consumption rather than capital accumulation - after users pay the fee, they can only use the goods/services within a limited period. The mechanism that the permission automatically expires has given rise to a high time-preference consumption psychology of "having the right not to expire and become invalid". This model leads to a continuous flow of social resources to short-term consumption terminals, while the renewal of capital goods lacks the impetus for investment instead. The consequence of the intensification of the time preference effect is the stagnation or even regression of the productivity growth of the entire society. The more serious fact lies in that this institutional design is essentially more eroding than traditional communism: consumers can neither obtain any physical assets nor have to continuously pay for temporary usage rights. This new model, which has no ownership and continuously consumes cash flow, is quietly rewriting the essence of our economic behavior.

It can be said that the subscription system is an even worse form of communism. Not only do you not own anything that belongs to you, but you also have to fight for things that don't belong to you. Pay real money.