That’s definitely part of it as well, this sort of general distillation into a smaller and smaller pool of content or objects or goods that cost ever more money.

Like how most of the royalties Spotify pays out are for older catalogue stuff from “classic” artists, rather than new bands. Or how historical libraries of movies and films are constantly either up for grabs (for prestige) or being pushed off platforms due to their older/more costly royalty agreements.

With AI though, it’s the actual, tangible consumption of physical goods being threatened, which many companies involved in AI may argue is exactly the point: that everyone should be renters rather than consumers, and by making ownership expensive through cost and scarcity alike, you naturally drive more folks towards subscriptions for what used to be commodities (music, movies, games, compute, vehicles, creativity tools, TCGs, you name it).

It’s damn depressing.