For thousands of years, ownership was an essential aspiration for humankind, but there are signs that this is changing.

So I conducted a comprehensive study to discover scenarios about the future of ownership. I collected articles about the new ventures that deal with ownable assets between 2015-2020.

Filtering the articles demonstrated a change in typical ownership of things, the trends that will shape the future of ownership were identified, including:

• The boom of the Subscription Economy & Sharing Economy
• The merger of Real life and Virtual Worlds leads to the expansion of the Virtual Economy
• Tokenization of Assets

Then, I asked 12 individuals from Iran, China, Canada, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands to list these trends' first-order and second-order consequences by considering their experiences in their lives. According to the outcomes, I developed these three scenarios:

1. ServiceLords: Governments, big companies, and a few wealthy families own the whole world, and people can access their services. The general cost is low, but most people own nothing; they spend all of their income on services.

2. Virtually Rich Citizens: In this world, people access their desires in virtual worlds, so it lets them pay less for experiencing their dreams.

3. Tokenized World: There are countless tokens in the world people can trade. The financing is fully democratized, and any individual can run a trading venue. Additionally, the general public owns the tokens related to a variety of ventures and intellectual properties. It helps them to possess savings for a rainy day and earn extra income.

   
   

Finally, if you are not bored yet, you can immerse yourself in this future by reading the below short story.

Tempo of Life - New York, 2030

While Tiffany was getting ready to celebrate her 30th birthday, she received a gift two weeks before that, when her employer had her fired! The worst gift a person can get! Tiffany joined a market research company as a legal analyst five years ago. She did not come from a wealthy family, her mother was a cashier, and her father left them when she was a baby. Her salary was below the average in the industry, but her quality of life was better than her mother's. When she was a teenager, they were searching for an outlet offer so hard, but since she reached that, her life changed dramatically.

First of all, with an extra discount the company provided her, she got subscribed to a professional attire subscription. At the end of each season, the clothing company used to collect the clothes and replace them with new designs. Additionally, she got subscribed for two more apparel subscriptions, one for party dresses, and another one for the undergarments. She used to have fun with her friends, and there were small parties in the boats.

The price of access to a yacht ride, an experience which used to be a luxury, was decreased dramatically because of the yacht sharing startups. This time, the situation has completely changed. The Human Resource department of the company, where she used to work, has implemented a new Artificial Intelligence Algorithm. This algorithm recognized her as a threat to organizational integrity. Even though they did not send her a warning letter, they said: “the algorithm found her a risk for their company, and there is no process for an appeal”. As soon as they fired her, she lost her line of credit, the financial firm notified subscription companies, and they came to collect their goods and made her withdraw all of the bank accounts as the cancellation penalty. They even seized her socks! Endless problems; all agents of service provider companies came after another to capture her possessions. Now, she does not have a rental agreement and is living in a subscription-based studio, which allows her to accommodate in different places.

So, they revoked her access to accommodation. The good point was that she owned nothing to be worried about moving them because if she was in need of something, she could rent it from peer to peer rental applications. The eviction occurred very fast. She was sitting at the park near to her residential area with a blanket covering her an old backpack from her college era. She was so shocked that she cannot even cry. But there is one more bad news, she was subscribed to her smartphone, and she did not buy it, so the private law enforcers tracked and seized her smartphone too. Now she cannot call her friends for help if needed. Suddenly, she saw a spark of hope, there was an old tablet in her backpack!

She connected to Wi-Fi hotspot of the park and sent an email to her friends with her location. She remembered one of her best friends who was her colleague as well. Does Karishma know about the algorithm? She may avoid her to keep the algorithm satisfied. After an hour, Tiffany reached to her with an autonomous car, an application that used to provide ride-sharing services, have manufactured autonomous vehicles, and fired its drivers.

Algorithms killed their jobs, and Tiffany was not the only person who lost her job by an algorithm. Vivienne, who was living with her parents, took Tiffany to her townhouse. On the way to her home, she heard about the tragedy, dizziness made them inarticulate. Karishma did not answer her, not because of the algorithm, but because she had been sleeping in a flight in another continent, and did not know anything about the fall of Tiffany. Tiffany did not want to be a burden for Vivienne's family, so trying to leave their home soon. No place to go, no willing to tell her mother about this crisis, no savings, she spent all of her money to pay back her student loan debt and buying services and needed to find a place and work as soon as possible. She tried job search websites, but there were few empty positions and tons of jobless persons. She accidentally opened one of the old games she used to play years ago, and she got surprised. Did she receive more than a hundred messages in that game, why? She had discovered a unique virtual treasure in one of the quests. She does not know about the importance of this virtual asset.

The game became famous after she left the game, and virtual item collectors were willing to pay thousands of dollars to have this item in their chest. She could sell the item for ten thousand dollars, now she could breathe easier. Vivienne's father had bought a minivan in 2018. Still, after a few years, he started to use autonomous minivans by paying for the time he used. Autonomous minivan allowed him to have more time with his family during the vacations, and he needed to spend less. Additionally, the service provider recycles and rebuilds their minivans every year to compete with other prominent service providers. Tiffany wanted to purchase that old car, but Vivienne's father resisted and said, " Keep it as long as you need it." Now, if she ran out of money at least, she would not be without shelter, she can stay in that car.

One week is left to her 30th birthday, Karishma returned to New York. She apologized that she was not with her in a hard time, Karishma worried that the New AI is killing her privacy. Tiffany recognized that while she was busy with that company's daily tasks, she lost track of technology. When She was looking for a job, she found that a small oil-producing country in Persian gulf wanted to use AR/VR technology to create political hegemony. Previously, they bought one of the largest AR/VR Platforms, and now they are providing free VR headsets and suits to every worker. They wanted to bring companies and organizations to abandon their offices and use virtual offices in the platform. This king knew he cannot relocate all the world's companies to his country, but he wanted to have them virtually. Tiffany will start working there soon; the salary is not that good, but she does not need to spend money on transportation.

This time she rented a Computer-mediated reality compatible unit for living. These residential units are small, but they are designed to provide the best experience with sensors and VR accessories. Tiffany does not go to the home decor store to decorate the home, now she can decorate her house with virtual objects. The house is small, but it is bigger than mansions when you live in its VR. Now everything is on track to have a good birthday party.

Tiffany passed the worst of times, and she was going to experience the best of times. There is one more happy news to hear. One day before her birthday, she saw Saam on an online news channel. Saam was her classmate in college. Two years ago he asked her to buy tokens of share in his learning machine algorithm. She did not think of the probability of the success of her investment. She just wanted to help her old nerdy classmate. Surprisingly, the Federal government announced that they are going to use this algorithm. The journalists were interviewing him about his success and the value of her shares has increased by 1500% in just one day! Happy Birthday, Tiffany! Are you ready to kill more jobs?

If you reach this line and skipped the story, think about what you will have in the future!

This article was first published at:

This article is part of The Gaming Metaverse Writing Contest hosted by HackerNoon in partnership with .

Submit your #gaming-metaverse story today for your chance to win up to $2000**.**