From Functionality to Access. Towards the Replacement of Material Goods by Networked Services?

Is the classic model of the market, based on trade in exclusive ownership rights, still relevant? Sociologist François Cusin poses this question here, taking account of the striking development in recent years of the functionality economy, in which the sale of the use of a good has taken the place of the sale of that good alone — a trend which, in the author’s words, changes “the way of producing, marketing and consuming goods and services”. Drawing on many examples, Cusin mentions, in particular, the process by which companies have divested themselves of material property — resorting increasingly to leasing arrangements (for buildings or vehicles and IT equipment) — and the rise of service contracts, which enable companies to maintain ‘a lasting bond with the client.’ Another crucial phenomenon, as François Cusin sees it, is the link between the functionality economy and access economy, in which “the most decisive issue [for consumers] is the availability of the basic services on which access to all other services is subsequently conditional”. In this context, where membership of common interest networks seems primordial and where property rights are now less important than access rights, new service contracts are emerging, notes Cusin and, to back up his point, he outlines the American model of common interest developments — private residences or settlements, managed on a co-ownership basis. In this way he analyses the influence of the dual principle of functionality and access on housing arrangements.