&quot;Abusive&quot; might not convey the situation exactly.<p>But if Homedepot and ever other hardware store suddenly developed a technology that let them sell wood that worked great for many standard construction practices but would suddenly demand more money for artists or anyone doing anything usual with that material, one would could easily feel that one&#x27;s world had become truncated.<p>I&#x27;d rather call that abuse than not-abuse.<p>The ability to buy a thing, an object, that you can do whatever the heck you want with (by yourself, in the private of your home), is the antidote for being <i>serf</i> to pay-by-what-we-think-it&#x27;s-worth-to-you services.<p>Even you choose to purchase services instead of things, the existence of things keeps the service provider honest and oppositely the non-existence of things makes the serfdom more onerous.