This theoretical article highlights limitations in the current trend towards dichotomizing full ownership and access-based consumption by recognizing a broader, more complex array of 'fragmented' 10 ownership configurations in the context of digital virtual goods (DVGs). In challenging this dichotomy, we recognise that the relationship between ownership and possession becomes particularly significant. We therefore consider how prominent DVG ownership configurations may shape the way in which possession is 15 assembled, potentially reducing consumers' scope of action relative to DVGs and leaving possession susceptible to disruption. Conversely, we acknowledge ways in which consumers' continued attempts at possession may impinge upon the agency of ownership mechanisms within the market. Our analysis ultimately builds 20 upon existing understandings of both ownership and possession, theorizing their often overlooked relation in consumption.ARTICLE HISTORY

No abstract

This paper extends prior critical discussions of digital prosumption by demonstrating that prosumer reliant online business models represent new ways to valorise consumer labour through the creation of multiple realities whereby digital consumption objects are simultaneously enacted as assests by companies, and as possessions by consumers. We argue that this ontological multiplicity means that consumers' 'possession work' no longer serves to separate these objects from the market sphere, as in prior work. This produces a new form of consumer lock-in, or actually ensnarement as it is consumers' own efforts to make objects meaningful that keep them in the market, similar to the psychological attachments seen in 'brand love', but also incorporating aspects of proprietary tie-ins, and access-based market systems. We further consider the implications of such a system. For companies we portray such ensnarement as an attractive, emerging mechanism for ongoing valorization of 'free labour'. Yet we also argue that this presents significant consequences for ensnared consumers who may be subject not only to the ongoing financial exploitation of their possession work, but also restrictions on possession. As a broader contribution we highlight how the examination of multiple, potentially conflicting, ontologies in markets may interact and shape one another.2

Reference is increasingly made to 'digital collections', yet this term encompasses accumulated digital objects of varying form, purpose and value. We review social science literature on material collections and draw from in-depth interviews with 20 people in the UK in order to offer a clearer understanding of what constitutes a digital collection and what does not. We develop a taxonomy that presents three distinct types of digital collection and demonstrate ways in which the affordances of digital environments may facilitate or impede meaningful practices of acquisition, curation and exhibition in each case. Through doing so, we present a framework for design in support of collecting practices and the development of more meaningful and valued digital collections.