Your smartphone, your streaming library, even your tractor—none of them actually belong to you. Companies can lock you out, delete your data, revoke your access, or simply shut down the servers your devices rely on. And now with AI moderation quietly deleting accounts behind the scenes… who’s really in control?
In this episode of Legitimate Cybersecurity, Frank and Dr. Dustin Brewer explore:
How Apple, Google, Tesla, and John Deere can remotely brick your devices
Why your “purchased” movies on Vudu/Fandango can disappear
The subscription takeover: cars, games, self-driving, even pill bottles
How AI bots on Reddit, Facebook, and Google can silently erase your account
Why Gen Z and Gen Alpha face a job market that’s never been harder
The hidden danger of companies shutting down and taking your devices with them
Whether you can really own anything digital anymore
From tractors to Tesla pricing chaos, FMV Sega nostalgia, disappearing media libraries, HOA jokes, and mushroom farming jokes… this episode covers the entire collapsing spectrum of digital ownership in 2025.
What’s something you thought you owned… that you later realized wasn’t really yours?
Post it in the comments — we’ll feature the best ones.
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00:00 – Cold Open: “Your phone can be remotely disabled—so do you actually own it?”
00:33 – Streaming, OS licensing, and why your iPhone is rented, not owned
01:20 – Companies can delete your data at will — Google, Tesla, Apple
01:45 – The John Deere DRM nightmare
02:58 – Gaming industry: the original warning sign
04:09 – Cloud gaming, Stadia, GeForce Now, and the upside of subscriptions
05:59 – But tractors doubling in price? Ownership gone wrong
06:30 – “They can brick you at any moment” — the Dustin phone hypothetical
07:23 – Dustin’s reaction: “I’d never use Google again”
08:08 – OFAC, false positives, and the real risk of automated bans
08:43 – Dustin’s farming family and the tractor brand civil war
09:24 – The horse-as-subscription joke + automated farming tech
10:35 – Tesla’s bizarre pricing, self-driving subscriptions, and BlueCruise
12:08 – Frank’s Sega CD tragedy and the death of ownership nostalgia
13:42 – Porn, HD DVD vs Blu-ray, and where video compression really came from
15:55 – Streaming illusions of ownership: Vudu → Fandango disaster
17:27 – EULA manipulations and the illusion of choice
18:56 – Forced ads even with “ad-free” subscriptions
19:27 – Millennials vs the streaming trap — we’re back to cable pricing
20:27 – Pillsy shutdown: When smart devices die because companies die
21:49 – The normalization of owning nothing
23:33 – Subscription cars, self-driving distrust, and ambulances costing thousands
24:40 – Can we stop the subscription takeover? Voting with wallet & laws
25:34 – Food costs, Whole Foods jokes, inflation, and generational struggle
26:10 – Mitsubishi Mirage, Slate truck, and forced compromise
27:30 – Gen Z’s brutal job market and AI crushing coder roles
29:33 – The CyberSeek fallout: disappearing salary data
32:20 – AI moderation deleting posts and accounts without warning
33:33 – Should AI ever be allowed to delete people? Objectivity vs bias
35:19 – Moderating subreddits and HOAs = punishment jobs
36:16 – What digital things do you really own? NAS vs cloud
37:26 – Photos, privacy, and pulling memories off the cloud
38:25 – Average people don’t have the tools to self-host anything
39:13 – Benjamin Franklin quote + “It’s too late to go back”
40:32 – Knock-knock joke + Dustin’s hope speech
42:24 – The 98% vs the 2% — who really has control
43:54 – Outro + Raspberry Pi phone joke
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