My auntie is in hospital for christmas this year.

It's been identified as flu, but it seriously affected her because she has a lot of heath problems including terminal cancer.

Every year at christmas she likes to watch The Wizard of Oz. She has a copy of it I got on google play for her which she can play on her tablet. So this year my dad brought her tablet to me before taking it to the hospital.

Why did my dad need to bring it to me? Well they don't have internet at their house, and every so often google decides to lock you out of the google play movies app until you connect to the internet to verify the licence. That's right, downloaded copies of a movie that you purchaced can be taken from you on a whim.

But whatever, my dad has brought it to me, lets connect it to the internet and get it working for her.

So I connect it to the internet and I click onto the app, it says that new higher quality versions are available for the movies. I don't care, just let me check it plays... oh, it's not downloaded anymore. Okay, let me download this new copy, huh. Failed to download. I click on another one that is still downloaded from before and it says "video format not supported". Well that's a lie, it is a fairly old android tablet, but I haven't downloaded anything since connecting to the internet so this is the same copy of the movie that has played fine previously on this tablet.

Maybe the app needs updating. So I go to google play store and go through the 50,000 security verifications. And I click find updates, and it says unable to find updates. Consistently it fails.

I try clearing the data, and fortunately it starts working, and it updates some things, not the google play movies app though.

I also clear the data for the google play movies app but it does not work. I look on my laptop, but there is no way to download the film. Google has it locked firmly in their grasps.

You do not own the things you pay for.

After spending ages, I eventually give up. The visiting slot to see my auntie is approaching, there is too little time left. So I pirate the movie (please don't arrest me, it's google's fault). Now she has an mp4 on her tablet that will always work.

Google is contributing to the destruction of the concept of ownership, as are many services of the modern age. I will no longer support them, and I encourage you to do the same.