I wonder whether we are a bit too hung up on the “ownership” aspect of it all? In the UK the idea of “owning” a home means that you have a mortgage, pay it off over 25-40 years and then live in it until you die (or sell it to pay for your care in old age).
In France the model is very different, many more people rent their properties than in the UK & this has the advantage that you can be transient, go where you need to go for work and also means that the maintenance of the property is someone else’s responsibility.

You might say that the person renting the property never “owns” a property but still they call it home.
Technically I haven’t owned a car for 12 years – I have long term leased cars since 2004 as it has worked out more cost effective for me and my growing family. (My grandfather told me that if it depreciates then lease it – and cars depreciate faster than anything!)

When we talk about online ownership (of data in particular) what we really mean is that we don’t want a faceless corporation taking “our” data and using it for their own gain. But in reality do I ever really “own” that data once I have made it publicly available? I totally love the DoOO concept, but I love it more for the moral and ethical standpoint than the ownership standpoint. (I’d rather pay DoOO for hosting and server space and support people who are not faceless than a faceless hosting company). But the reality is that my data is still be stored on servers that are probably co-located with servers owned by the faceless hosting providers too.

A couple of years ago I wrote this post about ephemeral nature of content: http://blog.digis.im/connected-courses/20141014ephemeral-connections-nostalgia-is-just-a-thing-of-the-past/

In this post I observe that we are seeing a shift in the concept of ownership. Our use of digital content means that we are approaching it much more like the French house ownership model. I now rent all of my music & all of my films. I haven’t bought any physical audio or video content in the last 5 years and Kindle is just far too useful when travelling that physical books are actually a hinderance in some situations.

So, when we talk about a DoOO I don’t see the “own” as “ownership” as in the UK house model, but I see it more as a place I pay for that I can call “home”.

When we talk about students “owning” their data – what I think we mean is that they are able to make choices about whether to share that data, understand how it is being used. Many I suspect will be happy to use spaces such as Medium as their “blogging” platform and others will wish to continue to use DoOO. Whatever they choose the main point is that they make an informed decision whether to get a mortgage or not.