Mounted, not copied
When you subscribe to another actor's content, what actually happens? The content is mounted in your selfspace — a reference, not a duplicate. You can see it. You can interact with it. You can combine it with other content, transform it, and publish the transformation. But the original remains at the source. You didn't take a copy. You established a subscription — a live connection that updates when the source updates.
This is how the web was supposed to work. A URL is a reference, not a copy. When you visit a website, you see the current version. But the web only achieved this for rendered pages, consumed through a browser. Inflect OS extends the reference model to all content, at the data level, integrated into every actor's selfspace.
Real-world examples
Banking
Your bank publishes a stream of your transactions. Your selfspace subscribes to it. The transactions appear in your financial view — not as a downloaded CSV, not as a PDF statement, but as structured data you can query and analyze. When the bank records a new transaction, it appears in your selfspace automatically. No copy was made. The data flowed.
Healthcare
Your doctor publishes a medication adjustment to your health stream. Your pharmacy is also subscribed. It receives the adjustment simultaneously and prepares the medication. No prescription was printed. No fax was sent. The publication propagated through subscriptions.
Creative Work
An artist publishes a song as separate tracks — drums, bass, vocals, mix settings. A producer subscribes to these tracks. A remix artist subscribes to a subset. The original tracks remain with the artist. Everyone works from the same source. No files were exchanged. No copies were made.