Ownership isn’t about who pays. It’s about who controls the connection. That single distinction quietly governs how durable a business actually is — and most owners have never looked at their company through it. You pay for your ads, your website, your tools, your leads. The invoices have your name on them, so it’s reasonable to assume all of it is yours. But paying for something every month and owning it are not the same thing, and the gap between the two is where a great ma