The Sharing Economy: Way Forward?
There is a lot of buzz about market-place models like Uber & Airbnb being touted as the future of economic activity & resource sharing. A lot of us are aware of this by now.
What are these platforms exactly? Why are people trusting these platforms to share some of their most personal belongings? What is enabling them to trust these platforms?
In essence, these platforms primarily help facilitate two things:
- To share unused resources
- Create micro-entrepreneurs
Is this something new?
Trade and resource sharing have existed in different forms since the advent of human civilization, which kept evolving over a period of time. Until the early 20th century, majority of the economic activities were based on individuals trading goods or services in local markets that are accessible to them and most importantly the ones they trusted. Even though trust is something intangible it forms a big part of this equation. During those times, people would not buy milk from a local milk vendor unless they trusted him. The Industrial revolution in the early 20th century changed this situation drastically. Large corporations started consolidating operations and creating economies of scale. People started shifting into a society where they trusted the brand reputation of those corporations rather than trusting individuals. Naturally, there has been a gradual decline in trust between peer-to-peer exchange of goods and services.
With the ongoing data revolution, a new phenomenon took place in the past few years. People started sharing some of their most personal stuff (like a spare bedroom, or an empty car seat)through these platforms. It improves the efficiency of our system for sure and also the utilization of idle resources. But we cannot overlook the fact that these are highly personal stuff and need a very high level of mutual trust in order to share them with other people. Enabled by the ability to track GPS, give real-time updates and write reviews through these “sharing platforms”, people started feeling more empowered to trust this activity.
Sources:
[1] http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/2013/11/22/the-sharing-economy-lacks-a-shared-definition/
