In China, you can rent umbrellas, basketballs, washers — for a fee
The sharing economy is booming
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Emily Rauhala.
Flush with cash and buoyed by a billion-dollar bike sharing boom, China’s venture capitalists have gone sharing-mad, funding companies that allow users to share everything from washing machines to basketballs and umbrellas.
Chinese authorities recently shuttered a service that let people pay to sleep in windowless pods. There were questions about hygiene, according to local reports.
In some ways, the enthusiasm makes sense.
China’s vibrant but tightly regulated tech sector has been booming, with sharing leading the way.
- Chinese ride-sharing giant Didi bought out Uber China.
- Airbnb is fighting Chinese rivals to win a piece of the home-share market.
A nation-wide move
The country’s top leaders know they must shift to a service-based economy.
To help things along, the state has thrown money into the start-up scene and nurtured homegrown tech companies, in part by keeping others out. (Sorry, Google.)
A service-based economy
At a 2016 tech conference, Robin Li, chief executive of the search engine Baidu, suggested the sharing economy is in tune with China’s socialist ethos. Both, he said, focus on distribution according to need.
The new, government-run Sharing Economy Research Center estimates the following:
- The sharing sector grew 103 percent in 2016, with deals close to $500 billion.
- Researchers predicted an annual growth rate of 40 percent in the years ahead.
- By 2020, the sharing economy will account for 10 percent of the country’s GDP, the center said.
What is a ‘sharing economy’?
If a company orders a bunch of new bikes or umbrellas and lets people rent them with their phone, is that sharing? Or is it renting with your phone?
In China, there’s now a shared washing machine service.
There’s also a shared drying service.
Anywhere else, they would be called laundromats. Or, perhaps, laundromats where you pay with your phone.
Along the same lines, is a phone-activated, two-person karaoke booth in a mall a karaoke share, or just a smaller and louder version of the status quo, plus phone?
In some cases, companies are launching products that seem like less convenient versions of things that already exist — a fact that does not seem to stop the funding.
Andy Xie, an independent economist in Shanghai, said the rush of investment feels a lot like a bubble. “In the past four, five years, every year there is something different to speculate on,” he said.
Beijing, a city with free workout machines in public parks, now has “shared gyms,” a.k.a, outhouse-size workout pods activated by your phone. Investors are betting that people will pay for the chance to sweat and jiggle in a small glass box on the street.
