Collaborative Consumption Economics And The Internet

One of the main characteristics of the collaborative consumption economy lies in its heavy reliance on the Internet to form direct connections between consumers and suppliers of goods and services, without middlemen. Users find it much more comfortable communicating online, so financial transactions are more often made on the basis of mutual trust. As a result, price is no longer the deciding factor in choosing one item over the other.

More to the point, it blurs the very idea of property. More people no longer want to pay for ownership, and instead choose to go for more complicated transactions and gain temporary access to goods and services. This is how the collaborative consumption economy is different — it’s more complicated, but humane at the same time.

A quote credited to Harvard Business School Professor Theodore Levitt is often used as the unofficial motto for the collaborative consumption economy: “People don’t want quarter-inch drill bits. They want quarter-inch holes”.