Peer2Politics

Something died. I feel a sense of loss that I just can’t shake. The Sharing Economy has become an icon and an emblem for a business model rather than a movement. The phrase has taken on a meaning that has everyone questioning the actual altruism of technology-enabled sharing, especially when money is exchanged.

"The sharing economy is making many previously informal or unregulated transactions safer and auditable.
We envisage a world in which, for example, far fewer people will own cars in cities
We were not convinced by the popular belief that the sharing economy constitutes some fundamental threat to capitalism or the arrival of peer-to-peer dominance in certain forms of transaction. We believe the peer-to-peer nature of certain transactions (individuals hiring out their tools or houses via an app, say) is a passing transitional phase.
If most of us own a drill, there will be many individually-owned, under-utilised drills to hire (or even simply lend). But once it becomes easy enough to hire most assets for short periods, owning them will become unattractive to all but the hirers.
We envisage a world in which, for example, far fewer people will own cars in cities. The future for the sharing economy lies in specialist companies owning most assets and hiring them out to individuals.
There is an interesting analogy here with feudal modes of production, in which many key assets were held in common. It seems plausible to us that a society in which most people individually own large numbers of the key assets they use could have been a passing historical anomaly.
However, those who suggest this implies the sharing economy will be associated with increased inequality are probably mistaken. The money we save by not owning a car, say, could be spent instead on owning shares in a car-sharing app platform."

Public fridges with free food, community-supported agriculture, borrowing shops and knowledge-sharing: the German capital is at the forefront of a whole new system of trade