Peer2Politics

In Paris this week, at the Ouishare Fest, the great and the good from Europe's sharing economy have been delving deep into what it means to be running a collaborative business model within a capitalist framework. Are the two even compatible? Or is there a fundamental conflict at the heart of an industry that preaches collaboration but, due to being radically commercialised by venture capital money from Silicon Valley, also needs to profiteer from the goodwill of others if it's to remain viable?

For the most part it's a hypocrisy the community is trying to address. The $1bn elephant in the room -- the fact some aspects of the sharing economy are becoming the very thing they set out not to be -- has basically become too enormous to ignore.