Sharing economy

The sharing economy (also called peer-to-peer economy) is economic activity that involves individuals buying or selling usually temporary access to goods or services especially as arranged through an online company or organization.

Examples

Some notable examples include the renting platform Airbnb and the ridesharing platform Uber.

CouchSurfing connects people who have a spare bed or couch and are willing to share it with others for free, opening up the world to travel for people who otherwise couldn’t afford it.

Prosper allows people to loan each other money (i.e., cutting out the middleman). Kickstarter can get projects of wildly differing sizes and variety funded. Elance provides a way for freelancers to find work. And Craigslist is basically one giant garage sale.

Through Patreon, fans of various creators can offer a monthly donation that will automatically be withdrawn from their account, effectively giving these artists a salary.

DonorSee is a charity that connects supplier with “customer” directly and in real-time, allowing users to transfer cash to individual needs posted by on-site aid workers who know better than anyone what needs are truly urgent.

Links

• Per Bylund on the Sharing Economy in Entrepreneur by Tho Bishop, January 2016
• The Left’s War on Uber, Sharing, and the Poor by Andrew Syrios, Janyary 2015
• Pop Music Shows How Uber Will Beat the Status Quo by Daniel Dalton, March 2016
• 6 Reasons the Uber Economy Isn't Destroying Good Jobs by R.J. Lehmann, July 2015
• How Life Finds a Way in the Regulatory State by Sandy Ikeda, August 2015
• Uberocracy: How the Sharing Economy Changes Politics by Zachary Slayback, July 2015
• Michael Munger on the Sharing Economy Econtalk, July 2014
• Nathan Blecharczyk on Airbnb and the Sharing Economy Econtalk, September 2014
• Sharing economy at Wikipedia