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All the discussion here seems to revolve around AirBnb in particular and neglect all of the other sharing services mentioned in the article. My first thoughts
by tehstone 14y ago
All the discussion here seems to revolve around AirBnb in particular and neglect all of the other sharing services mentioned in the article.
My first thoughts on this relate to those other services. In particular, car and equipment sharing. Sure it's a great idea to rent out stuff you're not currently using, but if everyone starts to rely on the availability of whatever they need, whenever they need it, what is the incentive to actually buy anything for yourself? Further down the road, when an increasingly large portion of the population just assumes they can borrow/rent whatever they need and have decided to never buy anything for themselves, there will eventually be a shortage in goods to be borrowed/rented. So to me, this seems like a market with a very low cap on growth. Namely, when that threshold of borrowers vs owners is reached.
- cerebrum 14y agoWhen that threshold is reached people will start buying stuff again, increasing said threshold. Eventually the system will converge to a stable point, or it will continually adapt due to changing economics/demographics. Isn't it beautiful how markets can self-regulate?