4 ms·

I hate AirBNB and Uber and the like described as "sharing". As an AirBNB host, I sublet a room. It's a rental agreement, there's nothing fancy or new about it.

I hate AirBNB and Uber and the like described as "sharing". As an AirBNB host, I sublet a room. It's a rental agreement, there's nothing fancy or new about it. There's also no notion of sharing. It's money for services, a regular business transaction. Couchsurfing is sharing: I offer space to a guest, for no direct return.

avz 12y ago
I don't think "to share" means what you think it means. It means "to use or enjoy something jointly or in turns" (source: http://thefreedictionary.com/share http://thefreedictionary.com/share). This doesn't imply "for free". The name "sharing economy" comes from the fact that the property (flat, room, car etc) being provided for use by the customer (generally) remains in use by the owner (either because it can accommodate more than one person or because the owner uses it only temporarily). Perhaps C2C (customer to customer) would be better though and would fit neatly with other business types already called B2B and B2C. I guess it doesn't have the same marketing flair though.
- Xylakant 12y ago
  That's what I mean - most resources are shared. Any kind of sublet agreement is shared. A hotel room is shared. A cab is a shared resource. A bus, a subway is shared - much more so than an Uber car. Roads are shared. That's not a new thing and the term "sharing economy" was coined just for the marketing aspect, to make it sound like something nice, to have the connotation of "sharing a meal with friends", of community. It's not. It's a cold-hearted business transaction - there's nothing wrong with business transactions, but please if it's business, just don't try to get emotional on me.
  - avz 12y ago
    > That's what I mean - most resources are shared. Most resources are not shared. In the old economy only special classes of resources designated to provide a service used to be shared, e.g. taxis and hotels. Now thanks to sharing economy we can (in principle) share every private car on the road and every room in every building. > It's a cold-hearted business transaction Most business transactions I did were warm-hearted. It's a different discussion, but I think most people honestly want to provide a good service and make the other person happy. It sounds like you may have encountered real jerks out there. Business does not preclude care, sharing or community.
    - Xylakant 12y ago
      > Business does not preclude care, sharing or community. No, it doesn't. Quite to the contrary, good relations foster business transactions - nobody wants to do business with jerks. But still, business is first and foremost an exchange: I do something for you, you do something in return. If we both get along, that's even better and if I can give you something for free (that is, not extract the maximum value from that transaction), that's nice and I'm sure you'd probably remember me when you can give. Still, the primary reason for a business transaction is business, not benevolence. That's charity then. It's dangerous to pretend otherwise.
avz 12y ago
> It's a rental agreement, there's nothing fancy or new about it. The novelty is increased utilization through sharing of what used to be exclusive. Private property has a downside: it generally stands unused or underused when owner isn't using it or is only using it partially or temporarily. Sharing economy fixes this problem and allows society to extract value from the underutilized resources we already have. This increases availability and reduces prices of the services included in the sharing economy.
- Xylakant 12y ago
  > The novelty is increased utilization through sharing of what used to be exclusive. Sublet agreements existed for centuries before AirBNB came along. I have lived in sublets before people took the internet for something serious. The novelty is that AirBNB managed to provide a streamlined user experience and achieved a critical mass. The novelty about Uber is that is managed to create a second taxi market in the US. That's a feat in itself, but that's not a "sharing economy". It's certainly an efficiency gain, but hey - efficiency gains are abundant in all parts of the economy, that's nothing new.
  - avz 12y ago
    You do have a point here. What I wrote ("The novelty is increased utilization through sharing of what used to be exclusive.") is actually not the core innovation but its consequence for society. The core innovation of sharing economy is scaling up trust networks people traditionally relied on to mitigate risk involved in sharing transactions. Since the risk of this type of business is high, it used to be done only on a longer term basis, among friends and family and by people who really needed the money and so just had to put up with the risk. This meant that in the old economy sharing transactions were few and far between. Scaling up the trust networks means that they can now become commonplace.

avz 12y ago

I don't think "to share" means what you think it means. It means "to use or enjoy something jointly or in turns" (source: http://thefreedictionary.com/share http://thefreedictionary.com/share). This doesn't imply "for free". The name "sharing economy" comes from the fact that the property (flat, room, car etc) being provided for use by the customer (generally) remains in use by the owner (either because it can accommodate more than one person or because the owner uses it only temporarily). Perhaps C2C (customer to customer) would be better though and would fit neatly with other business types already called B2B and B2C. I guess it doesn't have the same marketing flair though.

Xylakant 12y ago
That's what I mean - most resources are shared. Any kind of sublet agreement is shared. A hotel room is shared. A cab is a shared resource. A bus, a subway is shared - much more so than an Uber car. Roads are shared. That's not a new thing and the term "sharing economy" was coined just for the marketing aspect, to make it sound like something nice, to have the connotation of "sharing a meal with friends", of community. It's not. It's a cold-hearted business transaction - there's nothing wrong with business transactions, but please if it's business, just don't try to get emotional on me.
- avz 12y ago
  > That's what I mean - most resources are shared. Most resources are not shared. In the old economy only special classes of resources designated to provide a service used to be shared, e.g. taxis and hotels. Now thanks to sharing economy we can (in principle) share every private car on the road and every room in every building. > It's a cold-hearted business transaction Most business transactions I did were warm-hearted. It's a different discussion, but I think most people honestly want to provide a good service and make the other person happy. It sounds like you may have encountered real jerks out there. Business does not preclude care, sharing or community.
  - Xylakant 12y ago
    > Business does not preclude care, sharing or community. No, it doesn't. Quite to the contrary, good relations foster business transactions - nobody wants to do business with jerks. But still, business is first and foremost an exchange: I do something for you, you do something in return. If we both get along, that's even better and if I can give you something for free (that is, not extract the maximum value from that transaction), that's nice and I'm sure you'd probably remember me when you can give. Still, the primary reason for a business transaction is business, not benevolence. That's charity then. It's dangerous to pretend otherwise.

avz 12y ago

> It's a rental agreement, there's nothing fancy or new about it. The novelty is increased utilization through sharing of what used to be exclusive. Private property has a downside: it generally stands unused or underused when owner isn't using it or is only using it partially or temporarily. Sharing economy fixes this problem and allows society to extract value from the underutilized resources we already have. This increases availability and reduces prices of the services included in the sharing economy.

Xylakant 12y ago
> The novelty is increased utilization through sharing of what used to be exclusive. Sublet agreements existed for centuries before AirBNB came along. I have lived in sublets before people took the internet for something serious. The novelty is that AirBNB managed to provide a streamlined user experience and achieved a critical mass. The novelty about Uber is that is managed to create a second taxi market in the US. That's a feat in itself, but that's not a "sharing economy". It's certainly an efficiency gain, but hey - efficiency gains are abundant in all parts of the economy, that's nothing new.
- avz 12y ago
  You do have a point here. What I wrote ("The novelty is increased utilization through sharing of what used to be exclusive.") is actually not the core innovation but its consequence for society. The core innovation of sharing economy is scaling up trust networks people traditionally relied on to mitigate risk involved in sharing transactions. Since the risk of this type of business is high, it used to be done only on a longer term basis, among friends and family and by people who really needed the money and so just had to put up with the risk. This meant that in the old economy sharing transactions were few and far between. Scaling up the trust networks means that they can now become commonplace.