Sharing is caring and it's the future!

The sharing economy is an economic model often defined as a peer-to-peer based activity of acquiring, providing or sharing access to goods and services that are facilitated by a community based platform.

The sharing economy has evolved over the past few years where it now serves as an all-encompassing term that refers to a host of on-line economic transactions that may even include business to business interactions. Other platforms that have joined the sharing economy include:

• Co-working Platforms - Companies that provide shared open work spaces for freelancers, entrepreneurs, and work-from-home employees in major metropolitan areas.
• Peer-to-Peer Lending Platforms – Companies that allow for individuals to lend money to other individuals at rates cheaper than those offered through traditional credit lending entities.
• Fashion Platforms – Sites that allow for individuals to sell or rent their clothes.
• Freelancing Platforms – Sites that offer to match freelance workers across a wide spectrum ranging from traditional freelance work to services traditionally reserved to handymen.

Peering into the future

The sharing economy is a little like online shopping, which started in America 15 years ago. At first, people were worried about security. But having made a successful purchase from, say, Amazon, they felt safe buying elsewhere. Similarly, using Airbnb or a car-hire service for the first time encourages people to try other offerings. Next, consider eBay. Having started out as a peer-to-peer marketplace, it is now dominated by professional “power sellers” (many of whom started out as ordinary eBay users). The same may happen with the sharing economy, which also provides new opportunities for enterprise. 

In the past, new ways of doing things online have not displaced the old ways entirely. But they have often changed them. Just as internet shopping forced Walmart and Tesco to adapt, so online sharing will shake up transport, tourism, equipment-hire and more.

The sharing economy is the latest example of the internet’s value to consumers (see Free exchange). This emerging model is now big and disruptive enough for regulators and companies to have woken up to it. That is a sign of its immense potential. It is time to start caring about sharing.