This Week in the Sharing Economy

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  1. Almost this week… an 11 minute video from Reason.tv Uber Wars: How D.C.Tried to Kill a Great New Ride Technology

  2. Lots of interesting articles.

    I’d add that the “parasitic” article misses something. Lyft, like Ryanair and Easyjet is profiting from a short-term devaluation of the capital goods of the industry. A few years down the line (as we’ve seen with Easyjet and are beginning to see with Ryanair) the normal capital costs start to come back into the equation and all the talk of disruption starts to look pretty hollow. Meet the new airline, very similar to the old airline.

    In Lyft’s case, this is that you have this reserve of underemployed people who own cars. So you have a twofold change over time. First, some of the underemployed will find other things to do as the economy picks up and others will have to sell their car as the income doesn’t actually cover the costs that well…

    Airbnb has similar issues, but they are less easily analysed because as noted, the new crop of Airbnb’ers aren’t “normal individuals” at all, but large scale landlords – businesses, some of them quite large.

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