On the same day I put my spare room on Airbnb I also had my first cabshare experience, courtesy of Uber. When I mentioned this to a young friend of mine, he patted me on the back and said, ‘Welcome to the sharing economy!’
The sharing economy is one of those buzz terms that everyone uses these days — but what exactly is it? Apparently, it refers to a whole range of online goods and services that instead of buying and owning, we can borrow, rent or have access to — sometimes free, usually for a price. Likewise, we can be the ones providing these goods or services, and make a profit. Share a taxi ride, borrow a dog for an afternoon or rent out your flat for the weekend and you’re part of the sharing economy.
But you’re also part of a brighter and better future — at least according to sharing economy evangelists. They claim it’s a grassroots movement that’s going to radically change capitalism and consumerism as we know it. As my young friend put it, ‘No more yours and mine. In the future everyone will be sharing everything.’
It was then that it suddenly hit me: this sharing future was something I’d already experienced in the past. It was called the 1960s! Of course, we didn’t have the internet and apps back then — but we had the vision and the values that underpin today’s sharing economy. Property was theft and profit was evil, we said. Consumerism was bad for you and bad for the planet. We were going to create an alternative society with an economy based on sharing — and sharing every-thing: your property, your car, your tools, your body, your mind, even your spouse.
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