“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.”
-Tom Goodwin
Tom Goodwin very well may be on to something. The sharing economy has taken off due to incumbents like Uber and AirBnb that have disrupted the conventional ways of personal mobility and hospitality. Between the two, they have achieved a market cap of $103 billion. Amid the information age, we are laying witness to the power and impact that platforms have to connect people, goods, and services.
Long before the digital revolution and the information age, communities have been sharing assets with friends and neighbors, but with the advent of the internet, has made it exceptionally easy for asset-owners to connect with asset-seekers (Chappelow, 2019). In short, the sharing economy utilizes crowd platforms to establish a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. This allows for underutilized to provide value to others.
As one of the fastest-growing trends in business, the share-based model is making impressive gains. Since 2010, more than $23B in investments have been secured for startups since 2010 (Miller, 2019). It is expected that the market will continue to grow and reach a forecast of $335B by 2025.
The sharing economy is one of the most recent economic trends that has had an enormous impact on how businesses operate. The phenomenon has paved the way for the development of new business models. It has granted people and communities to create, connect, and collaborate. From a humanity standpoint, by placing sharing and accessibility at the epicenter of commerce, tremendous value can be unlocked for the economy, people, and planet (Matofska, 2019).
Which industries will the share economy disrupt next?
References
Chappelow, J. (2019, Jun 25). Sharing Economy. Retrieved from Investopedia: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharing-economy.asp
Matofska, B. (2019, June 18). The Sharing Economy: Changing Business For The Better. Retrieved from Disruption: https://disruptionhub.com/sharing-economy-better-business-benita-matofska-6357/
Miller, D. (2019, June 25). The Sharing Economy and How it Is Changing Industries. Retrieved from The Balance: Small Business: https://www.thebalancesmb.com/the-sharing-economy-and-how-it-changes-industries-4172234
Thanks for your sharing about the crowd economy. As a Chinese, I have been seeing the changes of the sharing economy in the past years and it’s been growing dramatically fast. From the most successful business sharing bikes to the newest business sharing power banks, it’s changing how people live and work. The fundamental concept is to share something you have but not in use with someone who needs that and ask for some benefits in return. I think it’s a good business model and it also contributes to our society. It’s creating values with idle items, which avoid resource waste. However, we have to be really careful about it. For example, several P2P lending platform felled and the investors lost a lot of money. When people see the huge benefit of these P2P lending, they ignore the risks behind it. In conclusion, sharing economy is an innovative business model and it will keep growing. But we have to bare in mind the risks behind it.