The Benefits Of The Sharing Economy

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Today’s on-line travel market is succeeding because the companies are using a more software-centric, online business model termed “E-commerce.” This has become the popular avenue for businesses as it mirrors the ideas of mobility. The sheer amount of data available, coupled with the advanced operating systems and social media platforms, have created new possibilities for E-commerce organizations. The infrastructure of E-commerce has expanded into platforms such as peer-to-peer networking, crowd-sourcing, social websites, and mobile devices and media. E-commerce trends are findings ways to incorporate every aspect of our daily lives into an online package associated with our everyday needs (Fishbein, 2013).

We are all aware of the facts – that materiality is unsustainable; that consumption is overwhelming; that economic gain is all pervasive. Yet we favour ignorance. Time has caught up with us and the self-interested ideals that once held our society together are no longer durable. This has produced a gap, but nothing palpable to replace it with. Hence individuals like you and I must resort to other avenues of fulfilment.

Everyone in this modern society is obsessed with having the best of the best items and technology. The world economy consists of billions of transactions every day (Etzioni, 2012). In this society, three-fourths of those transactions are on things people do not need but desperately want just to fit in. These points were put very acutely when Etzioni said, “But when one attempts to satisfy these higher needs through the simple acquisition of goods and services, consumption turns into consumerism — and consumerism becomes a social disease” (Etzioni, 2012).

Employment received a hard hit by the recession, but this “gig economy” has been able to provide job openings that are in need. According to a recent study, jobs in the gig economy has grown from 9 to 14% from 2002 to 2014, compared to overall employment which only grew around 7%. Moreover, the gig economy has also had an impact in the current economy, specifically coming from the famous startups such as Uber and Lyft. The Uber and

Additionally, AskforTask practices the idea of collaborative consumption, also identified as a sharing economy. The notion emphasises

"This is something better described as internet-enabled, crowd-sourced capitalism because that's really what it's about," Stephenson said. "It's creating an opportunity by using the internet to monetize some assets that would be difficult for us as individuals to monetize."

In text 2 “Learning the wonders of the sharing economy in trip to Denver” (2014) by Catharine Hamm, Hamm talks about, how the sharing economy has made her whole experience to Denver, and how impressed she is by the fact that the business is build on trust, as she says “And I didn’t get ripped off - or worse - by anyone. Which may be the most surprising

The “gig economy”, a terminological alternative to the sharing economy, is possibly the the next major workforce revolution. Providing many individuals means of gainful employment with schedules and opportunities that otherwise would not have been available, this economy of sharing is uncovering many vulnerabilities with the current state of affairs in theis country. Because of this, it could be said this new economic revolution is a double edged blade. Though this metaphor has foreboding connotations, the bennifit of te two edged blade is are more apparent when weilded by a sjulled practioner. As it stands, the gig economy is still in its infancy, so it isn’t surprising that those with a greater understanding of economies and group mobilization

Finally Botsman and Rogers (2011), after categorizing the market places where physical goods can be shared, exchanged and rented claim that such practices can be implemented with intangible goods as well. In other words, assets such as skills, money and space can be shared and exchanged in a network of people with similar interests. These shared systems are named Collaborative Lifestyles and in this category, they are included exchanges in a local level, such as sharing working spaces (eg THECUBE London), errands (eg Taskrabbit) and skills (eg Skillshare) as well as in a global level in sectors like P2P social lending (eg Zopa) and travel (eg CouchSurfing)( Botsman and Rogers, 2011).

”Free trade policies have created a level of competition in today's open market that engenders continual innovation and leads to better products, better-paying jobs, new markets, and increased savings and investment” (Denise Froning). Though Free trade plays a huge role in the economy today because of what and where it is used. Free trade allows for traders to trade across national boundaries and other countries without government interference. Meaning that traders have very few regulations that allow for them to do this without the government intervening. Free trade makes things for traders much easier and also allows for many more jobs in the US, such as exporting jobs, or jobs in the auto industry and plants. Though there are many

imagine living in a world in which there are infinite amounts of goods and resources to satisfy every human desire. People will not find need to budget their limited incomes, businesses will not worry about the cost of labor, and governments will not have reason to tax its citizens, or give importance to environmental issues. People living in this society will be equal to one another and everything would be free, like water in the ocean and sand in the desert. All prices would be zero and society will not find need for markets or financial institutions. Unfortunately we do not live in a utopia of limitless possibilities; we live in a scarce world of unlimited wants. Given unlimited wants, we must make the best use of our limited resources, a science our ancestors have developed and named economics. This study measures how societies use scarce resources to produce valuable commodities and distribute them efficiently among different people.

Nowadays, the Internet has implemented great impacts on people’s life, and it also has changed the business world significantly. In order for companies to cope up with the changing customer demands, they must adopt new technologies not only to support their business functions but also to reduce paper works, reduce costs, and provide better services. Bitcoin is a currency of the Internet, distributed, worldwide, decentralized digital money that be developed as a new payment method. In Australia, the regulator has defined Bitcoin as property instead of currency for accounting purposes (King, 2015 February). Although Bitcoins are not materially existed, it can be exchanged for goods and services at places that accept it, the same way you would give someone a dollar for a cookie.

According to the European Credit Research Institute, the term ‘peer-to-peer’ (P2P) describes the interaction between two parties without the need for a central intermediary. The term originated in the field of computer networking, to describe a network where any one computer can act as either a client or a server to other computers on the network without having to connect to a centralised server (A. Milne and P. Parboteeah, 2016). Peer-to-peer lending is used to describe online marketplaces where lenders (also referred interchangeably as investors) can lend to individuals or small businesses (A. Mateescu, 2015). Peer-to-peer lending activities have grown exponentially since the concept launched. For instance, from 2015 to 2016, P2P lending activities went up by 39%, from £2.3bn to £3.2bn (Bondmason, 2017).

More specifically, individuals are espousing ‘self-employment’ and contingent work over more traditional roles (Cherry & Aloisi, 2017). Economists share contrasting views of the ‘gig economy’; some argue that the gig economy is a hindrance to world economy and is in fact just an opportunity for capitalistic empires to take advantage of cheap labour with little economic risk, whilst others argue that contingent work is beneficial to the employment world and is the new future of work (Scheiber, 2015; Cherry & Aloisi, 2017; De Stefano, 2015). This report will analyse the gig economy in depth from an industrial relations perspective, highlighting the major benefits and downfalls of contingent work for employees, its appropriateness in the modern world and the economic future of employment in order to determine which apposing argument is the most