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The Pros And Cons Of Sharing Economy

Decent Essays

The new wave of businesses and the myriad of terms which accompany – co-production, collaborative consumption, on-demand economy, now form today’s Sharing Economy; a hybrid of social exchanges and economic interests governed by reputation systems. Its commercial agenda is significant as previous notions of communitarian and cooperative vision which focused on personal experiential exchanges are now defined by a small number of firms backed by large amounts of venture capital. The sharing economy takes its inspiration from one tenet of the Internet culture: a belief in the virtues of openness. Openness and sharing go hand in hand: to make something is to stop it being a commodity. Economically, openness has two roles: it is an alternative to commerce, but it also generates new forms of commerce, and …show more content…

By ‘producing’ we refer to the act of design, making and distribution of goods and services. ‘Consuming’ here refers to the maximum utilization of these resources and assets. The industrialization of production has provided a wide array of choices to the consumers in the aisles of stores. Being a consumer however meant having to navigate through these choices presented to us and making the best decisions instead of being a major role in the creation of these choices. As professor and political theorist, Benjamin Barber, puts it that “we are seduced into thinking that the right to choose from a menu is the essence of liberty, but with respect to relevant outcomes, the real power, and hence the real freedom, is in the determination of what’s on the menu.” Consumers in the sharing economy do not have the option of trusting each other based on institutional affiliations hence the reliance on reputation systems as signalling mechanisms claimed to strengthen the fragile relationship between quality and

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