The Future of the Sharing Economy
It is clear that the principles behind the sharing economy, such as using peer-to-peer platform technologies to connect people to resources they need, have potential to do real good in the world. It is also clear that there are issues with the sharing economy. In many instances, the corporations use the term sharing economy to mask their profit driven motive behind a veil of supposed morality and selflessness. Additionally, racism and discrimination are still prevalent in this new form of economic interaction. How can proponents of the sharing economy work to eliminate the problems and highlight the benefits? Some argue that a cultural shift towards community sharing is necessary, while others promote the proliferation of platform cooperatives as the ethical future of platform based sharing.
Community Sharing
What would a shift toward community sharing look like? There are already many organizations who have taken that shift to heart and are serving their communities by enabling sharing. Two examples include the network of community fridges in the UK and the many Libraries of Things across the world, including one in Hillsboro!
Community Fridges are fridges where members of a local community can donate their healthy perishable food that would other wise go to waste. They are run by volunteer members of the community and, according to CEO of Hubbub Trewin Restorick, aim to "develop spaces where people can learn new cooking skills, make new contacts and get the most value from food that would have been wasted."
A library of things is similar to a tool library and a normal library except they have all sorts of things, from musical instruments, to bakeware. These libraries work under the same principle the sharing economy in that they make use of resources that would otherwise go underused if everyone owned them. There is a library of things in Hillsboro, approximately 20 miles from campus.
These are examples of the types of services that can be provided when communities embrace a shift toward community sharing .
Community Fridges are fridges where members of a local community can donate their healthy perishable food that would other wise go to waste. They are run by volunteer members of the community and, according to CEO of Hubbub Trewin Restorick, aim to "develop spaces where people can learn new cooking skills, make new contacts and get the most value from food that would have been wasted."
A library of things is similar to a tool library and a normal library except they have all sorts of things, from musical instruments, to bakeware. These libraries work under the same principle the sharing economy in that they make use of resources that would otherwise go underused if everyone owned them. There is a library of things in Hillsboro, approximately 20 miles from campus.
These are examples of the types of services that can be provided when communities embrace a shift toward community sharing .
Platform Cooperatives
Neal Gorenflo in an article on shareable.com explains that sharing economy mega-corporations like Uber and Airbnb are sometimes called "Death Stars" in reference to their aggressive ambition and pursuit of economic domination. In these corporations, the people who make them possible (the drivers and hosts) give value to the company, and that value benefits the company and its investors. In a cooperative platform, the workers would own the company, therefore the workers would benefit from the value that they add to the company.
Platform cooperatives are not nearly as common, or as powerful as the "death stars", but there are several instances of their success around the world. Enspiral is a platform cooperative in New Zealand. Enspiral is a collective of activists and social enterprises who pool together their resources and "make administrative decisions and budget collectively, with help from several open-source software programs. These include Loomio, a collective decision-making platform, and Cobudget, both of which were developed within the Enspiral network.” Another example of a successful platform cooperative is Loconomics. It is a San Francisco based service similar to TaskRabbit, except the contractors are also owners of Loconomics and benefit from the company's growth.
Platform cooperatives are not nearly as common, or as powerful as the "death stars", but there are several instances of their success around the world. Enspiral is a platform cooperative in New Zealand. Enspiral is a collective of activists and social enterprises who pool together their resources and "make administrative decisions and budget collectively, with help from several open-source software programs. These include Loomio, a collective decision-making platform, and Cobudget, both of which were developed within the Enspiral network.” Another example of a successful platform cooperative is Loconomics. It is a San Francisco based service similar to TaskRabbit, except the contractors are also owners of Loconomics and benefit from the company's growth.
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