The new sharing economy

THE NEW SHARING ECONOMY

In theses documents we can see a new business market based on sharing.

There are some companies like UBER, RelayRides or AirBnb grow up very quickly using new information technologies. Indeed we have some numbers. For example AirBnb offers more than 250.000 rooms in 30.000 differents cities and 192 countries. Which is absolutly huge. Last night 40.000 peoples rented rooms. Since 2008 more than 4M people have already used AIRBNB.

In fact it is the smartphones that have greatly helped the evolution of this new sharing economy including GPS and social networks because it provide a way to check up on people and build trust. And then paiements are safe by the websites.

The main development force of this economy is that everyone can became a driver, or rent his car and also a room. Simply by downloading the application. This is the peer to peer businesses.

People can now buy something that they couldn’t before. This is an advantage for consumers because prices are lower. Which is also good for the environment as it means fewer cars and fewer resources required.

The main trouble of this new economy is the establishments of rules and standards. Taxi companies and hotels are subject to regulations and licence fees and also strict rules while UBER and AirBNB doesn’t.

This new sharing economy can benefit greatly, but the government must react to protect consumers and suppliers alike. It boosts the labour market and gives consumers power such as estimating travel time, see the history of the driver and online payments but has its limits.

Because taxi drivers are more expensive due to taxes and strict rules with certain standards. This could be called unfair competition.

The Grattan Institute report finds that a majority of AirBnb activity is not in people’s primary residence, this investment properties that would have been using for longterm renters.

In this case this is not sharing economy but individual profits economy. This economy is here to stay.

Jobs with good contracts and wages are being replaced by precarious jobs. We have a former driver who tells us that he works more than 60 hours a week without leave or health insurance. There are more than 900,000 people in this situation in the UK.

John Mcdonnell tells us that we must react and set rules against these new form of gig employment.

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