

The Sharing Economy - sathishmanohar
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/occupy-big-business-the-sharing-economys-quiet-revolution/249582/

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cmcewen
I agree with the author in that this "Sharing Economy" will play an ever-
increasing role in our economic future, but I think her conclusion that it
requires government support to flourish is incorrect. None of the innovative
services she mentions benefited from a large government loan or huge tax
breaks. I would argue that some services like Kickstarter are prevented from
reaching their full potential because of government laws regarding
crowdfunding.

In order to reach its full potential, government should let the "group of
people with shared needs and a common vision" she describes pursue that vision
with as few hoops to jump through as possible, even if those people don't
happen to be citizens of the United States.

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Hyena
This presumes that the kickstarters have the real resources necessary. The
fact that a lot of people agree with your vision does not ipso facto create
the resources necessary to pursue it.

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cmcewen
What resources are missing? The companies she mentioned all found enough to be
successful. The author just claims that we need "more engagement" from
government without saying what problem that would solve.

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karamazov
I don't think any of those companies was started with the intention of
becoming a nonprofit sustainably tying together the community, as this article
seems to claim. This isn't the emergence of a sharing economy - that makes it
sound like we're moving from capitalism to communism. What we're seeing is
companies utilizing the Internet to bring together markets that would have
been impossible to organize profitably 20 years ago (try running eBay as a
mail-order or phone based system).

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nchuhoai
Dead on. I'm excited to see more services in the sharing economy. ebay and
airbnb is just the beginning ...

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vladsanchez
Google: the Mesh by Lisa Gansky

