
The Sharing Economy Was Dead on Arrival - mrxd
https://daily.jstor.org/the-sharing-economy-was-dead-on-arrival/
======
SolarNet
> Why didn’t we see it coming? How did sharing economy companies manage to
> evade scrutiny for so long?

Plenty of people saw it coming. As much as fellow members of my generation
enthusiastically embraced the sharing/gig economy for survival, most of them
acknowledged that the companies were in the end going to be worse. They were
just less worse than having no income. Those that thought this were the future
were just deluding themselves because of how fucking terrible the job market
is.

~~~
chrisco255
The job market might have been terrible 5 years ago, but this is not the case
today. 3.7% unemployment in the U.S. Lowest since 1969.

~~~
dragonwriter
It's kind of funny that most of the people that recognized that the headline
unemployment number wasn't a complete picture of the job market when Obama was
President have somehow forgotten that since late January of 2017.

~~~
api
Every time the ruling party switches, followers of both parties warp into
parallel universes with entirely different realities. Same thing happens for
Democrats and their opinions of foreign military adventures. It's an
unnecessary war when a Republican is in office, but it's a "peacekeeping
mission" or a "humanitarian mission" when a Democrat is in office.

~~~
digitaltrees
No they don't. You are just presenting false equivalence while ignoring the
magnitude of the reality distortion field that republicans push with no close
equivalent from democrats.

\- Name a 10 year war democrats have championed... \- Name a democrat that
questions the legitimacy of employment numbers or the objectivity of the data
being provided... \- Name an rejection of scientific consensus like Global
Warming (and before you say anti-vaxxers, that is not a mainstream democrat
policy like Global Warming denial is...again, no false equivalence please)...
\- Name a democrat zombie policy like "trickle down economics" that keeps
being proven wrong and yet they insist will work...

Should I go on?

~~~
onething
I don't know if it is helpful to jump into political discussions, but I'll
give it a try...

>...- Name a 10 year war democrats have championed...

I think the OP might have been referring to the seeming disappearance of the
anti-war demonstrations once Obama took office. What changed, other than the
POTUS? We ended up leaving Iraq at the same timetable that Bush had proposed.

>... Name a democrat that questions the legitimacy of employment numbers or
the objectivity of the data being provided...

Well the unemployment numbers don't include the long term unemployed who would
still like a job, etc so I would assume everyone should look beyond the simple
number reported in the press.

>... - Name an rejection of scientific consensus like Global Warming

GMOs? Nuclear power?

>...- Name a democrat zombie policy like "trickle down economics" that keeps
being proven wrong and yet they insist will work...

No economist has ever proposed a policy called "trickle down economics". The
pejorative is simply used by people to attack someone else's economic polices.
Using a perjorative is simply an attempt to poison the well and prevent
discussion. In terms of policies that don't work. but still get support... A
couple that come to mind:

\- wasting money to require registration for the draft

\- war on drugs

\- DARE program

\- three strikes (voted in CA, a heavy democratic state)

Conservatives also support many/all(?) programs, but that just means both
sides are wrong.

~~~
forapurpose
> the seeming disappearance of the anti-war demonstrations once Obama took
> office. What changed, other than the POTUS?

"Other than the POTUS" seems to brazenly ignore the significance. For example,
it would be absurd to ask, 'When Trump took office, what changed from Obama
other than the POTUS'?

When Obama took office, the new POTUS' policies aligned to a significant
degree with the anti-war protestors. Obama had opposed the Iraq war from the
start and promised to withdraw, which he did (though the withdrawal was also
required by the agreement Bush made with Iraq). Obama also wanted out of
Afghanistan and, after a policy review, set a timeline for it (a criticized
decision that was later changed).

> both sides are wrong

This is true "political correctness" (a term that I think is almost always
misused). The odds of both sides begin equivalent seem slim; it's not at all
unlikely that of two parties, one would be significantly worse than the other.
It's sort of like looking at two software programs and saying 'both have
bugs'; sure, but that's meaningless - it's not at all surprising when one is
much superior to the other.

But people like to be even-handed, out of some misguided (IMHO) view of
fairness or not wanting to offend. But the stakes are too high; you wouldn't
say that if you were choosing between airplane autopilot programs. In this
case, if you make the worse choice then it can result in catastrophic climate
change, nuclear proliferation, war, mass oppression, the undermining of
democracy and liberty, and more.

~~~
chrisco255
I wish national politics were as simple and predictable as a computer program,
but trying to paint an analogy there is quite troublesome, for the simple
reason that there are hundreds, if not thousands of issues that government has
to tangle with...and it often is the case that one party has a better approach
to certain issues while the other party is better suited to deal with a
completely different set of issues.

~~~
forapurpose
Joseph Stalin was probably better at dealing with _some_ issues than Winston
Churchill, but that doesn't make them comparable. It's a false equivalency.

------
pessimizer
It's weird to spend so many words arguing against a word used as branding.
There was never a sharing economy, because it is people paying money for
things. What was created was a piecework economy, which was obviously going to
be successful if it could figure out a way to skirt the laws that made
piecework jobs illegal. Investors could see that, and added so much cash in
anticipation of a monopoly (and with the understanding that it would take
quick growth and a bunch of expensive legislative and marketing work to take
this monopoly) that these companies could afford to sell dollars for $0.90.

I'm going to start a business utilizing children as hospital, hospice, and old
age home laborers and call it "the childcare industry" just to see it debunked
10 years and 100 billion dollars later: "Revealed: The Childcare Industry Was
Never About Caring For Children."

I'll then press release that it was shameful that slate dot com chose to
diminish the experiences and character growth of millions of children, dismiss
the importance of our elders and their health, shill for the interests of big
healthcare, and denigrate the millions of relationships formed between the
oldest generations and the youngest.

~~~
marnett
remarkable last sentence. love the parallels.

------
kevin_b_er
The "Sharing Economy" was always a lie. It was always about illegal acts
rebranded. Illegal rebranded taxis. Illegal rebranded hotels. etc

~~~
shittyadmin
I mean, you get more than that, no one looked at Uber and went "ooh, illegal
taxis". They looked at it and went "ooh I can use it from my phone with the
push of a button and it's cheaper". The whole point of the "sharing economy"
is to compete on efficiency, ease of use and price.

Ridiculous, anti-competitive laws were in place in these systems, I applaud
their death.

~~~
notacoward
> no one looked at Uber and went "ooh, illegal taxis"

I can disprove that all by myself, since that's _exactly_ how I reacted when I
first heard of Uber.

~~~
russh
Same here, I truly don't understand how they got away with it.

------
squozzer
The basic premise of the article seems sound, that money corrupted an
arrangement that might otherwise be innocent.

Uber / Lyft were upgrades to Craiglist ads for rides / carpools - more
convenient for riders, and drivers make a few bucks taking someone somewhere
they were going anyway.

AirBnB was a way for travelers to access a more "charming" experience, maybe a
little more conveniently than booking a hotel/BnB or scanning CL ads for rooms
for rent.

Where they went wrong was _professionalization_ , i.e. people driving full-
time or renting for the income.

That's when it became obvious that Uber/Lyft was actually a taxi company and
AirBnB a rental broker.

In fairness, if in certain cities (NYC) taxis weren't intentionally managed to
scarcity, Uber/Lyft probably would have had more difficulty gaining traction.

Nor would I begrudge a homeowner making a little money boarding guests.

But of course the economic opportunity proved too much for too many to resist,
which is why we have the problems mentioned in the article.

------
drawkbox
The movie _Sorry to Bother You_ has a satirical look at the sharing economy
gone awry. In the movie a controversial company called _WorryFree_ exists that
promises lifelong security where people willingly become slaves to live in
dorms and survive without worry but for free. The movie is excellent.

~~~
savanaly
How is it a look at the sharing economy in particular? It was a satirical take
on modern capitalism, sure, but I didn't see how WorryFree was supposed to
remind you of a person working a contracting job such as an Uber driver. Quite
the opposite in fact, the employees of WorryFree seemed to be signing up for
lifelong, permanent and inflexible employment terms. Uber drivers may get a
raw deal but surely one would acknowledge at least that they have more
flexibility w.r.t. when and where they work than the other typical jobs in a
capitalist economy.

~~~
drawkbox
It is more about modern sharecropper capitalism I agree but WorryFree is the
endgame of the sharing/gig economy, basically people fed up with hustling in
the gig economy or sharecropper systems can become slaves and have their
worries handled for them (dorm, food etc) almost like a mix of prison mixed
with dorms at work like Foxconn.

In the movie Cassius "Cash" Green, the main character, works as a telemarketer
and all the telemarketers are looking to unionize but there is little control
or solace in any work in their look at modern society.

Throughout the movie, when the work is a complete hustle, WorryFree draws
these people in by marketing that they don't have to worry about the hustle
anymore, just become a slave to make the hustle easier. In the future of
_Sorry to Bother You_ , you can either be a sharecropper/hustler/sales or
slave.

Here's a look at all the elements in the movie regarding modern economies and
their drive for cheap labor and ultimately pliant slaves [1] Boots Riley, who
created the movie and was previously a rapper, made one hell of a movie
director/screenwriter debut, it is already a cult classic.

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffewing/2018/07/13/could-
sorr...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffewing/2018/07/13/could-sorry-to-
bother-you-really-happen-partial-spoilers/)

------
digitaltrees
It does seem that many of the business models were really just regulatory
arbitrage, but were presented as some fundamental innovation.

It also seems that they fooled some investors into believing hyper growth that
was fueled with negative unit economics would eventually lead to a monopoly
market position, maybe some will...but I doubt it as the barrier of entry is
to low an the "network effect" that was believed make the monopoly quasi-
permanent doesn't seem to exist for most industries.

------
francisofascii
The sharing economy works because of the American tendency to own/buy way more
capacity that is usually required. People own cars but don't use them all the
time or people buy extra rooms for their homes for the two times a year they
have visitors. People saw this untapped capacity and exploited it. We should
encourage better utilization of resources assuming the proper regulations are
in place to do so.

------
vkou
I don't understand how people can be tricked by the branding of the 'sharing
economy.'

The average seven year old is capable of understanding the difference between
actual sharing (A friend giving you a lift), and 'sharing' (An unmarked taxi.)
They could also probably grasp the difference between CouchSurfing[1], and
AirBnB.

[1] Couchsurfing was the actual sharing economy, but as it turns out, you
can't make billions of dollars from people letting out their couches to
strangers, for the cost of company, and a home-cooked meal.

~~~
pesmhey
I've found myself drinking someone's branding kool-aid before, and this is how
it happened. You think to yourself what you've just laid out, that this is so
obvious a seven year old should know better. So obvious, in fact, that it
can't be real.

"This is just an unmarked taxi."

"No, we're way different."

You think to yourself how no one could be that blatant, and you notice other
people are buying into it, so you start to question you own worldview. Then it
reaches a critical mass, where there's enough self-perpetuation to make you
throw skepticism to the wind. And after some time, after seeing a few cracks
in the brand, you think to yourself, god damn it, should have stuck to my
guns.

~~~
jandrese
Or:

"This is just an unmarked taxi."

"Except hailing/billing isn't stuck in the past so you don't have to get lucky
to find an empty one on the street or call a surly dispatcher and wait 45
minutes. You also get the bill up front so you know how much it will cost
before you even say yes. You can always pay by credit card too, you'll never
arrive at the destination and then only be informed that the credit card
reader is 'broken' and the cabbie can only accept cash. Added bonus: it's
about half the price of a regular taxi."

"Cool"

~~~
pesmhey
It's definitely better, no arguments here. My point is that Silicon Valley has
branded everything it does as 'tech' when in reality, it's just a better taxi
company, a better hotel company, etc. unencumbered by the old ways. Like, the
reality would have been good enough, 'We're a taxi (or insert whatever
industry you want) company doing things way better than before." Instead, it's
'We're using algorithms and this shit is out of this
world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

~~~
nipponese
There is something about traditional engineering culture that sees marketing
as big lie, but one of the reasons these companies have been so successful at
transitioning public opinion is because they treat the whole business as
iterative. Instead of thinking "boring finance dept" and "slimey marketing
guys", they think "financial and social engineering".

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Instead of thinking (...) "slimey marketing guys", they think "financial
> and social engineering"._

That sounds even worse to me. "Turning lying and scamming people into an
engineering discipline".

------
xamuel
>Lessig’s paradigmatic example of a hybrid is Red Hat, Inc.

Well, so much for that! Which I guess just further proves the article's point.

~~~
Apocryphon
25 years doesn't seem like a bad lifespan for an independent organization.

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whoeveryouwant
Is the article really about the sharing economy, or rather about discrediting
Lessig and the people who believe publicly funded research should be public?
Seems a little odd the way it relates Uber and AirBnB with Lessig.

~~~
8bitsrule
Exactly. To me 'sharing' means barter and what happens in villages and
Creative Commons. Not LSC dressed-up in 'sharing' clothes.

You can fool some of the people ...

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yalogin
I am more bothered by the fact that these companies establish a permanent
record of your behavior across a large swathe of “businesses”. So things
cannot be forgotten. There is a legitimate need for that in some cases but in
most cases is unnecessary. This is the capitalist equivalent of the coduct
based credit imposed by China. Somehow feels too drastic and draconian to me.

