Welcome To the 'Sharing Economy'

An anonymous reader writes "Thomas Friedman writes in the NY Times about the economy that's grown around Airbnb, a company built on helping people rent out their unused rooms to other users. He writes, 'Airbnb has also spawned its own ecosystem — ordinary people who will now come clean your home, coordinate key exchanges, cook dinner for you and your guests, photograph rooms for rent, and through the ride-sharing business Lyft, turn their cars into taxis to drive you around. "It used to be that corporations and brands had all the trust," added [CEO Brian Chesky], but now a total stranger, "can be trusted like a company and provide the services of a company. And once you unlock that idea, it is so much bigger than homes. ... There is a whole generation of people that don't want everything mass produced. They want things that are unique and personal."' Friedman refers to this as the 'sharing economy,' but a 'trust economy' seems more apt. He points this out himself: 'Afterward, guests and hosts rate each other online, so there is a huge incentive to deliver a good experience because a series of bad reputational reviews and you're done. Airbnb also automatically provides $1 million in insurance against damage or theft to nearly all of its hosts (some countries have restrictions) and only rarely gets claims. This framework of trust has unlocked huge value from unused bedrooms.'"

Commercial activities on domestic levels

[petes_PoV]

And with all these people offering professional services, how many have qualifications or insurance? Say you use someone who offers lifts (to the airport, as an example). What happens if they have a collision - their insurance won't cover them for commercial use (terms and conditions may be different in your country, where ever that is). What happens if the person who's committed to cooking for your guests gives them all food poisoning?

Trust is nice, and touchy-feely and new-world 'n' all. Though indemnity is better - but it costs.

Re:Commercial activities on domestic levels

[Coward Anonymous]

At some point you have to stop living in fear.
Stuff can go wrong - that's life. The correct thing to do is to go on with life, not find someone to blame so you can sue them. Somewhere this simple concept has been lost on a great too many.

Re:lasting awesomeness?

[philip.paradis]

The emergence of the corporation had virtually nothing to do with the trustworthiness of people. Your understanding of both the utility of the corporation and of human nature is fundamentally flawed.

Re:Unreported employment

[Anonymous Coward]

I would hardly describe the system as "employment". That's like saying I'm employed by Ebay because I occasionally use it to sell things I don't need.

not if you own the property.

[dutchwhizzman]

If you own the property, it's usually not illegal. Mind you, a lot of cities are now in process or have already banned airbnb and similar services. They don't want residential areas become tourist infested, or they want to be able to tax the hell out of people making money with their properties.

Taxing and regulation

[dutchwhizzman]

A lot of these kind of services are successful because people tend to stay under the radar of tax collecting agencies. Once the gubbament starts figuring out how to tax all this, most of these sort of initiatives die because it's no longer economically viable to a lot of the people offering services. The side effect is that often, because people have to make it their official business, they will need to get mandatory permits, licenses, diploma's and insurance as well. These and taxing often kill informal "small businesses" and kill the economy. We need a side economy, or a "liberal enough" legislation to allow initiatives like these to foster. Unfortunately, with the current fear and economic crisis, it's going to be hard to keep that from happening.

Re:Thomas Friedman

[Attila Dimedici]

I wish I had mod points to mod you up. Thomas Friedman will say something is bad one day and that it is good the next with the only difference being that on the "bad" day it was done by someone he politically opposes and on the "good" day it was done by someone he politically supports.