Sharing Economy

made by Raymond Hou

Unbounded Potential : Bright and Dark

What is Sharing Economy ?An economic model based on sharing and collaborative underutilized assets from spaces to skill to stuff for monetary or non-monetary benefits. It is largely focused on P2P marketplace.

From institutions to individuals : Prosumer(Producer + Consumer) era.

PwC has revealed that the sharing economy could hit $335 billion by 2025.

Airbnb (2014 company valuation: $20 billion* ) The biggest lodging provider, but Airbnb doesn’t own any room. Uber (2014 company valuation: $18.2 billion* ) The biggest car provided company, but Uber doesn’t own any car.

The asset and content are provided by people and those company use Internet as a platform to do transaction.

*Valuation data from BloombergBusiness and Business Insider

Three Key feature :

Activate idle resources

Divide use right

from ownership

The great trust shift

Idle resources are great wastes.

For example, in average, there is only 4% time of day for car usage. That is, we waste almost 96% time in car.

If we activate the car resource by sharing, we will decrease the great amount of space and energy usage.

By sharing economy model, we divide use right from ownership, which makes us have more disposable money.

We can use this capital to do another transaction and invest. It will make our capital circulating more and increase the value of economy.

From institutions to individuals, sharing economy based on TRUST.

Additionally, the thorough insurance and authentication system is the key to peer to peer business.

* Source from Crowd Companies

Compare Sharing Economy to traditional business

Online platform

Sharing Economy

Traditional Business

Provide products & services

Use products & services

Consumer

Provide products & services

Exist online services (e-commerce, social media…)

Traditional Business

Use products & services

Provide products & services

Example 1: Airbnb World biggest lodging provider

WELCOME HOME Rent unique places to stay from local hosts in 190+ countries.

Discovery Transaction Rating

Underutilize spare room to create extra value.

By Internet, Airbnb connects thousands of host and consumer.

In future, Airbnb can combine 3rd part service such as providing official daily necessities, clean service and breakfast.

If Airbnb expands their service, their influence will go to another level.

Example 2: Lyft

MATCHING EMPTY SEATS Need a ride? Take Lyft for memorable ride.

Request a ride, and get picked up by a reliable community driver in minutes.

My empty seats aren’t

talkative.

38 millions empty seats in commuter cars across the UK everyday.

Saving resources Making friends Having revenue

1. Regulatory Laws

2. Public Sensation

3. Trust foundation

did change the world economy structure and prevent the resources be wasted.

We can save energy, create revenue, and make friends from it if this model is developing continually.

Sharing Economy

Problem

1. Regulatory Laws 2. Public Sensation 3. Trust foundation

Laws need to change to keep up with the new technology and society trend.

Those start-ups shall communicate with government and ask for modifying the law and tax system instead of ignoring these regulations.

Correspondingly, they must set up more wholesome consumer protection.

Sharing economy change the living area into commercial field, which makes original neighbors annoyed.

For this issue, maybe we could plan a sharing area to attract people willing to share their asset and service.

Nowadays, Internet derives a plenty of service based on sharing. Then, we should learn to share.

Trust, is the key to the this model. Producers and consumers need dependable identification and ranking system.

I think maybe we can combine the whole ranking system into one data base. It will make consumers see the producers’ record in any field in a glance.

“Trust more, share more then we benefit more.”

Participant of GIS Taiwan 2015 U++ competition. Apply now and influence the world: http://gis-taiwan.ntu.edu.tw/

- Raymond Hou. 2015.06