how the sharing economy is evolving
the sharing economy has evolved over the past few years to encompass a wide range of online economic transactions that may even include business to business b2b interactions other platforms that have joined the sharing economy include in 2017 the brookings institute predicted that the sharing economy would grow from 14 billion in 2014 to a forecasted 335 billion by 2025 1 those numbers increased dramatically within a few years in 2022 allied market research valued the market value of the sharing economy at 387 1 billion and projected that it would reach 827 1 billion by 2032 2criticisms of the sharing economythe sharing economy can create more economic flexibility for participants allowing them to make extra money while at the same time decreasing the resources that each individual needs to own however there are criticisms of the way the sharing model has grown and changed over time criticism of the sharing economy often involves regulatory uncertainty many of the services offered on these platforms are intended to replace industries that are highly regulated by federal state or local authorities for example taxicabs and hotels individuals offering short term rental services may not be following government regulations or paying the fees this could allow them to charge lower prices it also opens the door to incompetent and even unscrupulous competitors the lack of government oversight can lead to a risk of serious abuses of buyers and sellers in the sharing economy such as a lack of privacy or the unfair treatment of contractors even when laws are in place to regulate sharing platforms those laws are not always followed for example in virginia multiple cities and counties claim that airbnb has avoided sharing the data necessary to determine whether it is paying the correct local and state taxes regulators are concerned that this lack of transparency is intended to hide information like units illegally operating as airbnb rentals 3there is also a concern that information shared on an online platform can create racial and gender bias among users this can happen when users are allowed to choose who they will share their homes or vehicles with or because of implicit statistical discrimination by algorithms 4the growth of many sharing economy services has led to a model that is organized less around sharing instead contractors use sharing platforms to create full time businesses becoming similar to the commercial services the sharing economy was initially meant to replace for example airbnb originally encouraged hosts to rent out unused rooms in their own houses or to rent out their houses when they were away from home as the popularity of the service grew however many airbnb units became full time private rentals this has led to concerns that rather than promoting the sharing economy airbnb has contributed to rising housing and rental costs as hosts buy properties to use solely as rental units this decreases the supply of both long term rental units and houses for sale 5the gift economythe gift economy in which participants do not charge each other money for the things they share or do has arisen in response to perceived failures in the sharing economy this model is organized around principles of community support and sustainable reuse examples of the gift economy include many public libraries also allow patrons to borrow children s toys tools home appliances and other shared items in addition to books and movies 