Sharing economy

The sharing economy is a socio-economic system whereby consumers share in the creation, production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods, and services. These systems take a variety of forms, often leveraging information technology and the Internet, particularly digital platforms, to facilitate the distribution, sharing and reuse of excess capacity in goods and services.

It can be facilitated by nonprofit organizations, usually based on the concept of book-lending libraries, in which goods and services are provided for free (or sometimes for a modest subscription) or by commercial entities, in which a company provides a service to customers for profit.

It relies on the will of the users to share and their ability to overcome the fear of the risks of "stranger danger".

It provides benefits, such as lowering the GHG emissions of products by 77%–85%.

Origins

Dariusz Jemielniak and Aleksandra Przegalinska credit Marcus Felson and Joe L. Spaeth's academic article "Community Structure and Collaborative Consumption" published in 1978 with coining the term economy of sharing.

The term "sharing economy" began to appear around the time of the Great Recession, enabling social technologies, and an increasing sense of urgency around global population growth and resource depletion. Lawrence Lessig was possibly first to use the term in 2008, though others claim the origin of the term is unknown.

Definition and related concepts

There is a conceptual and semantic confusion caused by the many facets of Internet-based sharing leading to discussions regarding the boundaries and the scope of the sharing economy and regarding the definition of the sharing economy. Arun Sundararajan noted in 2016 that he is "unaware of any consensus on a definition of the sharing economy".