The Sharing Economy Is About Desperation -- NYMag. Wired's cover story this month is about the rise of the "sharing economy" — a Silicon Valley–invented term used to describe the basket of start-ups (Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, et al.) that allow users to rent their labor and belongings to strangers. Jason Tanz attributes the success of these start-ups to the invention of a "set of digital tools that enable and encourage us to trust our fellow human beings," such as bidirectional rating systems, background checks, frictionless payment systems, and platforms that encourage buyers and sellers to get to know each other face-to-face before doing business. Tanz's thesis isn't wrong — these innovations have certainly made a difference. But it leaves out an important part of the story. Namely, the sharing economy has succeeded in large part because the real economy has been struggling.
More telling is what's happened to real wages, which have fallen for middle- and low-income people since the recession: Pixel And Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In The Gig Economy. "If I'm willing to pay $100 for someone to bring me a glass of fresh milk from an Omaha dairy cow right now, there might very well be a guy who would be super happy to do that, but he doesn't know that I'm the crazy guy who is willing to pay $100.
" Bo Fishback was on stage at the "Big Omaha" startup conference in 2011, trying to explain how his company Zaarly was designed to make that connection between the person with more money than time and anyone who, finding themselves in the opposite situation, could fulfill his hankering for local farm products. "It creates instantly the ultimate opt-in employment market, where there is no excuse for people who say, 'I don't know how to get a job, I don't know how to get started.'" Fishback wrapped up his presentation with a flourish: A man in a baseball cap arrived, cow in tow, with a tall plastic jug of milk. Whatever you do, it will be your choice. The people running these new companies have made grand pronouncements as well.
"Furloughed? Exec. In the Sharing Economy, Workers Find Both Freedom and Uncertainty. Photo Just after 4 a.m. on a recent Friday, while most of the neighbors in her leafy Boston suburb were still asleep, Jennifer Guidry was in the driveway of her rental apartment, her blond hair pulled back in a tidy French braid, vacuuming the inside of her car. The early-bird routine is a strategy that Ms. Guidry, a Navy veteran and former accountant, uses to mitigate the uncertainty of working in what’s known as the sharing economy. Ms. Guidry, 35, earns money by using her own car to ferry around strangers for Uber, Lyft and Sidecar, ride services that let people summon drivers on demand via apps.
Her goal is to earn at least $25 an hour, on average. “You don’t know day to day,” she said. In the promising parlance of the sharing economy, whose sites and apps connect people seeking services with sellers of those services, Ms. For people seeking a sideline, these services can provide extra income. In a climate of continuing high unemployment, however, people like Ms. Resigned, Ms. Lyft.