We accept rides from strangers, get random people to complete mundane tasks for us and allow people we’ve never met to stay in our homes. Indeed, the sharing economy – peer-to-peer transactions conducted via the Internet and smartphones has changed how people arrange car rides, find vacation, pick up their laundry and more . We no longer think it taboo to get into cars with strangers, request someone to pick up our groceries or share our personal property with people we’ve never met.
But how did we go from mass consumerism to the present day utopia of instant and shared access to almost everything we can think of? To arrive at this answer, we have to take a look at how our predecessors lived in the past.
History teaches us that humans began …show more content…
Resource depletion as well as the Great Recession was what allowed it to flourish as people were cutting back on expenditure and focusing on utilizing what they had instead of being conspicuously wasteful.
Key Debates Surrounding Sharing Economy
Despite its positive reception worldwide, the sharing economy is not without its controversy. From illegal practices in some jurisdictions to creating employees that do not pay taxes, world governments and the corporate world are trying to come up with new laws to regulate this fast growing economy.
For instance, one of the paradoxes surrounding the sharing economy is: Is it really a sharing economy if people have to pay to get temporary access to an item, service or property?
When “sharing” is market-mediated — when a company acts as an intermediary between consumers who don’t know each other — it is no longer sharing at all. Rather, consumers are paying to access someone else’s goods or services for a particular period of time. It is an economic exchange, and consumers are after utilitarian, rather than social, value . So in reality, sharing economy is not an economy described by the word “share” but it is an access economy …show more content…
As populations increase and as more and more people are living longer, there will be a shift in the way the health sector is run. An early indicator signifying this change is the return of house calls. These accounted for 40% of medical visit in the 1930s, but dropped to 1% in the 1980s. Being strapped for time, society as a whole is becoming more open to the idea of home-based doctor calls and capitalizing on this trend are numerous mobile apps ie: @HealApp, @medicast and @mendathome which promises to send a doctor to the patient’s location – be it their home, office or hotel within two
But how did we go from mass consumerism to the present day utopia of instant and shared access to almost everything we can think of? To arrive at this answer, we have to take a look at how our predecessors lived in the past.
History teaches us that humans began …show more content…
Resource depletion as well as the Great Recession was what allowed it to flourish as people were cutting back on expenditure and focusing on utilizing what they had instead of being conspicuously wasteful.
Key Debates Surrounding Sharing Economy
Despite its positive reception worldwide, the sharing economy is not without its controversy. From illegal practices in some jurisdictions to creating employees that do not pay taxes, world governments and the corporate world are trying to come up with new laws to regulate this fast growing economy.
For instance, one of the paradoxes surrounding the sharing economy is: Is it really a sharing economy if people have to pay to get temporary access to an item, service or property?
When “sharing” is market-mediated — when a company acts as an intermediary between consumers who don’t know each other — it is no longer sharing at all. Rather, consumers are paying to access someone else’s goods or services for a particular period of time. It is an economic exchange, and consumers are after utilitarian, rather than social, value . So in reality, sharing economy is not an economy described by the word “share” but it is an access economy …show more content…
As populations increase and as more and more people are living longer, there will be a shift in the way the health sector is run. An early indicator signifying this change is the return of house calls. These accounted for 40% of medical visit in the 1930s, but dropped to 1% in the 1980s. Being strapped for time, society as a whole is becoming more open to the idea of home-based doctor calls and capitalizing on this trend are numerous mobile apps ie: @HealApp, @medicast and @mendathome which promises to send a doctor to the patient’s location – be it their home, office or hotel within two