Unpacking the Sharing Economy: Economic, Technological, Social and Political Dynamics

This essay focuses on unpacking the sharing economy phenomena, by diagnosing the economic, technological, social and political dynamics that have primarily contributed to the development of the sharing economy. Address the confusion and unforeseen challenges experienced by the range of users including: consumers, policy makers and obligatory businesses.

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
1
THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
Name of Student
Professor
Institution
Course

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
2
INTRODUCTION
The global market has continued to witness
tremendous changes over the recent years due to the
internet impacts. This has consequently led to
advancement of digital platforms which are
characterized with double-sided markets that helps
to bring together the dynamic users (Kenney &
Zysman, 2015, p. 235). Digital daises are generally
classified under the umbrella of sharing economy;
which is amalgam market based on uncluttered
software of organized community to facilitate
person-to-person and peer-to-business exchange of
goods and services. Sharing economy today has
become one of the most important section of the
global economy (Harvey, et al., 2017, p. 367). It is a

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
3
socio-economic network established by people and
organizations to share the limited resources and to
optimize the unused resources.
Sharing economy basically is a term used to
denote economic activities involving online
transactions. Different scholars have used the term
interchangeably to infer to: collective consumption,
gig economy, sharing platform economy and access
economy. There is confusion and rhetorical
controversy among the stakeholders that have
equally developed around sharing the economy
concept (Helmond, 2015, p. 1245). Academic
scholars have been debating on the subject of
sharing economy, different criteria have employed
to include some platforms and also to exclude
others. The commercial implementations comprises
of a variety of structures, including co-operative and
for-profit structures.
This essay focuses on unpacking the
sharing economy phenomena, by diagnosing the

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
4
economic, technological, social and political
dynamics that have primarily contributed to the
development of the sharing economy (Heinrichs,
2013, p. 228). Address the confusion and
unforeseen challenges experienced by the range of
users including: consumers, policy makers and
obligatory businesses. The essay is going to employ
a widespread evidence base and interdisciplinary
approach to explore the passions and the interests in
the sharing economy.
BODY
Seven decades ago, Joseph Schumpeter, a
great economic scholar foretold of the competition
that will arise among new commodity, new
technology and the new source of supply. Today
this revelation has come to pass, as described by the
Codagone, Biagi and Abadie. The sharing economy
has shifted to a more commercial side. This
discourse results from social utopianism due to the
open source community. The term has increasingly

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
5
been used since about 2010, however a survey
conducted by Pew in 2015, a renowned researcher
indicates that the term is not widespread among
Americans (Schor, 2016, p. 435). Researchers have
projected the growth of this phenomena of our
discussion from 14 billion dollars in the year 2014
to 335 billion dollars by the year 2025. This
tremendous growth is anchored on the rapid growth
of the Airbnb and Uber as the indicators of global
expansion of the sharing economy (Heinrichs, 2013,
pp. 228-231).
The Survey conducted by Forbes in 2013,
reveals that the estimated revenue flowing into
individuals wallets from the sharing economy is
about 3.5 billion dollars. In the following year 2014,
PWC calculated that on a global basis the value had
grown up to 15billion dollars (Kim, et al., 2015, p.
76). For the United Kingdom only, the report shows
the value of sharing economy to be around 500
million Euro Pounds and the figure was bound to

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
6
grow much higher. However most of these
projections should be taken with a lot of caution as
they are inexorably based on questionable
assumptions lacking reliable data.
Sectors like health care, transport and food
industry are increasingly adopting and joining the
sharing economy. Demand technology aggregators
like Ola and Uber are the most common examples
in the transport industry. The technology connects
the consumers and the service providers. The
customers connects with the drivers who take them
to their destinations at the set prices (Hamari, et al.,
2016, pp. 2047-2059). Other aspects of the
transportation sector like the car ownership and car
rentals have changed due to the emergence of
carpooling platforms. Hospitality sector also in not
left behind in regards as far as sharing economy is
concerned. Airbnb, OYO and stayzilla have been
providing travelers with an opportunity to rent
space rooms and homes as opposed to the

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
7
traditional hotels. These are some of the benefits
originating from sharing the economy (Hirschman,
2015, p. 232).
The sharing economy have positively
impacted on the consumers, entrepreneurs and the
platform, providing the whole network with
multiple benefits. It has boosted the innovative
spirit which has led to optimal resource utilization,
increased social mobility through creation of new
jobs, increase skill development and the freedom to
operate at individual’s convenience are just some of
the benefit packages that comes with sharing
economy (Cohen & Kietzmann, 2014, p. 278).
More people are embracing the positive attitude to
use digital platforms to access the market. Despite
the positive effects, there are a number of obstacles
and regulatory challenges that are associated with
the sharing economy. Its rapid growth is
accompanied by complex challenges that needs to
be addressed.

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
8
Over the years, different scholars have not
been able to formulate a sensible debate which can
help to scatter the confusion around the sharing
economy. This has been one of the prevailing
obstacles to determining its economic value and
aggregate population who participate as users or
providers (Galston, 2014, p. 409). Due its complex
nature, it is difficult to classify sharing economy
into the standard classification used in business and
economic statistics since its open to all the
industries contribution (Hamari, et al., 2016, p.
243). As the sharing platforms continue to attract
users due to the increased use of more efficient
marketplace-type formats. Facilitated by the
connecting powers and freedom of the smartphones
the sharing economy are now indispensable venture
for capital investment. However even the beats of
the sector like Uber and Airbnb are affected by the
regulatory vacuum, trust issue, security and risk
extenuation issues and consistency in quality of
services (Zervas, et al., 2017, p. 704).

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
9
Lack of definite laws and terms to guide the
transactions between the peer-to-peer and peer-to-
business have seen high number of economic
sectors affected causing the sharing economy sphere
of influence to be full of public controversies, legal
disputes and intense protests. Terms used by the
practitioners and the stakeholders are ambiguous
and confusing making it difficult to conclude if
actually they have been discussing the same issue
(Baron & Padrutt, 2014, p. 232). This has been the
major cause of the gap which limits the chances to
hold judicious debate about the available alternative
policy options which can help to resolve the
conflicting interests among all sort of activities
(Goel, et al., 2015, p. 275). The traditional
industries have mainly been operating under the
guidance of the law and regulations imposed to
them by the relevant governing authorities in their
respective countries but with emergence of the
sharing economy business system there is urgent
need to review and evaluate the laws around these

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
10
industries. So as to address into particular the
regulatory requirements of each sub-sector of the
shared ecosystem.
The consumers need to feel protected by the
laws even as they interact with the service providers
through these sharing economy platforms. For
example while regulations are traditionally
available for the taxi operators, most nations lack
the specific laws and regulations covering the on-
demand transportation platforms (Whish & Bailey,
2017, p. 235). Only laws that limit the liability of
the intermediaries have been enacted by some
states, but still the general feeling across many
platforms is that the governments and the policy
makers should absolutely clarify the relevance of
these laws to the various segments within the
sharing economy (Malhotra & Van Alstyne, 2014,
pp. 24-27).

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
11
Trust is a fundamental value, it acts as the
ultimate prerequisite for the any nature of sharing. It
is a challenging task to build trust with consumers
through the online platform, as most of the online
customers are more affordability and convenience
oriented as opposed to establishment of loyalty with
the service providers or developing social
relationships with fellow consumers (Hsu, et al.,
2015, pp. 153-169). Also lack of immediate
response and accountability to customer complaints
is a barrier in winning the consumers trust through
the platform. For the sharing economy to continue
existing and growing as projected by the previous
researchers, companies will have to stand-in and
come up with ways to gain trust from the
consumers. The consumers need to trust the host
whose home they are staying or the owner whose
car they want to hire. The issue of trust is not
limited to customers, the business need to keep up
with acceptable standards of operation to win trust,
but there is the fear that new business may come in

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
12
with sub-standards and bring down the good
reputation of the industry (Rauch & Schleiche,
2015, p. 21).
New industries are usually concerned with its
ability continue to operate past its early-adopter
stage and get into the mainstream of the industry.
The sharing economy and market place industries
need to reassure its customers that they are built to
stay. The sharing economy is still very young and it
highly susceptible to consumer changes (Thierer, et
al., 2015, p. 830). The burden to maintain high
quality services is increasing as the consumer’s
tastes and preferences also vary from place to place.
This is a serious facet of the sharing economy that if
the companies and industries in the sector as whole
will not pay close attention to then it surfers the risk
of blowing up. It is not an easy task to maintain
high-service rates and spread across all the multiple
locations, but it needs to be done so as to keep in

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
13
touch with the consumer’s unique expectations
(Helmond, 2015, p. 432).
The security and risk mitigation subject must
be tackled to help with understanding of the sharing
economy. There various challenges that face the
customers hence the urgent need to establish
function risk mitigation mechanisms. The response
to the customer complains must be prompt and with
clear defined channels. This helps to improve
quality of services provided. State of information
asymmetry should be eliminated at all costs as it
contributes to the consumer risks. Consumer
protection improves the consumer’s welfare. Some
of the existing methods used to reduce level of risk
faced by consumers is by relying on the status
ratings which help to expose the companies in the
industry. This helps to contribute to the success of
the platform and also provide data that can be used
by future users or stoke holders. Today, the sharing
economy is beginning to have business-to-business

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
14
platforms. The transactions involved here usually
involve big figures. The big question is what if a
transaction goes wrong. Some measures like
insurance should be put into place to help reduce
such risks.
Appraisal
Throughout our discussion we have
established that the sharing economy is a package
with both the positive impacts and several
challenges that have created misperception around
this phenomena. The world is becoming more
digitalized and the number of people and business
to join the sharing economy is expected to grow
higher. Today the number of people who use
smartphones have tremendously increased across
the world.
The policy makers need to adopt to this
change and amend laws across the global that will
encourage fair completion. Eliminate or prevent
racial and price discrimination associated with

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
15
sharing economy. This eventually will encourage
completion, improved quality of goods and services
at reduced prices. The huge data collected from the
consumers should be protected to improve
transparency in the various sharing platforms. The
policy makers and the regulators are on the sport
light as far as the future success of the sharing
economy is concerned. They need to undertake new
series of activities which will help to draw clear
boundaries between the personal and business. Also
they should be careful to prevent the erosion of the
tax base of their respective countries.
Sharing economy has both economic,
environmental and social impacts. It held its first
conference in San Francisco in the spring of 2014.
In attendance were the founders, funders, fans and
punitive critics. They came up together to discuss
the issues of circulation, admission and segregation
in the sector. They also mentioned the strategies
they have established to realize their vision of fair

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
16
prices, low carbon release in the environment and
transparency in the socially connected economy.
Sharing economy have been using the socially-
liberal feel good grandiloquence to create huge
amount of wealth (Sundararajan, 2016, p. 264).
Today the user base of the sharing economy are
mainly the highly educated, the urbanites and the
whites. We need to know if they will be able to
fulfill their promises of providing decent
livelihoods to the providers and quality goods to
their customers and not create a state of monopoly.
The sharing economy is still very young, first stage,
and so it is difficult to develop definitive answers,
but it is very important to ask analytical and
empirical questions in a critical manner at this
stage.
Sharing is an ancient practice, people used to
rent or lend goods to their friends or family
members even before the dawn of internet
platforms. The new aspect with sharing economy is

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
17
that users now lend goods to strangers. The internet
has reduced transaction cost between strangers as
information is readily available about supply,
reliability and contract forms (Slee, 2017, p. 173).
The information about sharing economy platforms
on the past behavior is meaningful to the users for
future transactions. Lack of broad social contacts is
what l used to limit the sharing to a circle of
trusted friends and relatives.
The sharing platforms have continued to be
restrictive and discerning to allow the researchers
access their user data for purposes of scientific
assessments of its sustainability impacts. They have
been citing competition and consumer privacy as
the core reasons. This contributes to the aperture of
information we possess, as it is not only theoretical
but also empirical. Hence, it is worth noting the
inverse reasoning involved in the social process of
assessing the desirability of sharing platforms
(Malhotra & Van Alstyne, 2014, p. 324). Restricted

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
18
access to users’ data contributes to the existing
confusion around the policy and regulations
implementations and evaluation. We need to accept
that the accurate influences sharing economy will
continue to remain unclear for a long future time.
Conclusion
The speculation that sharing platforms may
eventually grow into state of monopolies may be ill-
founded. As it is evident that the cost suffered to
effectively inaugurate a new platform market
globally is less compared to that needed to launch a
local market. Furthermore, the platforms are most
likely to lose their value assets as the software of
the platform becomes universal over time. This
means there is a scope of alternative platforms that
are likely to surface. This will help to eradicate
monopoly in the sharing economy. Future
researchers may conduct a study on how to
systematically hypothesize and empirically evaluate
numerous impacts of the current sharing economy

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
19
platform with respect to individuals, globe and
opulence? To what point can this evaluation be
done without necessarily accessing the users’ data?
To establish accurate and specific answer to this
research question will not be easy. It is a
challenging endeavor which require different
disciplinary evaluation and a range of
methodological approach.
References

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
20
Baron, G. B. & Padrutt, P. W., 2014. Power shovel
and crowd system therefor. New York: MARION
POWER SHOVEL CO Inc.
Cohen, B. & Kietzmann, J., 2014. Ride on!
Mobility business models for the sharing economy.
Organization & Environment, 27(3), pp. 279-296..
Galston, W. A., 2014. Realism in political theory.
European journal of political theory, 9(4), pp. 385-
411.
Goel, S., Miesing, P. & Chandra, U., 2015. The
impact of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing on the
media industry. California Management Review,
78(3), pp. 203-243.
Hamari, J., Sjöklint, M. & Ukkonen, A., 2016. The
sharing economy: Why people participate in
collaborative consumption.. Journal of the
association for information science and technolog,
67(9), pp. .2047-2059.

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
21
Harvey, J., Smith, A. & Golightly, D., 2017. Giving
and sharing in the computer‐mediated economy.
Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 16(4), pp. pp.363-
371.
Heinrichs, H., 2013. Sharing economy: a potential
new pathway to sustainability. GAIA-Ecological
Perspectives for Science and Society, 22(4), pp.
228-231.
Heinrichs, H., 2013. Sharing economy: a potential
new pathway to sustainability. GAIA-Ecological
Perspectives for Science and Society, 22(4), pp.
228-231.
Helmond, A., 2015. The platformization of the web.
Making web data platform ready. Social Media+
Society, 1(2), p. 2056305115603080.
Hirschman, A. O., 2015. he passions and the
interests: Political arguments for capitalism before
its triump. Sydney: Greenwood Publishing Group..

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
22
Hsu, M. H., Ju, T. L., Yen, C. H. & Chang, C. M.,
2015. Knowledge sharing behavior in virtual
communities: The relationship between trust, self-
efficacy, and outcome expectations. International
journal of human-computer studies, 85(2), pp. 153-
169.
Kenney, M. & Zysman, J., 2015. Choosing a future
in the platform economy. the implications and
consequences of digital platforms. In Kauffman
Foundation New Entrepreneurial Growth
Conference, Volume 156160, pp. 235-245.
Kim, J., Yoon, Y. & Zo, H., 2015. Why People
Participate in the Sharing Economy:. A Social
Exchange Perspective., 34(3), p. 76.
Malhotra, A. & Van Alstyne, M., 2014. The dark
side of the sharing economy… and how to lighten i.
Communications of the ACM, 57(11), pp. 24-27.
Rauch, D. & Schleiche, D., 2015. Like Uber, But
For Local Government Policy: The Future of Local

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
23
Regulation of the ‘Shared Economy’, New York:
New York University, Marron Institute of Urban
Management.
Schor, J., 2016. DEBATING THE SHARING
ECONOMY. Journal of Self-Governance &
Management Economics, 4(3), pp. 234-237.
Slee, T., 2017. What's yours is mine: Against the
Sharing Economy.. Chicago: Or Books.
Sundararajan, A., 2016. The sharing economy: The
end of employment and the rise of crowd-based
capitalism. New York: Mit Press..
Thierer, A., Koopman,, C., Hobson, A. & Kuipe, C.,
2015. How the internet, the sharing economy, and
reputational feedback mechanisms solve the lemons
problem. Miami: U. Miami L.
Whish, R. & Bailey, D., 2017. Competition law.
Ney york: Oxford University Press, USA.

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
24
Zervas, G., Proserpio, D. & Byers, J. W., 2017. The
rise of the sharing econom. Estimating the impact
of Airbnb on the hotel industry. Journal of
Marketing Research, 54(5), pp. 687-705..