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

THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
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THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
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THE PASSIONS AND INTERESTS:
UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
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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
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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
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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
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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

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UNPACKING THE SHARING ECONOMY
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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