How the Sharing Economy Masks an Economic Crisis

As posted on The Guardian by Evgeny Morozov, the sharing economy's benefits are often over-hyped. Pointing to Verizon's new Auto Share, a service enabling individuals to unlock a rented or booked car through validating a QR code on the car's windshield with a smartphone, Morozov argues that the new digitization wave, "is propelled by a new set of powerful intermediaries that will be much harder to disrupt." Adds Morozov: "Take Facebook: it provides many of the services grouped under the sharing economy with the kind of reliable identity infrastructure that allows us to verify that we are who we say we are when, for example, we book apartments via Airbnb. Facebook provides a free service to Airbnb – call it 'identity on demand' – and Verizon wants to dominate another such service: 'access on demand'."

While some of these technologies are lauded as disruptive game-changers, in reality the services they provide are perhaps noteworthy but the technology does not push the envelope. As Morozov notes, "instead of retrofitting every object with a sensor as proponents of the Internet of Things advocate, one can latch a QR code on them and let one centralised device – the smartphone – do all the sensing. It's not clear which of the two visions – the Internet of Smart Things or the Internet of Dumb Things Connected via Smart Phones – would dominate."

In addition, Morozov alludes to larger class struggles necessary for the sharing economy to thrive: "[g]iven vast youth unemployment, stagnating incomes, and skyrocketing property prices, today's sharing economy functions as something of a magic wand. Those who already own something can survive by monetising their discomfort: for example, they can earn cash by occasionally renting out their apartments and staying with relatives instead. Those who own nothing, on the other hand, also get to occasionally enjoy a glimpse of the good life – built entirely on goods they do not own."