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Humans have been bartering and swapping goods since cavemen loaned out the first thigh bone. But the Internet has kicked sharing to new heights. The explosion of peer-to-peer networks—think Airbnb, Lyft—has folded a business model around the simple sandbox notion of communal services and stuff.
Do you give a fun tour of your hometown? Offer your services directly, on Localguiding.com. Got some land a wannabe farmer could use? Landshare.net hooks you both up. Parkatmyhouse.com converts your garage to a commodity. Bikes, books, and art are swapped, loaned, and otherwise redistributed in manners counter to the traditional marketplace.
If sharing has found a warm reception in the addled 21st-century mind, it’s for the bulwark it offers against boundless consumerism. Making new things for every person on the planet is impractical, our dwindling natural resources remind us, and maybe ownership is not so important either. But collaborative consumption is hardly a rebuke of capitalism. If anything, it’s a sharpening of the instinct. Get a taste and soon you’re scouring your possessions for unextracted worth; a broom not in use is no longer a broom but an instance of idling capacity. The true genius of the share economy might ultimately be its endless ability to wring extra value from itself.
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