I recently watched a “riveting” interview with AirBnB CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky. I put “riveting” in quotes because not everyone is riveted by a three-hour tech interview. But Brian is a great story teller, and his explanations about this thing called the sharing economy were hard to ignore.
The basic idea behind the sharing economy is that we’re becoming a culture of sharing. It’s prominent online, where sharing links, pictures and videos is the norm. But Brian’s company, AirBnB, lets people share their homes with strangers.
There are other uses, too, but the core revolves around sharing homes with strangers for short stays. If that seems a little silly or even impractical, you might be shocked to learn that AirBnB is valued at over $2 billion at last count.
I don’t want to dwell on AirBnB, though. The idea of the sharing economy goes beyond guest rooms in strange cities. Big cities have Zipcar and services like it that allow you to share cars on an hourly or daily basis. And our local co-working player, ThincSavannah, lets businesses share resources like conference rooms, internet connections, etc.
Then there are areas that are ripe for sharing economy disruption. In his video, Brian Chesky states that the average power drill is used a total of 13 minutes in its lifetime. I don’t know how to fact check that, but it seems pretty accurate to me. Yet I’m betting nearly everyone reading this article owns at least one power drill. I think I have three power drills and no batteries for any of them, but I digress.
People who champion the sharing economy herald it as a potentially bigger movement than the Industrial Revolution. They say it can end over-consumption, which can, in turn, be a solution to some of our most difficult environmental and economic challenges.
It’s not all sunshine and roses for serial sharers, though. AirBnB is a disruptive entity, and it can make the existing hospitality industry nervous. Luckily, AirBnB has chosen to work with and support a lot of the existing business models, but other areas aren’t so lucky.
Luxury Taxi company and a sharing economy maverick, Uber, may have actually broken many regional laws by circumventing the proper channels in places such as New York City and Washington, D.C.
I doubt any of us will be alive to get history’s vantage point of how the sharing economy will rank next to the Industrial Revolution. My opinion is that it is simply the extension of the Internet.
The term “web 3.0” has been used to death by tech writers, but I’ll kick it one more time. If web 1.0 was taking things offline and putting them online (ie. auctions with eBay, banks with PayPal), and web 2.0 saw things that lived wholly online and couldn’t exist offline (i.e. Facebook, Twitter), then I believe web 3.0 is where online connectivity enhances our offline lives.
That seems like where the sharing economy is taking us, and as soon as I can find a service that allows me to borrow power drill batteries, I’ll be set.
Jesse Bushkar is the CEO of Sysconn New Media Inc. He can be contacted at 912-356-9920 or jesse@sysconn.com.