The Economist on The Rise of the Sharing Economy

I think we got us a meme! More after the jump.
From the Economist, we'll start with the sidebar:

The rise of the sharing economy
On the internet, everything is for hire

LAST night 40,000 people rented accommodation from a service that offers 250,000 rooms in 30,000 cities in 192 countries. They chose their rooms and paid for everything online. But their beds were provided by private individuals, rather than a hotel chain. Hosts and guests were matched up by Airbnb, a firm based in San Francisco. Since its launch in 2008 more than 4m people have used it—2.5m of them in 2012 alone. It is the most prominent example of a huge new “sharing economy”, in which people rent beds, cars, boats and other assets directly from each other, co-ordinated via the internet.

You might think this is no different from running a bed-and-breakfast, owning a timeshare or participating in a car pool. But technology has reduced transaction costs, making sharing assets cheaper and easier than ever—and therefore possible on a much larger scale. The big change is the availability of more data about people and things, which allows physical assets to be disaggregated and consumed as services. Before the internet, renting a surfboard, a power tool or a parking space from someone else was feasible, but was usually more trouble than it was worth. Now websites such as Airbnb, RelayRides and SnapGoods match up owners and renters; smartphones with GPS let people see where the nearest rentable car is parked; social networks provide a way to check up on people and build trust; and online payment systems handle the billing....MORE

And now the main course from The Economist's Technology Quarterly:

All eyes on the sharing economy
Collaborative consumption: Technology makes it easier for people to rent items to each other. But as it grows, the “sharing economy” is hitting roadblocks

WHY pay through the nose for something when you can rent it more cheaply from a stranger online? That is the principle behind a range of online services that enable people to share cars, accommodation, bicycles, household appliances and other items, connecting owners of underused assets with others willing to pay to use them. Dozens of firms such as Airbnb, which lets people rent out their spare rooms, or RelayRides, which allows other people to rent your car, act as matchmakers, allocating resources where they are needed and taking a small cut in return.

Such peer-to-peer rental schemes provide handy extra income for owners and can be less costly and more convenient for borrowers. Occasional renting is cheaper than buying something outright or renting from a traditional provider such as a hotel or car-rental firm. The internet makes it cheaper and easier than ever to aggregate supply and demand. Smartphones with maps and satellite positioning can find a nearby room to rent or car to borrow. Online social networks and recommendation systems help establish trust; internet payment systems can handle the billing. All this lets millions of total strangers rent things to each other. The result is known variously as “collaborative consumption”, the “asset-light lifestyle”, the “collaborative economy”, “peer economy”, “access economy” or “sharing economy”.

It is surely no coincidence that many peer-to-peer rental firms were founded between 2008 and 2010, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Some see sharing, with its mantra that “access trumps ownership”, as a post-crisis antidote to materialism and overconsumption. It may also have environmental benefits, by making more efficient use of resources. But whatever the motivation, the trend is clear. “People are looking to buy services discretely when they need them, instead of owning an asset,” says Jeff Miller, the boss of Wheelz, a peer-to-peer car-rental service that operates in California.

As they become more numerous and more popular, however, sharing services have started to run up against snags. There are questions around insurance and legal liability. Some services are falling foul of industry-specific regulations. Landlords are clamping down on tenants who sub-let their properties in violation of the terms of their leases. Tax collectors are asking whether all the income from sharing schemes is being declared. Meanwhile, the big boys are moving in, as large companies that face disruption from sharing schemes start to embrace the model themselves. As the sharing economy expands, it is experiencing growing pains....MUCH MORE

The first time I consciously paid attention to this stuff was a January PandO Daily post we linked to in:
"Airbnb’s Brian Chesky: 'It’s Only Day Two in the Sharing Economy'" I commented:
"I'll put this in the 'This might be important but I'm a late adopter' file."

 A few days later Izabella Kaminska had the second mention I actually took notice of, a VentureBeat guest post "Will you leave your job to join the sharing economy?" in an FT Alphaville Further Reading post.

And now Alphaville's better bred (but much, much older) sister publication The Economist does a major piece.
I think we got us a meme.