What's Yours Is Mine: Against the Sharing Economy

by Tom Slee

Overview

The news is full of their names, supposedly the vanguard of a rethinking of capitalism. Lyft, Airbnb, Taskrabbit, Uber, and many more companies have a mandate of disruption and upending the “old order”—and they’ve succeeded in effecting the “biggest change in the American workforce in over a century,” according to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. But this new wave of technology companies is funded and steered by very old-school venture capitalists. And in What’s Yours Is Mine, technologist Tom Slee argues the so-called sharing economy damages development, extends harsh free-market practices into previously protected areas of our lives, and presents the opportunity for a few people to make fortunes by damaging communities and pushing vulnerable individuals to take on unsustainable risk. Drawing on original empirical research, Slee shows that the friendly language of sharing, trust, and community masks a darker reality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781944869380
Publisher:	OR Books
Publication date:	11/01/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Tom Slee writes about technology, politics, and economics and in the last three years has become a leading critic of the sharing economy. He has a PhD in theoretical chemistry, a long career in the software industry, and his book No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart is a game-theoretical investigation of individual choice that has been used in university economics, philosophy and sociology courses. He blogs at www.tomslee.net.
Tom Slee writes about technology, politics, and economics and in the last three years has become a leading critic of the sharing economy. He has a PhD in theoretical chemistry, a long career in the software industry, and his book No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart is a game-theoretical investigation of individual choice that has been used in university economics, philosophy and sociology courses. He blogs at www.tomslee.net.

Read an Excerpt

The normal way in which communities provide shared goods is through government, from municipal swimming pools and soccer fields to public transit to libraries and much more, but there are no government groups in the list. There is no representation among Peers partners from the world of food co-ops, worker co-ops, lending libraries, allotment groups, or other groups involved in non-digital community-sharing initiatives. Zipcar is included (shared access to a vehicle), but the Youth Hostel Association is not (shared access to accommodation). There are many organizations that seem to fit into Sharing Economy mandate, taken literally, but which have no link to Peers, whether they be equipment rental shops, second hand stores, boat rentals, or even the big car-rental companies.

But as you may have guessed, the boundaries of the Sharing Economy are not arbitrary. Almost all the members of Peers, and all the groups mentioned by Botsman and Owyang are technology-focused organizations. If Sharing Economy companies define the name, then it is clear that the Internet is a central part of their self-identification.

Strangely, considering the language of altruism and generosity that is so often used to describe it, the Sharing Economy is also overwhelmingly made up of commercial organizations rather than non-profits. Out of Peers’ 75 partners, over 60 are for-profit companies.

It is the commercial embodiment of author Steven Johnson’s idea of the “peer progressive.” In his recent book Future Perfect, Johnson says: “When a need arises in society that goes unmet, our first impulse should be to build a peer network to solve that problem.” To build a “peer network” means, first and foremost, to build an Internet software platform: a web site and/or mobile application on which consumers and service providers can create a presence and exchange goods and services.

The picture looks different again if, instead of focusing on the number of organizations in each category, we look at the amount of funding the companies have received. Over 85% of the funding for Peers partners went to Californian companies: despite the sprinkling of partners from around the globe, the money shows that the Sharing Economy is predominantly a Silicon Valley phenomenon. (This is one reason why, although I am Canadian and British, this book focuses on American events and debates.)

Following the money also shows that the Sharing Economy is a narrower phenomenon than the talk suggests. Three kinds of service dominate: hospitality (43%), transport (28%), and education (17%). In the world of hospitality most of that funding has gone to one company: Airbnb, which in summer 2014 had raised $800 million since 2009, with the majority coming in the previous 12 months. In the world of transport, the leading fundraiser was Lyft, which had raised just over $300 million, most of that in April 2014. For all the talk of neighbors swapping power drills, these are the kind of companies that are making waves and which are leading the Sharing Economy.

Since summer 2014 the picture has become even more exaggerated. As of July 2015 Airbnb has taken its funding to a massive $2.3 billion. Lyft’s fundraising had also reached $1 billion, and its competitor Uber (not a Peers partner) had raised no less than $5.9 billion, and may be looking for more.

What this all comes down to is that, while the Sharing Economy is often presented as a diverse set of commercial and non-commercial initiatives around the world (from tool-exchange co-ops to pet-sitting and so on), this presentation is a bit misleading. The Sharing Economy is almost entirely a small number of technology firms backed by large amounts of venture capital.

Table of Contents

1. The Sharing Economy

2. The Sharing Economy Landscape

3. A Place to Stay with Airbnb

4. A Short History of Openness

5. On the Move with Uber

6. Open Wide

7. Neighbors Helping Neighbors

8. Strangers Trusting Strangers

9. What’s Yours Is Mine

Bibliography

Endnotes

Editorial Reviews

★ 01/01/2018
Slee (No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart) defines the sharing economy as "businesses that use the Internet to match customers with service providers for real world exchanges." This appeals to those who are "disenchanted with both the centralized bureaucracy of the state and the pervasive commodification of the market" and attracted to "co-operative and non-authoritarian patterns of collaboration." The author believes that communitarian ideals have largely been abandoned, though, in favor of commercial self-interest that has worsened the situation for many (e.g., workers in the sharing economy are often considered independent contractors and do not receive benefits the law extends to employees). Sharing economy companies also often seek to bypass governmental oversight, and Slee maintains that it is through government that interests and needs of communities are balanced. He says the use of reputation systems (in which customers rate providers) to replace government regulation is misguided because there is much that is invisible to customers (e.g., is a restaurant handling food in its kitchen properly). Slee is not blind to the benefits the sharing economy has brought to consumers but thinks the adverse consequences are important and often ignored. VERDICT This intelligent, thoughtful book will appeal to those interested in an analysis of the sharing economy.—Shmuel Ben-Gad, Gelman Lib., George Washington Univ., Washington, DC

Library Journal

Selected praise for What’s Yours Is Mine

"As Tom Slee’s superbly argued book points out, the vast majority of Airbnb’s business is now “entire home” rentals: self-contained flats or villas. ....Slee performs some very clever data research and finds out that the most expensive Airbnb apartment in Rome is one of several European luxury pads rented out by an American tech entrepreneur, who bought them with the proceeds of the sale of his last software company." —The Guardian

"In What’s Yours Is Mine: Against the Sharing Economy, Tom Slee...delivers a smart and searing critique of a business that people are only just beginning to think about in a serious way. While some bloggers still treat the sharing economy as some kind of cause, Slee rightly analyses it as a business model masquerading as a movement." —The Spectator (UK)

"Slee is an extremely well-informed skeptic who presents a satisfyingly blistering critique of high tech’s disingenuous equating of sharing with profiteering." —Counterpunch

"In this lucid and rigorous book, Tom Slee dismantles the facade of the sharing economy, revealing hidden and often troubling truths about companies like Uber and Airbnb. If you want to understand how internet businesses really operate, What’s Yours Is Mine is the place to start." —Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows and The Glass Cage

"In a field crowded with tech-utopian blowhards and app-happy snake oil salesmen, Tom Slee stands apart. His laser-sharp insights about the real impact of popular start-ups on our livelihoods and communities are the perfect antidote to sharing economy hype. What’s Yours Is Mine is required reading for anyone interested in technology and economic justice." —Astra Taylor, author of The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age

"Tom Slee's essential new book shows that the sharing economy has very little to do with sharing. Slee uses wit, clarity, and facts to demolish the self-serving mythologies of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and figure out what Uber, Amazon and their kind are really up to." —Henry Farrell, co-chair, Social Science Research Council's Digital Culture Initiative; professor of political science and international affairs, George Washington University

From the Publisher