Term “sharing economy” was coopted. It has little to do with real sharing. It has as much with sharing as my landlord “shares” the apartment to me. This is not sharing. Sharing economy became another term for renting, lending, outsourcing, only that the units of “sharing” are now smaller because information technology backing sharing economy allow less overhead in coordination and transactions. Oh, and of course, almost no regulation and oversight. So less paperwork. No contracts are signed, no responsibility or liability, no labor rights, no insurance. In real sharing you also have none of those, so is maybe this the only thing which sharing economy shares with real sharing?

It is interesting to notice that a web service is not seen as sharing economy if it just facilitates real sharing between people, without having an intermediary in between which is collecting a commission every time somebody shares something. You need that intermediary charging a commission for a service to become sharing economy.

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