RE: Consumerism Is Dead. Welcome To The Sharing Economy Of The Future
This is certainly something we should all hope for: that underutilized assets, such as cars that are sitting in a parking lot, would be more effectively used. The shift to a more environmentally friendly society where more resources are more collectively owned doesn't seem ideal, but rather inevitable.
However, there's also a risk involved: sharing economy might also mean concentration of ownership of the sharing platforms. That is why the next step is not only to share the underutilized assets using a digital platform, but sharing the ownership of the platform. This could mean for example that instead of a shareholder company running the platform (as is the case in Uber and Air BnB) it could operate as cooperative, with each member owning one share.