Rachel Botsman > Quotes

“The system of consumerism may seem like an immovable fact of modern life. But it is not. That the system was manufactured suggests that we can reshape those forces to create healthier, more sustainable system with a more fulfilling goal than 'more stuff”
― Rachel Botsman, What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption

“Guess what percentage of total material flow through this system is still in product or use 6 months after their sale in North America. Fifty percent? Twenty? NO. One percent. One! In other words . . . 99 percent of the stuff we run through this system is trashed within 6 months.”
― Rachel Botsman, What's Mine Is Yours

“The things you own end up owning you.”
― Rachel Botsman, What's Mine Is Yours

“There are four big forces that have played a critical role in manipulating and feeding hyper-consumption: the power of persuasion; the buy now, pay later culture; the law of life cycles; and the “just one more” factor.”
― Rachel Botsman, What's Mine Is Yours

“The story of Alibaba is a telling illustration of how technology is enabling millions of people across the world to take a trust leap. A trust leap occurs when we take a risk and do something new or in a fundamentally different way.”
― Rachel Botsman, Who Can You Trust?: How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart

“BlockChalk is a virtual community bulletin board for neighborhoods in nearly nine thousand cities. In function, it is like a hyper-local version of Twitter. From your cell phone, you can leave a message for someone on your block or street, whether it is to report something you found, announce something happening in your neighborhood, ask to borrow an item, warn people of something to watch out for, or just chat. A typical “chalk” (BlockChalks’s word for a message) reads, “Found dog while running last night @River Bank De & Poppy Way in Edgewater . . . Please post on here if he’s yours, or you know who he belongs to.” It was created by Josh Whiting, who was formerly a senior engineer for craigslist and Del.icio.us, to make it easy for neighbors to interact with each other. Recognizing that some users will want to keep their identity and location anonymous, you can reply privately or respond publicly, “chalkback.”
― Rachel Botsman, What's Mine Is Yours

“Trust leaps carry us over the chasm of fear, that gap between us and the unknown.”
― Rachel Botsman, Who Can You Trust?: How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart

“Money is the currency of transactions. Trust is the currency of interactions.”
― Rachel Botsman

“If we can’t trust the Catholic clergy to report abuse, perhaps it means the leaders of the church are only loyal to the institution, not the people they are meant to serve.”
― Rachel Botsman, Who Can You Trust?: How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart

“Say a merchant based in Old Cairo wanted to sell his textiles and spices in Palermo in Sicily. He could travel long distances by boat – but sea voyages were treacherous and time-consuming. Or, instead of travelling himself, he could use overseas agents, and the agents could handle everything from unloading the ships to selling the goods in local markets, to settling the odd bribe on the merchant’s behalf.”
― Rachel Botsman, Who Can You Trust?: How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart

“One of the most pressing issues of our time is whether technology in fact helps us to make better or worse choices about where to place our trust.”
― Rachel Botsman, Who Can You Trust?: How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart

“By November 2017, the clergy had fallen 20 percentage points to come in as only the tenth most-trusted profession overall.29 Consider this: the average Briton now trusts the random stranger they meet on the bus or in a supermarket to tell the truth more than they trust a member of the clergy on the other side of a confessional.”
― Rachel Botsman, Who Can You Trust?: How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart

“Zhiqiang was once a migrant rural worker struggling to make a living. He had tried his luck as a vegetable street vendor, a construction worker and a takeout deliveryman. Despite being poorly educated, Zhiqiang had always been interested in computers and the internet. He moved to Beijing’s Zhongguancun area, known as China’s Silicon Valley, where he took on many manual labour jobs for more than six years. By 2006, he had saved enough money to buy a computer, which he took back to his hometown, a small rural farming village in north China’s Shanxi province. After overcoming the challenge of getting the internet installed in his home, he opened an online shop selling just a few local products such as rice and soybeans. His friends and family wondered what on earth he was trying to do. In 2008, while the Olympic Games were in full swing in Beijing, Zhiqiang got the break he needed. He opened ‘Farmville’, not the popular game but an online shop selling all kinds of fresh produce grown by the local”
― Rachel Botsman, Who Can You Trust?: How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart

“When one party has less information than the other, economists call it information asymmetry. Economist Kenneth Arrow first described the concept in 1963, in the context of healthcare. Doctors generally know more about the value and effectiveness of a given medical treatment than patients do. They are in a powerful ‘expert’ position and patients will tend to follow their recommendations. Arrow noted how sometimes the doctor might manipulate the asymmetry to his or her advantage, for instance, recommending costly drugs or an operation that is not necessary.”
― Rachel Botsman, Who Can You Trust?: How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart

“The mass population is relying less on newspapers and magazines and instead chooses self-affirming online communities,’ says Richard Edelman.”
― Rachel Botsman, Who Can You Trust?: How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart