What's Yours Is Mine: Against the Sharing Economy

by Tom Slee

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, Business, Technology, Politics, Sociology, Finance

216 pages, Paperback

First published November 19, 2015

About the author

Tom Slee writes about technology, politics, and economics and in the last two 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 lives in Waterloo, Canada.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've travelled around the US staying in people's spare Airbnb rooms, I've booked awesome Airbnb places across Australia, and I'll soon be staying in Airbnb apartments across Europe. I've used Uber often, and found it far superior to the often rude and grumpy taxi services available in Melbourne.

In saying that, I'm not blind to the problems Airbnb can cause, and in all honesty, I wouldn't want to live next door to an apartment being hired through them. I'm also aware of Uber's shady business model - pretending their drivers are 'independent contractors' rather than employees while continually reducing their wages- which is something turns my stomach.

Tom Slee's What's yours is Mine investigates these and other darker areas of the sharing economy and cogently argues that these companies aren't about sharing at all. It provides much food for thought.

Slee argues that these companies like Uber and Airbnb are set up to work in legal grey areas that cities usually turn a blind eye to on a small scale, such as people having occasional guests at their apartments, yard sales, lending cars, etc. These companies commercialise these grey areas, often to a level where the activity becomes a serious nuisance for neighbours and others in a city. It can then be difficult to rein them in once they have established themselves.

Barcelona, for example, is inundated with tourists- their numbers have gone from 4 million overnight stays in 1990 to 16 million in 2013, and this influx is threatening to hollow the city out, making it unaffordable for the people who actually live there and irrevocably changing the feel of the place. The municipal government is aware of this, and has been trying to limit visitor numbers however Airbnb has been very resistant to working with the Catalan government, and has largely thumbed their nose at the law. (After this book was published the Catalans cracked down on Airbnb hosts and have fined Airbnb, although the company is yet to pay.)

Slee also notes that these companies very cunningly sell themselves as an idea- the freedom of letting out your spare room, or the freedom of taking a rideshare fare in your car if you feel like it - that is quite seductive. The reality can be quite different- a great deal of Airbnb's revenue comes from people who list multiple empty properties, and a tiny, tiny fraction comes from people actually sharing their home with a guest, which makes their model look a lot more like an unregulated hotel market than a 'sharing' system.

Furthermore, these companies often push to wind back legislative protections that have benefited cities and workers, in the name of innovation and 'teh internetz'. Seriously though, they often seem to argue that consumer and labor laws don't apply to them because they're interent based, and only acting as 'marketplaces' where idealised free agents can exchange goods and services. Of course companies like Uber actually play a much larger role than that of mere marketplace, exerting sometimes intrusive control over what their 'contractors' can and can't do.

Finally, many of these businesses dodge tax in the countries they are operating in. they incorporate in lower tax nations like the Netherlands and funnel their revenues through those jurisdictions, depriving cities of the taxes they would have made form locally based businesses.

Slee's book is an interesting exploration of the lies behind the sharing economy, and the ways in which ideas that begun with 'wouldn't it be cool if we could share... (insert object, skills, etc.)' have been corrupted by the injection of massive sums of money from investors who demand monetisation and profits. He makes it clear that companies like Uber and Airbnb need more regulation, not less, if we are to ensure they respect our laws and pay taxes as they should. In the meantime, consumers like me need to consider carefully whether we really want to support these wolves in sheep's clothing.

I wouldn't say this is a scintillating read - my attention wandered a few times - but it's a nice antidote to the breathless boosterism that companies like Uber and Airbnb usually get from the press.

[Beatrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book wondering why one would even try to complain about companies like Uber and Airbnb, if all they do is connecting people to create a more sustainable and intelligent use of resources.
I finished this book realizing that all this time I've been believing propaganda, and that the economic interests behind these organizations are much deeper and darker than I thought.

My only wish was that the open-data section was more linked to the others and that each thesis was more structured, than just supported by anectotal evidence.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not against sharing; however it is against giant corporations evading laws and public safety by claiming to not actually be companies. Which seems to be what AirBnb, Uber and their lot have become, if you actually look at how they operate and their revenune and not the rhetoric.

"Many successful open movements grow in a consistent pattern. The movement starts by appealing to egalitarian ideals, and relies on claims that openness can redress the balance with powerful institutions... As an openness movement grows, the smart money learns how to work with it. Sometimes that smart money comes from those who seemed to be threatened:.. so business grows around the open commons."

Of the sharing economy: "one by one these promises have been broken: instead of producing a more level playing field, openness has replaced one set of powerful institution with another, often even more powerful set. ... ideals of digital openness have been repeatedly appropriated for private gain"

In summary "In a few short years the Sharing Economy has gone from the generosity of "What's mine is yours" to the self interest of "What's yours is mine", as the non-commercial values invoked by the phrase 'sharing economy' have been left behind or reduced to public relations exercises....
what started as an appeal to to community, person-to-person connections, sustainability, and sharing has become the playground of billionaires, Wall Street, and venture capitalists, extending their free-market values ever further into out personal lives. The promise of a more personal alternative to a corporate world is instead driving a harsher form of capitalism: deregulation, new forms of entitled consumerism, and a new world of precarious work. There is a lot of talk of democratization and networks, but what's happened instead is a separation of risk( spread among the service providers and customers) from reward, which accrues to the platforms owners. Despite the claims of ecological sustainability embodied in ideas like 'access over ownership' and the reuse of excess capacity, the on-demand sector is instead encouraging a new form of privileged consumption: 'lifestyle as a service'.
What is particularly sad is that many well - intentioned people, who hold a misplaced faith in the intrinsic abilities of the Internet to promote egalitarian community and trust, have unwittingly aided and abetted this accumulation of private fortune, and the construction of new and exploitative forms of employment."

If you agree with that you'll probably like this book, but may not need to read it. If you aren't up to date on what the sharing economy has become you will not be happy but should read this.

[jasmine sun · Rating 3 out of 5]

kind of overviewy/obvious, wish it was more rigorous and less anecdotal

[Dora Okeyo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not an Economist but I am involved in economy more often as a consumer and sometimes a producer. I am in awe of how the author breaks down "sharing economy" and how he uses examples of innovations that are well known like Uber and AirBnB.
It is true that the sharing economy does appeal to ideals like equality, the essence of community and sustainability and it is also true that these companies or stakeholders use the same ideals to make massive private fortunes and we ought to question all this, in terms of what impact will it have on the future and without technology and the internet how sustainable would they be?
Do they offer long term solutions to complex social problems?
I took my time reading this book, because it was detailed and had facts and reports to build up on. If you are into economics or are looking to set up a start-up then this book offers insight on the other side of the lens that we know little about. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

[Claire Long · Rating 3 out of 5]

Random but a reading for one of my units came from this book so when I saw it on display in the library and the title looked familiar, I was like uh. Okay queen. You were bought by a library. Must be worth something. Ended up borrowing it because I didn’t borrow anything else and here we are…..

[Navya Sheth · Rating 4 out of 5]

(read for tech) felt almost exactly like a goutor lecture

[Joffre Villanueva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesante crítica a las grandes empresas de la Economía colaborativa, a su falta de responsabilidad y a las presiones desreguladoras que están ejerciendo en todo el mundo.

Un libro desmitificador de las supuestas bondades de Uber, Airbnb y otros.

[Julie Hudson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author makes a very good argument against the sharing economy and it certainly made me think again about my views of AirBnB and Uber and they way they can bypass legislation that is usually there to protect us. It's a shame that great sounding 'sharing' businesses become targets for investors who see them as an opportunity for making more money and thereby destroy the ethos and values of the original business. I got a bit bored through the last two chapters on open software.

[Terry Freedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

It used to be quite common for people to draw a distinction between the online world and what they called “the real world”. Indeed, judging by the way some people put just about every aspect of their private lives on social media, not everyone understands even today that that distinction is a false one.

If you harbour any doubts about this, consider the so-called “sharing economy”. Armed with just a smartphone and a few well-chosen apps, you can arrange to have your home cleaned, a meal delivered, a place to stay on vacation and a car to take you to the airport.

The most famous examples of such services are, of course, Airbnb and Uber, but there are many others. I’ve always had my doubts about such services because of the horror stories one sometimes reads about in the newspapers, such as cab passengers being sexually assaulted and poor attention to health and safety in holiday accommodation.

But, as this well-researched book makes clear, these are not the only costs. The providers of such services, by which I mean the people actually driving the cabs or delivering the meals, often make less than the minimum wage. To add insult to injury, they have no workers’ entitlements such as sick pay, holiday pay or pension schemes.

There are often community costs as well — costs that have led Berlin to ban whole-property rental on Airbnb.

This book is good at digging out the connections between people and corporations that are by no means obvious. Also, it doesn’t deal only with the big players, but smaller ones too, and other, related, aspects of this phenomenon. A case in point is open source software, which is promoted as a great community enterprise in which everyone contributes their labour free of charge, for the greater good, but which in fact turns out to be quite lucrative for some.

I think the book is required reading if one is to guard oneself against what the author calls “the naiveté of twenty-six year old CEOs [and] the hubris of their venture capital advisers.” It is also useful to be able to help your pupils see beyond the world of apps, and to appreciate that there are often unintended and unforeseen consequences of innovation. You may think that the sharing economy is entirely beneficial, but as a great economist once said, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

My only criticisms of the book are as follows. First, that it seems one-sided. After all, many people, consumers and providers alike, benefit enormously from the sharing economy. Secondly, that the author offers no solution to the problems he identifies beyond a bit of wishful thinking.

Nevertheless, a book that is filled with facts, and eminently readable, What’s Yours Is Mine is highly recommended.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful and well argued account of what we used to call the sharing economy, and why both the term and the business plans that animate it should be rejected. This book was published as a revised edition in 2017, and since then the idea of the sharing economy as a term has largely fallen into disrepute (because it no longer applies), but the business plans remain, if they did not peak in 2020 with California Proposition 22, where app-based businesses Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates spent more than $200 million to convince voters to remove rights from their platform's workers (whose rights were only recently formally recognized) and be kept as independent contractors.

Under such a flood of cash the ballot measure of course passed, a new class of worker exempt from long-standing court-tried laws (which define the difference between employees and contractors) was created; car service consumers get to continue enjoying their investor-subsidized private rides (etc.), and we are left wondering where the next couple hundred million of investor dollars might drop to perform the "miracle" of erasing somebody's else's rights. But hey, the ballot measure itself paid off as an investment because Uber and Lift alone gained $13 Billion in market value after their victory; what value can "rights" possibly hold in the face of such wealth acquisition?

Well, clearly I didn't need to be persuaded by this book, and because of this I will let it speak for itself:

The appeal of a bottom-up, personal, community-driven alternative to traditional corporations has fizzled; we are left with Uber, a company financed by high net-worth investors via Morgan Stanley and by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, and AirBnb, by some measures the largest hotel company in the world.


But as Uber and AirBnb have grown, they still struggle to define a sustainable business model. Their success to date has been driven in part by the ease with which the platform model pushes the costs and risks onto the platform participants (drivers for example), and onto the neighborhoods and cities in which they operate.

and...

But managing commons in a sustainable fashion has proven difficult, particularly at large scale [though government management is not analyzed here, national parks being one example], which is why many commons have been discarded, replaced legitimately or illegitimately by private resources managed as commodities (agricultural enclosure, carbon permits, tradable fishing quotas), or by public resources managed by a central authority (roads, public hygiene). Still, urban commons (in the city) and digital commons (online) are spaces where new models of production and collaboration are being played out: continual sources of hope, and of hype.

furthermore (with a good degree of hope)...

Uber has no idea about sharing and community. Its insistence that all exchanges reduce to market transactions is an ideological flaw; it exemplifies the implicit political agendas that often hide behind the apps and algorithms of Sharing Economy business models, and should make us take their claims to be responsible self-regulators with a pinch of salt. The fact that a strong government stance succeeded in changing the company's behavior reminds us that there is nothing inevitable about the way that the Sharing Economy will evolve.

and also...

Airbnb erodes the commons by gentrification of its biggest markets, which are the world's major tourist destinations. [David] Harvey's comments [in Rebel Cities] about hotels apply to Airbnb also: Barcelona loses its marks of distinction as residents are driven out by the proliferation of rental apartments. Even when the company pays taxes on behalf of its hosts it refuses to give to the city governments the names and addresses of those hosts, making it almost impossible for democratically elected city governments to manage the impact of tourism on some their most valuable neighborhoods. Airbnb also demands homogenization: it operates in 34,000 cities and chafes at the inconsistency of regulations; but each city is different and the inconsistency, or variety, of regulations is a feature, not a bug.

The ideas of urbanist Jane Jacobs have been a prolific source of ideas about the value of commons in our daily lives, but technology organizations such as Code for America, who seek to combine Jacobs' ideas with software and work 'to change the way cities work through technology and public service' are pursuing a contradiction. They seek to force the uniqueness of individual cities into standardized frameworks in order to build software that works across many cities. The very idea of a one-size-fits-all solution to bottom-up city innovation is flawed, because every application that is successfully implemented in a large number of cities erodes the uniqueness that makes the cities distinct. Beyond this, the notion of welcoming 'civic startups' as somehow different from other money-making enterprises ignores the conflicting demands of sharing and money-making, and will lead to the erosion of civic commons.

and to summarize...

In a few short years the Sharing Economoy has gone from the generosity of 'what's mine is yours' to the self interest of 'what's yours is mine', as the non-commercial values invoked by the phrase 'sharing economy' have been left behind or reduced to public relations exercises.

The main impulse that drove the writing of this book was a sense of betrayal: that what started as an appeal to community, person-to-person connections, sustainability, and sharing, has become the playground of billionaires, Wall Street, and venture capitalists extending their free-market values ever further into our personal lives. The promise of a more personal alternative to a corporate world is instead driving a harsher form of capitalism: deregulation, new forms of entitled consumerism, and a new world of precarious work. There is a lot of talk of democratization and networks, but what's happened instead is a separation of risk (spread among the service providers and customers) from reward, which accrues to the platform owners. Despite the claims of ecological sustainability embodied in ideas like 'access over ownership' and the re-use of excess capacity, the on-demand sector is instead encouraging a new form of privileged consumption: 'lifestyle as a service.'

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is a book that looks under the covers at what the "Sharing Economy" is and how it is causing undermining regulated businesses. This isn't a happy picture. The original ideals of sharing have been subverted by for-profit businesses. What used to be fair and for extra cash is now full time (or more) employment for those doing the work. The companies involved don't really care, that is what is most evident from the first sources. Everything is on the shoulders of either the service provider (i.e. driver or host) or the customer. The middle man just takes a cut and says don't bother me.

I do have to disclaim that I seek out contrarian views and this book fits that to a T. If you are looking at a well researched view into the Sharing Economy and what it is doing to people, pick up a copy and be enlightened.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

First 100 pages - 4.5 stars
Last 100 pages - 1 star

The author has a very progressive worldview (anti-corporation, pro-regulation, sees racial & other forms of discrimination everywhere). However, he also has a sharp mind and good research. The first 100 pages contain business case studies of major "sharing economy" businesses. I found it fascinating to read, even if I disagreed with his resulting conclusions. It is a joy to connect with another intellectually mind trained.

The second half of the book was not grounded in specific case studies and got a bit icky for me. The author devolved into his specific worldview and was less aware of his own biases, which poured forth.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Must read for technology advocates

Unless you're not planning to live in the society that "sharing economy" platforms are creating (spoiler: they don't really give you a choice) you should know their moral limits from implementational shortcomings - something Mr. Slee is very concisely pointing out in this book.

[Chad Kohalyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent and thorough reality check on a current trend in "innovation." A great book to recommend to your tech enthusiast friends.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I didn’t need to read What’s Yours is Mine, Against the Sharing Economy.  I felt instinctively that AirBnB and Uber were a bad idea, and I’ve never used them.  But lots of people do – and it turns out that I have unwittingly been a participant contributing content to a sharing business (i.e. Goodreads).  These disruptive business models are now global, and spawning offspring of all kinds.  Tom Slee tackles the phenomenon and exposes it for what it is.
In the preface, which updates developments since the book was first published in the US, Slee reiterates the attractive promises of the Sharing Economy (which we all know so I won’t repeat them) and then shows how the idealistic communitarian and co-operative vision has been hijacked.

Unfortunately, something different and altogether darker is happening: the Sharing Economy is extending a harsh and deregulated free market into previously protected areas of our lives.  The leading companies are now corporate juggernauts themselves, and are taking a more and more intrusive role in the exchanges they support to make their money and to maintain their brand.  As the Sharing Economy grows, it is reshaping cities without regard to those things that make then liveable.  Rather than bringing a new openness and personal trust to our interactions, it is bringing a new form of surveillance where service workers must live in fear of being snitched on, and while the company CEOs talk benevolently of their community of users, the reality has a harder edge of centralised control.  Sharing Economy marketplaces are generating new and ever-more-entitled forms of consumption.  The language of ‘a little extra money’ turns out to be the same as that used about women’s jobs forty years ago, when they were not seen as ‘real’ jobs that demanded a living wage, and so did not need to be treated the same, or paid as much, as men’s jobs. Instead of freeing individuals to take control over their own lives, many Sharing Economy companies are making big money for their investors and executives, and making good jobs for their software engineers and marketers, by removing the protections and assurances won by decades of struggle, by creating riskier and more precarious forms of low-paid work for those who actually work in the Sharing Economy.  (p.3)

The chapter about AirBnB is instructive, and it confirms stories that I’m starting to see in the media. 

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/11/26/w...

[Chris Boutté · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn’t stop reading this book once I picked it up, and not for a good reason. I binged this book because I was blown away at how bad the arguments were against the sharing economy and collaborative consumption. I read Rachel Botsman’s book What’s Mine is Yours and figured I’d read a book with arguments against it. Seeing as how this book from Tom Slee is in it’s second edition, I figured it’d be one of the best and have some solid arguments, but I was poorly mistaken.

So, what made the arguments in this book so bad? Slee’s primary focus in this book is how companies like Uber, Lyft and AirBNB are taking over taxi and hotel services while also having minimal regulation. And let me be clear, Slee’s foundation isn’t about these companies pushing out local employees and little mom and pop places (even though he slightly mentions them). Basically, Slee wants the reader to somehow feel bad that a new mega company is out-performing other mega companies. Why is this a ridiculous stance to take? Well, the primary benefit of these services is that in a world of massive wealth inequality and people being underpaid, it gives people at least a little opportunity to make some extra money.

I live in Las Vegas, and our economy runs on tourism by people staying at the hotels, gambling, and many tourists used to use taxis. I’ve seen first-hand how these multi-billion dollar casino’s screw their employees, and the local taxi companies have had massive law suits filed against them for price gouging unsuspecting customers. One of Slee’s other arguments is that these new tech companies are skirting around paying local taxes. This is also a silly argument because most people would agree that their city wastes tax dollars anyway. My city is a prime example as we have some of the lowest scores in education in the country, and hardly any tax dollars go to the school system.

Now, does Slee have good critiques of these companies like Uber and AirBNB? Absolutely. They mistreat drivers, inflate their numbers, and are money hungry. But rather than making people the primary focus of this book, Slee focuses on defending the rich and arguing how they’re struggling to stay afloat. If the author’s target audience are executives at taxi companies and hotel chains, he did an amazing job. But for the 99%? The arguments were often laughable. This book could have been so much better if it focused on the average person. With so many ways to criticize these companies, this book should have been a layup, but Slee whiffed it.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this a thought-provoking and enlightening book. Like almost everyone, I've heard the stories about the "sharing" and "community" aspects of AirBnB, Uber, and, yes, Goodreads. But I'd never really critically considered whether these stories correspond to the reality. Tom Slee examines various aspects of the "sharing economy" and uncovers that the truth is often less romantic than the official verbiage. For instance, I had not realized that home owners are squeezing out their renters because they can make more money by doing AirBnB full time. Or that the bulk of AirBnB's income is derived from a small number of people with multiple listings - so much for the idea of "sharing your home with a friend". The travails of Uber are well documented and don't need further discussion here. I had also always felt a certain lack of enthusiasm of ratings on Uber, Yelp and the like, but had never really considered why. This book put my uneasiness into words : the ratings are largely irrelevant to the experience. As Tom Slee points out : a 5-star rating of an Uber driver doesn't tell us anything about how well his brakes are maintained. There is also data to show the skewing of ratings towards higher numbers, possibly driven by a form of politeness ("If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything"), which, again, detracts from their usefulness.

I was also interested (and disheartened) to read how nice-sounding initiatives like data sharing and microfinancing have become hijacked by commercial interests, to the point where they barely resemble the original concepts. That's really too bad.

All in all, an eye-opening book that offers a different perspective on the "sharing economy" narrative.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This critique of the sharing economy goes beyond that to examine some of the general hope and hype surrounding the general embrace ethos of open/free technology projects. The warnings about Uber, Lyft, AirBnB and the ilk are superficially a bit dated now that the gee-whiz era is over, but there is some deeper commentary.

The history of Linux, which went from being freely worked on to volunteers to "free" (in the FSF parlance) but dominated by paid developers who work for major companies was a little more interesting. Even better was the look at actual data on what happens with the utopian predictions about democratic access to platforms (like blogs or youtube) that would help people in the "long tail" and democratize our life. Instead it has concentrated more wealth with the winners--and, now that so much content is free, the owners of the platforms instead of the creators.

At the end of the day Uber hasn't empowered drivers. And AirBnB didn't disrupt the big hotel chains--they thrive and tap into the new booking strategies; it's the old fashioned B&B who's losing out in the struggle. There's the old joke about the short-sighted, self-destructed capitalist will sell you the rope to hang them with. Slee's account sort of stands this on its head and asks to think how much they've pocketed.

[Willy Marz Thiessam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slee has written a well researched book. This author details the nature of the "sharing" economy such as UBER and Air BNB, pointing out quite clearly this "sharing" is nothing more than transferring the liabilities, risks and corporate obligations on to the working poor and local communities. Slee describes the new economy where companies that are organizing people "share" resources such as accommodation or transportation. In other words they exploit ruthlessly property that does not belong to them, riding roughshod over social, political and legal controls driving down workers income to starvation levels.

Slee is a master at showing complex economic reality in a straightforward, comprehensive and readable format. His research is impeccable . I can't wait to see what he writes next.

To me Slee clearly shows that economic Capital is no longer about ownership, its about the accumulation of power.

[Paul Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

For Those Who Believe the Sharing Economy Merits Further Scrutiny

I have to admit that my dislike of Uber came initially from the “God” feature in their platform and how it was used to stalk a female reporter. Beyond that, as the author documents in this book. Many of sharing economy companies trade on their utopian flavored marketing while still being veritable old school corporations. Well worth the read.

[bookblast official · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technologist Tom Slee argues that 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.

Reviewed on The BookBlast® Diary 2017

[Rob Nicholson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye-opening read on the sharing economy. The unexpected chapter on open source software was fantastic. There were a couple of moments of wondering "where is this going", other than this, the author did a great job keeping engagement.

Narration for the audio book was strong, engaging and clear.

An essential read for this decade, I would definitely recommend this to others.

[Anjar Priandoyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like this book, mainly because the tone that he used is that sharing economy is bad. Therefore the book is a sharp critic on sharing economy. Basically, technology is not a solution to a social problem, especially as complicated as a taxi (transport) or housing

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely not my normal type of book to read. I found this book very interesting with both sides of the discussion to do with Sharing Economy. I have never used AirBNB or Uber and I may never will. This was a hard read for me but an interesting one nevertheless.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a lot more informative than I thought it would be for such a short book. It's well researched and makes a compelling argument against the sharing economy. I also always appreciate a book that uses examples outside of just the United States!

[Jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and well researched discussion of the "sharing" economy. Contrasts the way that Uber and others portray what they are doing with their actual behavior and impact on people.

[Ricky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish the book is less anecdotal and more neutral.

[Giulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ótimo livro para entender melhor como algumas grandes empresas de tecnologia presentes no nosso dia a dia impactam as cidades, a forma como nos relacionamos e a precarização do trabalho.

[Emilia Castus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intimacy scaled up is no longer intimacy.

-
the intention of sharing Economy is great but the modern world just made it a new form of slavery.