This weeks’ lesson took us to the sharing or ‘access’ economy.
I decided to look further into this, and found all sorts of things from farmers allowing access to fishing creeks and hunting ranches to your typical car trips and accommodation.
EY mention that a key driver fuelling this sharing economy is the rise in mobile adoption and higher internet penetration. They note that a challenge though is the trust in strangers and insurance needed to secure assets.
However, I found an Australian website that doesn’t require insurance yet utilises unused skills and knowledge.
Source: Virtual Reef Diver
The virtual reef began last week as a part of National Science week and is run by the Institute for Future Environments. It is a different type of sharing, where you classify items in images taken by professional underwater photographers to gain information about what is where, on the reef. Have an explore for yourself.
Source: Virtual Reef Diver
This program is funded by sponsors and project partners, instead delivering value to ‘customers’ in the form of involvement in the project (similar to crowd-sourcing) by utilising their skills and know-how.
Essentially it’s a mix of the sharing economy (others’ skills/knowledge) and crowd-sourcing (involvement in an initiative due to personal interest) which delivers value to customers through a digital platform.
However, this negates the idea we learnt in the lesson that people don’t necessarily want to foster relationships in this economy but instead care only for the benefit they can receive at a lower cost and greater convenience…
My question is then, do you actually think such companies which attempt to appear more people-oriented and friendly actually do worse? And if so, what does this say about platforms like crowd-sourcing, whose basis relies on a similar notion?
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Companies can be generally people-oriented and friendly, however; it is those who claim they are that then backflip or emerge with scandals that give the rest a bad name. I have quite mixed feelings on crowd-sourcing though as I find it quite a strange way so build money for a product or brand which may have encountered a lot of rejection for a good reason.
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I think there are people who would like to foster relationships in a sharing economy. For instance there is a meme that Uber drivers are a cheaper form of therapy. Perhaps they don’t wish to maintain or keep a long term relationship with each other, but I think for some people it can be therapeutic to have someone they can rant to and not be feared of judgment as they would likely never see them again.
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Agreed, I think the whole basis behind the sharing economy was that customers can just get up and leave at the end of it, without having any other attachments to maintain after their purchase journey is over. Maybe that is why initiatives like the virtual coral reef still work – the fact that people can leave at any point and have no further obligations once they’ve done so…
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