The Myth of the Sharing Economy and Its Implications for Regulating Innovation

Abstract

A deflated air mattress rests in the corner of Airbnb's world headquarters. It symbolizes how Airbnb allows regular, local people to earn extra income by renting out space in their homes. Yet, this symbolism fails to represent what the company has become-a unicorn receiving much of its revenue from professionals with full-time listings. The poorly folded wad of plastic exemplifies the Myth of the Sharing Economy, which has been consistently used to subvert regulation. The Myth convinces people that the sharing economy is comprised of selfregulating Platforms, which allow microentrepreneurs to utilize their excess capacity in an altruistic manner. However, the sharing economy is actually comprised of companies driven as much by market forces and failures as any taxicab company or hotel chain. The Myth possesses an appeal that is simple and seductive. It takes the familiar idea of sharing to make the claim that Platforms are unique and should be subject to new and different regulation or no regulation at all. This Myth not only harms Platform users, the environment, and the culture and diversity of communities, but it has enabled sharing economy Platforms to become powerful influencers in Silicon Valley, state legislatures, and beyond.

Research on the Development Path and Growth Mechanism of Unicorn Enterprises

“…Stemler took the Unicorn Airbnb as a case study and then found that cumbersome enterprise regulatory rules hindered its rapid growth. e government needs to formulate effective policies and laws according to the situation of enterprises, so as to promote the growth and cultivation of Unicorns [25].…”

On the Convergence of Collaborative and Social Economy: A Quality Model for the Combined Effects

“…However, not all is good in a collaborative economy; there are some grey aspects such as concentrated investments, the existence of dominant players in some sectors [17], and the value generated not always being shared with the users who helped create it [17] (reducing marginal costs, investing, growing fast, selling, and moving forward [6], and lack of clarity regarding where taxes must be paid). In some cases, activity is not regulated by law [19], worker's rights could be threatened [20], and one wonders what would happen if massive information is captured on multiple platforms [19].…”

An education-based approach for enabling the sustainable development gear

“…Nevertheless, undesirable situations may occur that must be corrected with new legislation or modernization of existing legislation. These situations may be conflicts in the maintenance of the privacy and security of user data, or in the maintenance of adequate guarantees for parties to the commercial transaction (Stemler, 2016).…”