Sharing economies: Moving beyond binaries in a digital age

Davies, A., Gray, M., Donald, B., and J. Knox-Hayes

Accepted in: Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2017

Abstract
In periods of turbulence the tendency to simplify messages and polarize debates is
nothing new. In our hyper-mediated world of on-line technologies, where it seems that
even national policy can be forged in the 140 characters of Twitter, it is more important
than ever to retain spaces for in-depth debate of emergent phenomena that have
disruptive and transformative potential. In this paper, we follow this logic and argue
that to fully understand the diverse range of practices and potential consequences of
activities uncomfortably corralled under the ambiguous term ‘the sharing economy’,
requires not a simplification of arguments, but an opening out of horizons to explore the
many ways in which these phenomena have emerged and are evolving. It is argued that
this will require attention to multiple terrains, from diverse intellectual traditions
across many disciplines to the thus far largely reactive responses of government and
regulation, and from the world of techno-innovation start-ups to the optics of media
(including social media) reporting on what is means to share in the 21st Century.
Building on this, we make the case for viewing ‘the sharing economy’ as a matrix of diverse
economies with clear links to past practices. We propose that to build a grammar for
understanding these diverse sharing economies requires further attention to: 1) The
etymology of sharing and sharing economies 2) The differentiated geographies to which
sharing economies contribute; 3) What it means to labour, work and be employed in
sharing economies; and 4) The role of the state and others in governing, regulating and
shaping the organisation and practice of sharing economies; and 5) the impacts of
sharing economies. In conclusion, we suggest that while media interest may fade as
their presence in everyday lives becomes less novel, understanding sharing economies
remains an urgent activity if we are to ensure that the new ways of living and labouring,
to which sharing economies are contributing, work to promote sustainable and
inclusive development in this world that ultimately we all share.

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Introduction

In the last decade the familiar concepts of sharing and economy have become
increasingly co-joined in order to describe emergent, often digitally-mediated, means of
enjoying, acquiring or exchanging goods, services, knowledge and experiences together
with others. Indeed, some commentators suggest this new model of ICT-mediated
sharing represents a “third great economic revolution” (Munger 2016: 391), following
on from the transition to settled agriculture and the industrial revolution that
harnessed fossil fuels and technology to facilitate the mass production of consumer
goods and services. Both of these previous economic revolutions involved significant
disruptions to the ways in which labour is organised, social relations shaped and
natural resources consumed. They both demanded heightened levels of co-ordination
and scales of consumption, co-operation, and interdependence. The extent to which
similar structural dislocations will occur through the range of activities often corralled
under the term ‘sharing economy’ remains unclear and will require concerted
transdisciplinary attention across and beyond the academy. Too often, the media and
scholars understand the confluence of sharing and economy through simplified
messages and polarized debates, casting such activities as either a panacea for
addressing contemporary malaise (Botsman and Rogers, 2010) or as a cynical
marketing tool symbolic of advanced capitalism (Bulajewski, 2014). However, the
fusion of sharing and economy is, as yet, under-theorised and underdetermined, with
responses from scholars and governments tending to be both reactive and fragmented
(Cheng, 2016; Martin, 2016). Essentially, established institutions are lagging behind the
practical actions of entrepreneurial actors, technological developments and those
engaged in sharing. However, in a hyper-mediated world of on-line technologies, where
it seems that even national policy can be forged in the 140 characters of Twitter, it is
more important than ever to encourage in-depth debate of emergent phenomena that
have disruptive and transformative potential.

In this paper, we argue that to fully understand the practices and identify potential
consequences of all activities currently uncomfortably corralled under the term ‘sharing

2
economy’ requires not a simplification of arguments, but an opening out of horizons to
explore the many ways in which this phenomena has emerged and is evolving. This will
require attention to multiple terrains, from divergent intellectual traditions to the thus
far largely reactive responses of government and regulation, and from the world of
techno-innovation start-ups to the optics of media (including social media) reporting on
what it means to share in the 21st Century. Certainly, there is considerable work to be
done to better understand the implications of this phenomenon for regions, economies
and societies. To do this, it is first necessary to build a grammar for understanding these
diverse sharing economies attending to: 1) The etymology of sharing and sharing
economies; 2) The differentiated geographies to which sharing economies contribute;
3) What it means to labour, work and be employed in sharing economies; 4) The role of
the state and others in governing, regulating and shaping the organisation and practice
of sharing economies; and 5) The impacts of sharing economies. For while media
interest in the fusion of sharing and economy may fade as its presence in everyday lives
becomes less novel, understanding the practice and potential of what goes on under the
broad and differentiated banner of sharing economies remains an urgent activity if we
are to ensure that emergent ways of living and labouring, to which sharing economies
are contributing, work in ways that promote sustainable and inclusive development for
all in this world that ultimately we all share.

Etymology of sharing and sharing economy[ies]

Considerable debate has been generated by the rising visibility of the term sharing in
relation to economic activities, particularly its appropriation as a term to describe
financialised transactions of commercial business. This has stimulated numerous
attempts to define what is and what is not a legitimate use of the term sharing with
respect to the economy, with little agreement emerging (Botsman and Rogers, 2012;
Belk, 2014; Martin 2016; McLaren and Agyeman, 2015). Under such conditions of
definitional disharmony it is useful to look at foundational sources on the etymology of
words. The Cambridge English Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2017), for
example, defines sharing as:

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 Having or using something at the same time as someone else; dividing something
(e.g. food, money, goods etc.) and giving part of it to someone else; undertaking
some part of an activity with others; experiencing a similar feeling, quality or
experience; telling others about your thoughts, feelings, or ideas; or putting
something on social media so that others can see it.

The dictionary definition of sharing is then open and broad rather than narrow and
precise, making ongoing contestation unsurprising. What is dominant in this definition
is the primacy of acting or using in conjunction, or experiencing things or feelings, with
others. Sharing is then a social process but it is not by necessity, at least in definitional
terms, prosocial or concerned with only gifts aimed at a more just [re]distribution of
resources. This is in contrast to more normative readings of sharing in everyday use,
such as in relation to childhood development and socialisation which draw upon
notions of fairness, equity and supportive group dynamics. While developmental
psychologists observe prosocial sharing even in very young children across cultures
(Gurven, 2004; Brownell, Svetlova & Nichols, 2009; Olson & Spelke, 2008, Sigelman &
Waitzman, 1991; Rochat et al., 2009), a key point is that sharing is not by definition only
related to such interactions.

Unsurprisingly, such definitional openness generates questions about the boundaries of

the concept and whether, in the context of this paper, every exchange activity might be
considered part of the sharing economy. For example, despite ongoing discussions
around whether for-profit market exchanges can be counted as sharing (Belk, 2014),
these are not necessarily barred from our definition of sharing. At least, not on the
grounds of the contradictions whereby a model of the sharing economy exists in which
the distribution of resources is unjust or inequitable. Side-stepping the ‘in-out’
definitional debate, Ede (2014) suggests that attention should not be focused on
whether money is involved, but rather whether the sharing is transactional or
transformational. Here transactional refers to activities which are typically (but not
necessarily) profit-oriented and focused on achieving efficiencies in existing systems but
do not alter power structures. Transformational sharing may also incorporate
efficiency-seeking practices, but crucially also seeks to change power and social
relations around who benefits, who owns and controls the processes through which

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sharing takes place and whether it leads to greater development of social capital,
relational bonding and resilience or increased commodification. Using these modifiers
allows for a more nuanced analysis of activities and outcomes, but as Ede (ibid) argues
there are no absolutes. However, a stronger potential boundary might be found in the
temporal dimension of the sharing definition: “having or using something at the same
time as someone else”. This could come about from co-ownership of a resource (i.e.
owning a resource at the same time) or from joint usage – whether simultaneous or
sequential (McLaren and Agyeman, 2015). Crucially, the temporal aspect “at the same
time” might necessitate simultaneous consumption for an event or a short-lived
resource, but could also include sequential consumption for a long-lived resource. For
example, sequential usage could arise from an informal tool sharing agreement between
neighbours, who take turns to use expensive goods, or could include a firm renting out a
resource to many users for profit. Thus, the definition includes different potential forms
of organisation of resources – joint forms of “having” as well as the collective process or
the mode of sharing – the joint “using”. Again, teasing out these characteristics does not
preclude a particular organisational form of resource or mode of sharing. Thus, the
commercial delivery of a for-profit market exchange is not impossible under this
definition. These are important issues that deserve more consolidated attention than is
possible in this paper, but it is highly likely that the invocation of sharing will become
increasingly politicized and its meaning ever more contested as its use expands. Such
contestation in itself is not necessarily problematic if it also leads to on going societal
debate about normative ideas embedded within sharing, such as justice and rights; for
such normative ideas are themselves subject to ongoing debates over their
interpretation and application, but nonetheless remain important global touchpoints for
societal development.

In addition to the ontology of sharing, there is longstanding body of work in the fields of
anthropology, psychology and behavioural science around social practices of sharing,
for as Belk (2017) and others (Kovács et al., 2017; Davies and Legg, 2017) have noted,
sharing is as old as civilisation itself. Indeed, it was through food sharing within and
between families in particular that specialisation, through division of labour, became
possible and relational bridges constructed within communities; sharing has played a
central role in shaping human life history, social organization, and cooperative

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psychology (Kaplan and Gurven, 2005; Jones, 2007). Since these early examples of
highly localized collaborative and co-operative behaviour, other actors, institutions and
technological developments have created complex ecosystems with many opportunities
to share that are less spatially constrained. For example, McLaren and Agyeman (2015)
in their book ‘Sharing Cities’, demonstrate how urban sites have always embodied
shared spaces with possibilities for interaction, connection and the exchange of goods,
services and experiences across different territories - individual, collective and public.
Indeed back in the 1970s, Manuel Castells (1977) developed the concept of “collective
consumption” to distinguish those goods and services in an urban area that require
collective provision (such as public transportation, public housing, and mass public
education) compared to those that are individually consumed. He argued that the ways
in which these services are managed and governed is important for understanding local
urban politics in advanced capitalist societies.

More recently, information and communication technologies (ICT) have further

stretched the spaces over which such sharing can take place far beyond kinship, familial
and geographically bounded settings (Davies and Legg, 2017). The evolution of these
extended spaces and practices of sharing deserve broader and more concerted
attention, or what Duncan McLaren and Julian Agyeman have called a paradigmatic
perspective (2015:7). This requires a dismantling of frames that cast sharing as only a
social or an economic activity and a wider perspective of sharing as a livelihood activity,
with socio-cultural, and sometimes political, dimensions in addition to having economic
and social components. McLaren and Agyeman’s conception of a ‘sharing paradigm’
(ibid) highlights sharing things, services, activities or experiences; sharing between
private individuals as well as through collective or state provision; sharing material or
virtual, tangible or intangible entities; sharing consumption or production; sharing
simultaneously or sequentially; sharing as rivalrous or non-rivalrous; sharing in parts of
sharing in turns.

Indicating the high level of attention to the confluence of sharing and economy, the
Cambridge English Dictionary (2017) now includes a definition of ‘sharing economy’,
which is described as an economic system based on people sharing possessions and
services, either for free or for payment, usually organised and mediated through the

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internet. As in this dictionary definition, technology is often presented as the key driver
behind the contemporary sharing economy (Botsman and Rogers, 2010; Kovács et al.,
2017). However, sharing activities in the very sectors now heralded as the vanguard of
the sharing economy, through the commercial success of companies like Uber and
AirbBnb, existed before widespread personal and mobile computing. From the 1960s,
early incarnations of shared mobility and co-housing were primarily bottom-up,
community-led schemes located in alternative counter-cultures and founded on ideals
of communal property. One of the White Plans for Amsterdam, for example, developed
in the mid 1960s by a group of radical activists called the Provos included shared
bicycle schemes and the chief architect of the plan, Luud Schimmelpennink, went on to
found WitKar – Dutch for White Car – a car-sharing program in the early 1970s. These
localised, placed-based practices structured around common ideological goals were
transformed by digitalisation, and on-line technologies in particular, which enable quick
and convenient match-making between those who wish to share. In these new
incarnations there is no need to agree ideologically or even to be co-located to
participate. This digitally-mediated sharing also creates the potential for commercial
value generation, not only for those who share, but also for those facilitating the
sharing. For example, the provision of personal information often required as a pre-
requisite for participation in ICT-mediated sharing can create a valuable corpus of ‘big
data’ through network effects, providing the scale of participation is large enough. This
data may also be collected, analyzed, sold, and re-sold, generating revenue for various
participants (Frankel & Reid, 2008; Chen et al., 2012).

The possibility for commercialising a previously commons-based or informal means of

accessing goods, services and experiences has been a major driver of investment in, and
major focus of attention on, contemporary sharing activities. Much has been made of the
benefits that peer-to-peer, ICT-mediated sharing can create from minimizing extended
value chains, directly linking producers and consumers, and creating possibilities for
people to participate as both buyers and sellers in what have been termed multi-sited
marketplaces (Hagiu, 2009). Sundararajan (2016) has termed this “crowd-based
capitalism” as in many cases the high-value, venture-capital funded platform-based
organisations have effectively become the new market intermediaries. Crucially,
despite the claim to directly link consumers and producers, these firms mediate

7
between the two and create value as they do so. As these new intermediaries scale
rapidly and internationally, it is becoming increasingly difficult to transact without
engaging these companies.

To further distinguish types of sharing economies, Kenney & Zysman (2016) have
adopted the term ‘digital platform economy’ or simply ‘platform economy’ to describe
the variety of economic activities that involve the role that mobile and ICT technologies
play in the delivery of services. Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Facebook, are most often cited as
those large companies that are transforming the way consumers connect with service
providers. The Cambridge Dictionary, while not yet explicitly offering a definition of the
‘digital platform economy’ has recently introduced the new verb ‘uberize’ to explain
changes in business models for buying, leasing, acquiring or accessing goods and
services, especially using mobile technologies. Kenney & Zysman (2016:62) argue that
these activities “are not based on ‘sharing’; rather, they monetize human effort and
consumer assets … the advantage of platform-based companies rests on an arbitrage
between the practices adopted by platform firms and the rules by which established
companies operate, which are intended to protect customers, communities, workers,
and markets”.

It is unsurprising that large-scale, commercial 'peer to peer' sharing platforms have

become the main focus of controversy, celebration, and policy within the sharing
economy because they most visibly challenge incumbent industries and governance
structures (Stabrowski, 2017; Martens and Codagnone, 2016). However, they represent
only the tip of the sharing economies iceberg. Following Gibson-Graham (2008), we
argue that an exclusive theoretical and analytical focus on capitalist economic relations
obscures and undervalues alternative economic forms. Extending a diverse economies
perspective into the remit of the sharing economy better acknowledges the history and
evolution, as well as the range and scope, of the sharing economy activities; a
fundamental step towards developing a fuller analysis and theoretical explanation. Just
as there are diverse economies, so too are there diverse sharing economies.

We argue that there is a ‘matrix of sharing’ which displays variations in the mode of
sharing (gifts, barters, reciprocity, selling) and the organisational form of sharing (for-

8
profit, variation in for-profit, not for-profit, social enterprise, collective, co-op,
association). This is illustrated in Figure 1. with respect to food sharing economies,
which have been delineated and categorised in the SHARECITY100 database that
collates more than 4000 food sharing initiatives in 100 cities in 83 countries across six
continents (Davies et al., 2016). While this matrix clearly highlights the differentiated
nature of sharing activities between initiatives, the food sharing initiatives were also
internally variegated. As reported in Davies et al. (2017), more than two-thirds of
initiatives (70%) of food sharing initiatives in the database share multiple things (e.g.
meals, crops, seeds, growing or preparation skills, kitchens and garden spaces etc.),
21% of initiatives use more than one mode of sharing and 20% of organisations
comprise more than one organisational form. For example, there may be informal
elements in an organisation which adopts a co-operative model, or there might be
initiatives which have for-profit and co-operative activities. The Joinery1 in Adelaide
Australia, for example is a for-profit organisation with the goal of being a ‘space for
South Australians to connect and create a better future together’, and employs both gifting
and selling in order to sustain its activities. Similarly, Mill Creek Farm2 in West
Philadelphia, an educational urban farm that is dedicated to ‘improving local access to
fresh produce, building a healthy community and environment, and promoting a just
and sustainable food system’, is also a for-profit initiative, but engages in gifting,
bartering as well as selling at different moments and with different communities.

Viewing the sharing economy as a matrix of diverse economies allows an analysis of the
sharing economy as a continuum both temporally (i.e. connecting with past sharing
practices) and substantively, even when presented with forms which appear binary. It
allows us to see platform technology as an enabling factor rather than a causal one and
to examine the numerous antecedents which predate the contemporary discourse about
sharing. Thus, we try to highlight some of the many elements of the sharing economy
that have roots in previous economic eras and suggest an evolution of form and
organisation rather than radical dislocation from a previous model. A few scholars have
attempted to capture the scope and range of the sharing economy more broadly
(McLaren and Agyeman, 2015) and in specific sectors such as food (Davies and Legg,

1 Details of the Joinery can be found at: http://www.thejoinery.org.au/

2 Further details of Mill Creek Farm can be found at: http://www.millcreekurbanfarm.org/

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2017) and housing (Voytenko Palgan et al., 2016). Within these analyses it is not just
consumption, but also peer production models that are incorporated, both the
production of goods and the production of informational services and content Benkler,
2006).

While Figure 1 is merely indicative of the many variations in mode and organisational
form that are already being used in activities described as foodsharing, it provides a
foundation from which to consider the nuances and varieties of sharing economies that
currently exist in other areas and also to consider the differences in opportunities to
share which exist in particular activities. For example, the collecting dimension of food
sharing emerges because of the existence of public crops and wild foods (e.g. fungi and
fruit), but it is hard to identify such a category in the mobility sector, although it is
possible to imagine a similar category around accommodation which includes activities
such as squatting or living nomadically in public spaces.

Geographies of sharing

Given how sharing economies are embroiled in shaping societies, economies and
environments, it is inevitable that they will create particular and peculiar geographies
of sharing. It is already well-established that there are diverse cultural (Gabriel, 2013),
developmental (Smith et al., 2013; Tomasello and Warenken, 2008) and historical
geographies of sharing (Ivanova, 20011), as well as territorial geographies which relate
to the spaces over which sharing takes place (McLaren and Agyeman, 2015). Within
analyses of sharing economies however, there is space to develop more geographically-
sensitive approaches to better comprehend the relations between scale, space and
place; particularly between the new geographies created between on- and off-line
worlds (David, 2017) and between localities around the globe (Davies et al., 2017).
Specifically, more attention to the spatial assemblages and multi-layered and multi-level
ecosystems of sharing would better indicate the interactions and interdependencies
between the skills, spaces, and stuff, which are stimulated through sharing economies.
Such work could help to bridge the gaps in knowledge between the global or
supranational trend analysis of sharing economies conducted primarily on the

10
commercial sectors of sharing (PWC, 2016) and the plethora of individual sharing
enterprise case studies (Cohen and Muñoz, 2015). There is also scope to move beyond
the western-centric focus of much sharing economies research (Tolkach et al., 2015)
and the preoccupation with mobility and accommodation sectors to areas which have
long been the focus of sharing researchers previously such as food and finance (Davies
and Legg, 2017; Wekerle and Classens, 2015; McClintock, 2010; Allen, 2010) as well as
new spaces of sharing created by technological developments (David, 2017).

Certainly, sharing economies have profound implications for the geography of economic
activity. Traditional firms, particularly those in ground transportation and temporary
accommodation, confront substantial geographic impediments. They must build
infrastructure (buildings, backend operations, human resources, repair and
maintenance capacity) to support expansion. Personnel must be hired, trained, and
supported. Sharing economy firms by contrast face substantially lower barriers to
geographic expansion because they blur the boundaries between public, corporate and
private space. When every personal car or home becomes a potential professional
vehicle or room to rent, with costs of provision, repair, and maintenance outsourced to
the owner and the costs of training outsourced to customers (through a ratings or
reputation system), the limits to expansion are much reduced.

In some ways, this discussion parallels that which occurred during the rise of the
internet. Digital technologies based on the internet, the logic went, would make
geographic space irrelevant. As scholars noted early in the new millennium, however,
the internet never made geography irrelevant; people, corporations, and other social
actors using the internet still had to exist in the physical world where geography
remained just as pertinent -- if not even more pertinent -- than before (Christopherson,
Garretsen and Martin, 2008); Rather than diffusing opportunities and productivity
spatially, it is suggested that a ‘winner-takes-all’ dynamic in many industries has
created greater concentrations of ‘frontier firms’ in particular places, particularly large
cities (Andrews et al., 2017). With the OECD (2015) finding little trickledown of
technological capabilities from frontier firms into the rest of the economy in which they
are located.

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Similar issues confront the sharing economy. While sharing economy digital platforms
may transcend local and national boundaries, they are still enacted in locales; they have
a material and territorial impact on the ground. For example, Uber is restricted or
blocked entirely from municipalities in 10 countries (Khosla, 2015) and even where
Uber can operate, it may not be able to operate everywhere, exemplified by restrictions
on airport access (McCartney, 2016). Most starkly, Uber’s attempt to circumvent local
political geography through a digital tool called ‘Greyball’ (Isaac, 2017), that allowed
drivers to avoid law enforcement personnel, demonstrates just how important place
(and regulation tied to place) remains for sharing economy platforms.

Indeed, it is far from the first time localities have been challenged by transnational
actors seeking entry into new markets, competitive advantage and profit optimisation.
Distinct parallels can be drawn to the rise of multi or transnational corporations
starting in the 1980s. In many cases, these cross-national economic actors had the
financial and political heft to challenge and overrun local and national regulations and
homogenize culture. The prominence of globalized fast food chains not withstanding;
the history of multinational corporations is a case study in how local cultures reshape—
and perhaps pull apart—global economic processes and actors. It may be that the
combination of digital platforms sitting at the intersection of the firm and the market
(Uber and similar sharing platforms are both firms and facilitators of third party
transactions) are changing the relationship between territorial scales, prompting anew
questions of where the global ends and the local begins. Going further, the
reconstruction of the relationship between individuals and markets by sharing economy
platforms creates new concerns regarding how global actors and forces can subtly
reshape local cultures.

These effects can be difficult to see at the macro level, requiring an analytical shift in
scalar focus. For example, Belk (2017) probes the phenomenon of sharing at a distinctly
smaller scale: gated communities; an increasingly common form of social exclusion
which also relies to a substantial degree on sharing to succeed. In Belk’s words, such
communities “increasingly bifurcate the world into geographic clusters of haves and
have-nots.” (2017: pp). Addressing sharing in the context of such enclavism allows Belk
to explore the more social aspect of sharing, including the concepts of ‘sharing in’ and
‘sharing out’. Belk (2017) notes that sharing amongst families—routinized, non-

12
exclusive, and without expectation of reciprocity—builds strong social bonds. He argues
that this ‘sharing in’ differs from ‘sharing out’ in which material resources are gifted to
outsiders, usually on a once-off or very limited basis. Gated communities represent a
test bed for how sharing interacts with social context. This form of sharing resembles
the ‘sharing in’ that predominates in families, but Belk argues that gated communities
often do not produce strong social ties. The key difference, he suggests, lies in the
motivation for sharing. While ‘sharing in’ is a form of social inclusion, sharing within
gated communities operates on the basis of social exclusion. Members of the gated
community share resources to ensure that non-residents are kept outside the
community. Excluding others may be motivated by fear of crime or disgust at urban
pollution or contamination, but the underlying motivation of exclusion remains. Belk
(2017) draws a connection between the types of sharing that takes place in gated
communities with for-profit ventures in the sharing economy. In both cases, sharing is
actually also a mode of social isolation and exclusion, which may ultimately lead to a
cumulative weakening of social bonds at wider scales.

While the social, and societal, implications of sharing economies are profound, more
often analytical focus and political controversy surrounds how they are reshaping
business and labor practice. In short, does the rise of sharing economies represent the
beginning of a radical shift in how business is organized, questioning existing
management theories and practices of labour, employment, the firm, and the nature of
economic enterprise? How will the wider range of stakeholders in sharing economies
coalesce and who has the power and control to govern in these expanded ecosystems of
sharing? Attention to the changing employment relationships and governance
challenges are placed under scrutiny in the following sections.

Work in the Sharing Economy

While there is a growing and extensive literature on work in the sharing economy,
interest in the changing nature of work is not the sole preserve of sharing economy
analysts. As an on-going feature of 21st century capitalism, academics have long debated
the extent and character of changing working practices – practices which are assumed

13
to vary from the paradigmatic ‘standard model’ of full-time, regular, contractually-based
work (Houseman and Osawa 2003, Kalleberg et al., 2000; ADD WORK). It is important
to note that even in the height of the post-war Fordist boom, many jobs were not
‘standard’, and were instead firmly rooted in the insecurity and lower wages of the
secondary labour market (Reich, et al 1973, Doeringer and Piore 1985). Despite this
long history of segmented labour markets, the non-standard model of work is still seen
as an aberration from the norm. However, in many countries more stable employment
relationships have declined as a proportion of total jobs and many of these jobs have
transformed into something more arms-length – removing the direct relationship
between employer and employee and inserting an intermediary – as seen in many of the
platform business models of work in the sharing economy. While many observers have
celebrated and embraced these new models of work as enhancing creativity and
flexibility, others have criticised the sharing economy for the precarious nature of new
working arrangements – the potential drag on wages, low regulatory structures, and
lack of institutions, such as unions, to set a wage and standard floor (Richardson, 2017).

Crucially, we argue that it is impossible to analyse working practices in the ‘sharing

economy’ as a homogeneous whole - the variation and distinctiveness of the different
organisational structures which include for-profit and not-for-profit activities and a
range of ownership models from shareholding publically traded companies to worker
cooperatives (Rutkin 2015; Scholz, 2014). The matrix in Figure 1., highlights the
potential variation in working practices with different organisational forms and modes
of sharing. In a similar vein, Chris Benner’s research on new forms of working in the
‘new economy’ reminds us of the importance of distinguishing between flexible ways of
organising work and the changing nature of the contractual relationship between the
firm and workers (Benner, 2002). That is, we must examine the changes in the
organization of work in the sharing economy as distinct from changes in the
organization of for-profit firms. Below, we examine the working practices of the for-
profit firm models, which have been the first to increase in scale and received the most
popular and academic scrutiny, although many of the issues differ for the cooperative
end of the sharing economy spectrum.

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There are a large number of scholars who explore the scale and significance of self-
employment, fixed term, temporary and part-time work over the last 30 years (Carré,
2000, Cappelli and Keller, 2013; Kalleberg et al., 2000). There are also numerous
popular accounts which try to capture the explosion of new forms of non-standard
working arrangements with terms such as “platform work”, “on-demand work”, and the
“gig economy” (Brinkley 2016). One of the major debates in both academic and popular
accounts is the significance for workers of this increasingly popular business model
followed by many for-profit sharing economy firms where firms subcontract work to
self-employed independent contractors, who do not have the legal rights and benefits
afforded to an employee. Critics argue that sharing economy employers give their
workers independent contractors or self-employment status in order to cut wages,
reduce benefits, and avoid legal responsibility for their employees (Bernhardt 2014).
Clearly, the evidence shows that non-standard working is more contractually insecure
and offers less access to paid leave, sick pay or maternity as well as training
opportunities and career development (Dekker and Van der Veen, 2015, Office for
National Statistics (ONS), 2014). However, other research points to the high levels of
job-satisfaction amongst the self-employed due to high levels of autonomy and
independence (Blanchflower, 2000; Benz and Frey, 2008; Lange 2012).

It is difficult to establish the extent and scope of these new work arrangements. The
growth of this work model is difficult to quantify as existing data sources do not
completely capture the phenomena although some national statistic agencies are trying
to respond to the data gap.i However, there have been a few high profile attempts to
estimate the scale of these new types of working practices. For example, Katz and
Krueger’s (2015) study of alternative (or nonstandard) work in the US finds that
workers engaged in all alternative work arrangements (temporary work, on-call work,
contract work, and independent contractors) increased from 10.1% of all workers in
2005 to 15.8% in 2015. They show that all of the net employment growth in the US
from 2005 to 2015 involved alternative working arrangements.

However, Katz and Krueger encourage caution about extrapolating this data to estimate
the size of the sharing economy workforce. They find that only “0.5% of workers are
working through an on-line intermediary, such as Uber or Task Rabbit” Thus, they

15
conclude that “the online gig workforce is relatively small compared to other forms of
alternative work arrangements” (ibid: 3). Crucially, Katz and Krueger only collected
data on each individual’s main job, while other studies suggest that many workers use
sharing economy work to supplement their existing income (Schor, 2017). Others are
also critical of overestimating the extent to which we see a reorganization of work.
Bernhardt (2014) shows that existing aggregate data in the US does not show a strong,
unambiguous increase in key measures of nonstandard work. In particular, she argues
that “on-demand platform work” is far less prevalent than current media accounts
suggest.

It is also difficult to measure the extent of changing working patterns associated with
the sharing economy in the UK. A report by the Work Foundation (Brinkley, 2016:3)
states “we have no direct measures of the gig economy, but all the evidence tells us that
it accounts for a modest share of employment.” They estimate that regular and
occasional participants in the gig economy “account for no more than 6 per cent of total
employment at most” and that “we find no evidence that the gig economy has increased
the share of insecure employment in the labour market.” Their findings are
strengthened by their inclusion of occasional work in the “gig economy” as well as more
regular work. Certainly, their data shows that sharing economy work has not reduced
the aggregate supply of permanent and full time employee jobs. They state that in the
UK “at the start of 2016, the non-permanent workforce accounted for about 20% of total
employment (self-employed, temporary workers, unpaid family workers, and those on
government schemes). This is very similar to the share at the start of 1996” (Brinkley,
2016:7).

Although single indicators cannot completely capture the changing contours of work in
the sharing economy, many scholars use self-employment data as an important proxy.
The justification being that the changing nature of the employment relationship should
result in more self-employment. For example, in the UK the data from the Office of
National Statistics shows that self-employment increased its share of total employment
from close to 13.0% in 2008 to 14.9% in 2015. The ONS data also shows that about half
of the growth in self-employment was part-time and half full time (ONS, 2016).

16
Studying self-employment across OECD countries, Blanchflower (2000) finds that self-
employment tends to create bifurcated labour markets with the least educated have the
highest probability of being self-employed while the most highly educated also have
relatively high probabilities. This is reinforced by analysis in the UK which shows that
60% of the growth in self-employment since 2009 has been in ‘privileged’ sectors such
as advertising and banking, while the remaining 40% of the growth in self-employment
has come in more ‘precarious’ sectors, such as construction and cleaning (Resolution
Foundation, 2017). These broad contours are given shape by recent studies of workers
in the sharing economy (Schor, 2017; Ravenelle, 2017). Schor finds that many sharing
economy workers are highly educated workers with other sources of income, who
augment their incomes by taking on traditional blue and pink collar manual labour
tasks. This, she argues, suggests that the allocation of these jobs in the sharing
economy is likely to increase inequality by crowding-out traditional blue and pink collar
workers. Ravenelle (ibid) finds that while some sharing economy workers use the
experience to become fully-fledged entrepreneurs, most experience a sense of stigma in
regards to their sharing economy work. Like Schor, she argues that the workers who
succeed in the sharing economy often possess significant skills or capital that would
also enable them to succeed outside the sharing economy.

Additionally, the potentially disruptive new employment relationship between

employer and worker may be concentrated in certain places and sectors. Davidson and
Infranca (2016) argue that the sharing economy must be understood as primarily an
urban phenomena, where “a critical mass of providers and consumers who are
sufficiently close to each other or to other amenities to make their platforms work”
(Davidson and Infranca, 2016: 218). Hathaway and Muro (2016) also argue that the
“gig economy” in the US is not evenly spread, but is found in large metro areas and that
it is further concentrated in particular sectors, such as ground transport, taxis and
accommodations. In a study of San Francisco between 2009 and 2013 they found that
non-employee firms (a proxy for individual contractors) in transport and
accommodation services increased between 40 and 80%.

Reflecting the visibility of this growth, changes to the working practices in the taxi
industry have dominated the popular debate around the sharing economy. Uber is often

17
considered a flagship for-profit firm of the sharing economy, particularly in its
relationship with its drivers. In 2015, the firm had annual revenue of $1.5 billion, and
had over 1 million drivers worldwide, but only employed 6,700 workers (Lazo, 2015).
Under this model, every single “driver-partner”, as Uber calls them, is considered an
independent contractor without any rights to sick pay, paid holidays, or employer
contributions to a pension. However, there is growing debate and legal challenges in
many countries over whether Uber drivers are actually self employed or employees.
Recent legal rulings in the UK and the US have sided with the drivers that they are
indeed employees. These debates around nature of the employment contract are
fundamental to understanding the potential significance of the sharing economy.

One striking feature of the urban and sectoral focus of for-profit sharing economy firms
(ground transport, taxis and accommodations) is that they have found success in cities
and sectors which have over decades, accrued regulatory and institutional structures
which traditionally functioned as a wage floor or to maintain labour standards.
Different sectors can develop distinctive institutional and cultural configurations, such
as unions and sectoral licensing, that can mediate the impact of changes in working
practices and labour market structures, and influence the forms these take (Gray, 2004;
Gallie, 2017). For example, the taxi industry in many urban areas is highly regulated by
licensing laws, which cover fare structures, rules of competition, and working rules.
Additionally, parts of the hotel sector in US metro areas, such as New York, San
Francisco, and Las Vegas, have seen high rates of unionisation amongst hotel workers.
In some US cities, unions in this sector have developed an institutional infrastructure,
such as internal hiring halls and formalised training mechanisms, to maintain a
particular relationship between the union and the employer which allow workers to
earn premium wages (Gray and DeFilipis, 2015). Many of the urban labour markets
which have accrued these regulatory and institutional structures are the same urban
areas where Hathaway and Muro have tracked the success of non-employer firms, their
proxy for the “gig economy”, in traveller accommodation, taxis and ground
transportation (Hathaway and Muro, 2016).

While not causal, the existence of local institutions which raise the wage floor and
enforcement of rules around the labour market, may create opportunities for sharing

18
economy firms which use different employment structures (self-employment,
independent contracting) to avoid these costs and undercut existing firms. This
suggests that these working practices of the for-profit sharing economy firms may
flourish in urban areas and sectors which display high levels of regulation and
institutions, which functioned to set a wage and standard floor for workers. In a similar
vein, a report on “illegal hotels” in New York City’s accommodation sector argued that
the changes in this sector were undercutting the regulated hotel industry and
undercutting the wages of the unionised workforce with non-union wages and
unregulated working conditions (IHWG, 2008).

As the above suggests, low wages and income volatility clearly account for a large
portion of work in the for-profit sharing economy. This is partially a result of the low
returns to self-employment. A study in the UK shows that the typical weekly earnings of
self-employed workers were less in 2014-15 (after adjusting for inflation) than in
1994/95 (Resolution Foundation, 2016). The low wages and income volatility are also
partially explained by the prevalence of part-time work in the self-employed population.
Surveys consistently find that a majority of the workers on platforms are working on
them only part-time and part-year, to smooth over periods of unemployment or to
supplement incomes (Bernhardt, 2014). Similarly, in the US, JP Morgan Chase
conducted research to estimate the size of the sharing economy. They found extreme
income volatility, of more than 30% month-to-month change in total income, especially
amongst younger workers and those in the bottom income quintile (JP Morgan Chase,
2016). Juliet Schor comes to a similar conclusion in her study of workers interacting
with different on-line platforms, which found that sharing economy workers, often
middle income professionals, use the opportunities of additional part time work to
supplement their regular income (Schor, 2017). They found that middle or high income
professionals were more successful in supplementing their income in this way than low
income workers. This suggests that the model may promote job-hoarding rather than
job-sharing and may increase income inequality rather than decrease it (ibid). This
argument reinforces Ponds et al.’s (2016) research on over-education which finds that
lower-educated workers may be “crowded out” by higher educated workers in urban
labour markets. The argument is that if higher educated workers accept a job requiring
a medium level of education, this can push medium educated workers to accept jobs

19
requiring little or no education, which leaves few jobs for those with low education
levels.

Thus, while not new, these trends suggest that the growth of the for-profit side of the
sharing economy has exacerbated issues of insecure “non standard” work. The positive
sides of entrepreneurial opportunities are outweighed by the skewed distribution of
work, income, and risk for sharing economy workers. While this may be embraced by
educated workers supplementing their existing income, it may be detrimental for
workers who rely on the work as their primary source of income. Furthermore, the rise
in for-profit sharing economy firms may have a detrimental effect on incumbent
workers in existing regulated and unionised industries.

Governing sharing economies

As mentioned above, much of the sharing economy operates outside the normal
workings of the neoliberal state. However, there are instances where the state has had
to react to dramatic changes in the delivery of services at the local level especially in the
realm of less “sharing” activities and more platform-related ones like ride-sharing and
housing (Belk 2017). These state reactions have varied considerably across space –
from the full-scale embrace of re-writing state regulations to facilitate new operating
models to outright rejection.

The most obvious example has been the dramatic rise of peer-to-peer ride services like
Uber in cities around the world. Uber, like many of the other platform services owns
very few physical assets (Stone 2017). Uber doesn’t own any cars, it doesn’t have any
employees or offer any benefits; it essentially an advanced brokerage system. The
business model is based on a U.S.-style market regime that rewards those companies
that pass risk onto communities, try new things and seek permission later. At first
launch, Uber made the case it was not a ride-sharing company but a technology
company; initially governments were largely unable to stop its operations because the
business was primarily conducted over the internet. Over time, however, questions of

20
employment law, consumer protection, unfair commercial practices, tax law and
insurance became common state concerns (Belk 2017; Sun and Edara 2015).

Uber has since changed its tune and has spent large amounts of money in advocacy,
lobbying and marketing activities associated with campaigns to re-write municipal
regulations that are more permissible to its ride-sharing activities (Brail 2017).
Levintova (2015) estimates that Uber has spent over $1 million U.S. dollars fighting
local regulations in California and has plans to spend up to $1 Billion dollars in
jurisdictions across the world. Uber has had many success stories in convincing
municipalities to re-write their regulations to facilitate their operating model. In the
spring of 2016, Uber successfully lobbied Toronto city council to create a new class of
transportation activity that competes alongside the older taxi service model. The new
class is called the private transportation company (PTC) and operates under a lighter
set of regulations than taxis, requiring less training of drivers and lower licensing fees.
Needless to say, the taxi industry is not pleased with the changes and there have been
many local protests and push backs.

In some cases, municipalities have allowed Uber to enter but clearly laid out their own
requirements for ride-sharing business to protect local jobs, public safety and the
municipality. In Austin, Texas ride-sharing regulations were developed that Uber and
Lyft found too burdensome so they left, but in their place emerged a new locally-
sourced firm that offered similar services in the city (Brail 2017). In other jurisdictions,
Uber has yet to enter. At the time of this writing, Vancouver has put a moratorium on
ride-sharing operations until more research is done but while they do, the city has been
criticized by business and Uber’s policy leaders as “backward” and “outdated”.

As detailed previously, like so many digital technologies promising a geography-free

world sharing economy firms have been geographically constrained. As Stabowski
(2017) rightly notes, the sharing economy to date has largely been a phenomenon of
urban spaces because of the need for mass participation to create network effects and
then convert those effects into economic value for investors. This is evidenced in a 2016
report from the Brookings Institution found that both ride (Uber and Lyft) and room
(Airbnb) sharing economy firms are overwhelmingly concentrated in major cities in the

21
United States (Yaraghi and Ravi 2016). Stabrowski (2017) turns our attention to the
ways that this urban focus and the erosion of the private and public that the sharing
economy demands have important implications for urban governance. In particular, the
sharing or ‘platform’ economy in housing can be understood as a continuation of a trend
in which housing has increasingly come to be incorporated into public policy as a basis
for wealth generation and social welfare. Thus, before the first booking took place on
Airbnb, housing had entered the public space as sites of economic entrepreneurship.
The further commodification of the private space undertaken by Airbnb in the context
of New York City raises substantial issues of equality and governance. Should Airbnb be
able to benefit from regulations that have sought to ensure affordable housing to as
many residents as possible? What of the homemakers in multi-residence buildings? Do
they have the right to an extension of sorts of their private accommodation (for example
leaving shoes and coats outside their door), because they know and have established
relationships with their neighbours?

Airbnb, by reconstituting a private home as a public commercial space, challenges the

social fabric within which the home is situated. Because Airbnb constitutes property in
terms of the relationship between guests and hosts, the broader social relationships are
severed. Returning to the expectations of a homeowner in a multiunit building, Airbnb
encourages a reconstruction of the home as a commercial enterprise separable from the
rest of the building. Thus, a building of 200 units is reconstructed not as a community of
200 families but rather as 200 separate (and separated) business enterprises simply
sharing a single roof. In addition to the impacts on social life and welfare, Airbnb has the
potential to disrupt geographically-fixed economic processes. Specifically, Stabroski
cites work arguing that Airbnb has, or can easily, disrupt the rental market in urban
spaces—though those conclusions are difficult to make definitively (Stulberg 2016).
There is no doubt however that the leasing of short-term accommodation through
Airbnb is radically changing the occupancy of buildings in some cities, such as Reykjavik
and by association changing the composition of residential spaces. Here, the thriving
market for short term tourist accommodation is driving up rental prices and pushing
out traditional tenants, young educated professionals who need access to urban spaces
and are still unable to purchase their own home. In light of these problems, the central
question becomes, how to best govern the eroding distinction between private and

22
public in the best interest of the public? Certainly, greater attention to how spaces of
domesticity and home are being colonised by the instrumental rationality of
financialisation demands further research.

If Stabrowski (2017) raises the question, Bradley and Pargman (2017) offer a partial
answer. They look to a concept that has been instrumental in discussing shared
environmental spaces and resources: the commons. The authors turn to Ostrom’s
(1990) institutional design principles, applied so successfully to natural resource
commons, for insight on governing the collaborative commons. Bradley and Pargman
(2017) address the sharing economy (as distinct from the gig or on demand economy of
Uber and Airbnb) and examine three collaborative commons: Bike Kitchen (non-profit
open bike repair studio), Hoffice (pop-up temporary shared offices in personal homes),
and Wikipedia (digital commons for sharing information and media). Ostrom’s
approach highlights the importance of institutions (rules and norms) in governing
commons and outlines seven elements that guide successful commons-management
institutions. These design principles focus on defining the relevant community using the
resource, empowering that community to participate in making and enforcing the
institutions governing the commons, and ensuring those outside the community
respected the institutions. Taking off from this premise, Bradley and Pargman (2017)
identify seven points (what resource, who can access, degree of subtractability, user
dependency, rules governing use, rule enforcement, and who sets rules of use) to
compare collaborative commons with the more traditional environmental commons.
The authors identify commonalities but also substantial differences that suggest
Ostrom’s design principles need to be adapted to the modern sharing economy if they
are to be useful for governance.

The above examples of regulation and the platform economy raise some interesting
questions about how scholars have thought about the state in the context of
neoliberalism and rapid technological change. Morozov (2015, online) has characterised
some aspects of the sharing economy as “neoliberalism on steroids” because it “creates
markets everywhere while also producing a new subjectivity in its participants”. One
can see how even the local state has not been immune to a new subjectivity as it is
continually compared to other jurisdictions in which local governments are made to feel

23
backwards if they seek to regulate once locally-grown services and to protect the public
interest. It also speaks to a new scalar phenomenon in which local states are once again
the recipients of broader macro-structural changes. While in the past local states were
left reacting to the downloading and offloading of nation-state restructuring, now they
are the recipients of broader technological changes and the particular U.S. style market
governance regimes that enable global technology companies to test local markets
without regard to local rules and norms.

In their effort to stay relevant, local states are re-writing regulations, but not always
within the public interest. As mentioned above, there are concerns about workers
rights, access to services by more vulnerable populations, and the loss of local jobs and
money circulating in the local economy. Unfortunately, many of these platform activities
are thriving in a broader unequal society and precarious labour market and these
factors are making conditions ripe for many aspects of the so-called sharing economy. It
seems many of these new forms of economic activity are here to stay; what form they
will take, however, is not clear. Are cities that permit these platforms a sign of openness
and innovation to a new way of doing business and living? Or are they only creating
more precarious jobs, less economic activity and more unequal cities in the future?

Impacts and sharing economies

Attention to the economic power and potential of commercial sharing practices

dominate policy literature (EC, 2016), with consultants such as Price Waterhouse
Coopers (2016) suggesting that in the five dominant sectors of the sharing economy
that facilitate transactions between individuals and organisations through online
platforms in the accommodation, transportation, finance and freelancer marketplaces
revenues are projected to grow around 35% annually up to 2025. This is far faster than
the predicted growth of the wider economy over the same period. However, it is
important to emphasise that while the economic dimensions of sharing economies are
clearly generating interest in the media and amongst venture-capitalists, such activities
also have significant implications for society and the environment. Some social
implications may be related directly to the new business models and the patterns of

24
labour, work and employment they create, affecting livelihood options (Ravenelle,
2017; Schor, 2017) and social relations of property (Richardson, 2017; Stabrowski,
2017), but others relate more fundamentally to how systems of trust are built in data-
rich contexts particularly in relation to security and privacy (Celata et al., 2017; Cheng,
2016). Already reputational ranking is widely adopted as a tool intended to build crowd
security, while blockchain technologies are being rolled out in diverse settings to create
public and verifiable records through algorithms, but both of these present challenges
to existing systems of governance.

The implications of sharing activities for the environment are less easy to delineate due
to a lack of data and robust studies. While advocates suggest that the access over
ownership dimension of sharing could reduce demand for, and create more efficient
usage of, natural resources, others identify how sharing might actually be generating
additional demand for resources (Rayle et al., 2014; Schor, 2014). For example, there is
some evidence to suggest that peer-to-peer ride sharing might be generating additional
demand for mobility by car which will lead to increased congestion on roads, local air
pollution and greenhouse gas emissions (Fitzsimmons and Hu, 2017). As noted in a
recent New York Times article (ibid), there is evidence that not only are peer-to-peer
ride sharing apps competing with taxis, they are also drawing people away from more
sustainable forms of public transport such as buses and underground train travel. Schor
(2014) also found that cheaper accommodation through sites such as AirBnb are
encouraging people to take more trips with knock-on environmental resource impacts
and overall higher carbon emissions.

So while sharing to increase use of ‘idling’ resources appeals to ecologically modern

notions of resource efficiency and mechanistic understandings of resilience - and makes
sense when applied to little-used tools or material goods, such as drills and
lawnmowers - questions remain about how far this approach can be extended. As
technology dramatically reduces transaction costs it is possible to envisage a future
where almost every product and service is commodified as an asset with the potential
to earn rental income for its owner. This raises other underexplored questions. Who
will own what assets in the future and how will the allocations of ownership in a sharing
economy be organised and governed? The implications of this process are also unclear

25
when applied to less material qualities that are characteristic of many sharing economy
practices. There are concerns that extending this narrative of idling resources into areas
such as on-demand household or professional services consolidates the ‘always-on’
nature of contemporary life, blurring boundaries between work and leisure and
commodifying and financialising activities that would have previously been seen as
contributing to communities or being neighbourly (Bradly and Pargman, 2017;
Richardson, 2017). Overall, there is a general paucity of research on the environmental
impacts of sharing activities, not only in terms of identifying direct and indirect impacts
but also tracing the potential for rebound effects, where savings made through sharing
in one sector increases consumption elsewhere (Davies and Legg, 2017). Their positive
impacts (reducing consumption) having knock-on effects elsewhere, for example,
reducing jobs in manufacturing goods for consumption. Indeed, there are fears that, as
Sundararajan (2016: 394-5) speculates:

An economy in which entrepreneurs have always been focused on making new

products or on making more old products more inexpensively will be shaken to its
foundations … Instead of 90 million power drills sitting in closets and garages,
we’ll need only 10 million because we’ll be able to rent rather than own a drill. The
drills will be more expensive and sturdy, commercial rentals rather than cheap
consumer models. But the decline in production-line requirements will be
enormous. We’ll need far fewer cars (and much less real estate devoted to
parking), fewer bikes, fewer hotel complexes—less of just about everything. But
some people, probably many people, will lose their jobs. And they won’t get new
jobs, at least jobs in the sense that we understand them. They may work “gigs” or
temporary periods as parts of teams, the way the construction industry or
Broadway plays operate now.

Conclusion

The coincidence of a particular suite of technological, political, economic, environmental

and social developments during the early decades of the 21st Century have been read as
indicating an impending period of intense socio-economic transformation; a

26
transformation that will have considerable impacts on territories, economies and
society, not least with respect to the ways in which people interact to create and
exchange goods, services and experiences. However, and possibly precisely because of
their diversity, there are few unambiguous answers to the fundamental questions about
the likely impact of sharing economies. For example, precarious working conditions of
those labouring in sharing economies through gig-type work have generated much
discussion, but precarity itself is neither new nor restricted to sharing economies.
Bernhardt (2014:15) in particular is cautious of over-defining the importance of Uber’s
effect: “Uber is standing in for a problem—technology destroying standard jobs—that it
does not actually describe, because many taxi drivers were independent contractors
before the advent of Uber.” She reminds us that a substantial portion of the workforce
still works in standard employment relationships (some at contractor firms), “but with
the low wages, insecure hours, and few benefits that are commonly associated with gig
work.”

Until recently research has been too limited and patchy to give a definitive picture of
current practices and while a surge in scholarship is attempting to address some of
these concerns (Martin, 2016; Cheng, 2016), data is still limited and assumptions about
future trends remain speculative at best (PWC, 2016; Nesta, 2016). At the same time,
the social, economic and environmental implications of emergent sharing activities are
intertwined with and embedded within wider socio-technical and socio-economic
assemblages or ecosystems (Davies et al., 2017) that are constantly evolving, leaving
states playing regulatory catch-up. Much attention has been focused on a few large
commercial platform-focused sharing activities in specific sectors, such as Uber and
Airbnb, because they have managed to scale-up their activities and grasp market share
from incumbent industries. Focusing solely on such organisations, however, ignores
the diversity in sharing modes and organisational forms; what we term the matrix of
sharing. In addition, some suggest the dominance of these intermediaries companies
may only be temporary. These companies currently function both as crucial
intermediaries and gatekeepers for those who are seeking to connect. They mediate
access to their marketplaces, dictate terms of any transactions and lead actors in
negotiations with governing authorities over how regulatory landscapes might respond
to their activities. However, with technological development, some are already

27
envisaging how sharers will be able to connect easily, directly and quickly peer-to-peer,
using decentralized marketplaces that are owned and operated by the participants
themselves rather than intermediaries (NESTA, 2016).

A key challenge for regulators is then to deal effectively with the present landscape,
while ensuring governance frameworks are able to accommodate new terrains as the
activities inevitably evolve. Legal and regulatory frameworks will certainly require
modernisation to reflect new configurations of economic power, but there are a range of
factors that make governance difficult, from defining the regulatory limits of the new
economic entities to calculating the costs and benefits of regulation and governance and
how they should be distributed. Another question centres on the source of governance.
Bottom up governance, through collective action, is impeded by the atomizing and
isolating effects of digital platforms. While reputational ranking systems seem to offer
the promise of bottom up governance, in practice these provide a measure of
governance within systems, not of systems, and focusing on an individual’s ranking
serves to catalyse atomization rather than reverse it. Another potential avenue of
governance, crowd-based decision making, also faces problems. As Surowiecki outlines
in his 2004 book, The Wisdom of Crowds, crowd-based decision making is not a form of
collective governance but rather a process of aggregating analysis from multiple,
independent observers (crowd) to inform decision-making. This is bottom-up in the
sense that assessments are collected from individuals, and the final assessment may
form the basis of governance, but on its own, crowd-based decision making does not
appear to embody a mechanism of collective action. Top down governance – from
political entities or regulatory agencies – may overcome these challenges, but they are
also likely confront substantial hurdles in terms of rationalizing actors and activities in
the sharing economy.

There remains a politics of hope around the potential for sharing economies to
redistribute resources more equitably, to create a greater sharing of prosperity and
greater socio-economic and environmental security. However, we have also witnessed
the ways in which for-profit sharing economy models have contributed to increased
inequality. The progressive potential of the sharing economy will not be realised
without constant vigilance and more agile systems of adaptive governance. As such,
while media interest may fade as the presence of sharing economies in everyday lives

28
becomes less novel, understanding their evolution, practices and impacts remains an
urgent activity if we are to ensure that the new ways of living and labouring, to which
sharing economies are contributing, work to promote sustainable and inclusive
development in this world that ultimately we all share.

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i
There are few direct sources of data which allows us to track working arrangements in the sharing economy.
In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics discontinued their survey of contingent work in 2005. It is being
reinstated in 2017. In the UK, most estimates come from existing data on self-employment.

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