To the Sharing Economy

Sharing is the new selling. I have a car, an apartment, a dinner that I want to share with you. The new economy, created by kindergarten teachers and hipster parents of toddlers who spend the day saying, "please share."

 

I admit to being hooked, the thrill of trusting again your fellow human being, of turning to another person, albeit virtually, and saying, yes, I will get in your car or eat in your kitchen or stay in your third floor walk up. I will meet you on a street in Toronto and shake your hand and follow you. And you will open the door to a contemporary efficacy with hardwood floors and Apple TV and hand me the keys. And leave.

In class one day, a student, about 19 and studying engineering (in other words, a very bright future, all statistics considered), says he mad at my generation, that we and the generations before us lied. We said if you work hard and get a degree (any degree we said, do what you love!), the American Dream comes true. But that was before $43,000 in college loans, before a volatile housing market. Before junk bonds and hedge funds and senators for sale. Before downsizing and contract labor. He says he can't really imagine a future; he actually tries not to think about it. He doesn't know how to think about it.

Source: Markus Henkel

The other students nod their head.  Each and every one. They are in a generational free-fall. What else is there to do but grab each others' hands? The old economy doesn't work: bricks and mortar, cubicles and time clocks. Landlines. Space means little and time means everything. They fend for themselves in their digital tribes.