South Korea's Sharing Economy: Pitfalls

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

I've been reading up on the concept of the sharing economy recently and I see that although it sounds theoretically wonderful, it's not without its pitfalls. Here's a case in point. This got me wondering how many jobs will be lost if we all get serious about this supposedly superior type of economy? I'm beginning to harbour the slight suspicion it could turn into one of those much-hyped never-to-deliver concepts. Pity about how good it sounds, though.

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, Marina Schwarz said:

I've been reading up on the concept of the sharing economy recently and I see that although it sounds theoretically wonderful, it's not without its pitfalls. Here's a case in point. This got me wondering how many jobs will be lost if we all get serious about this supposedly superior type of economy? I'm beginning to harbour the slight suspicion it could turn into one of those much-hyped never-to-deliver concepts. Pity about how good it sounds, though.

Uber isn't really a sharing economy context. Its simply replacing Taxis with lower cost private hire vehicles (often without additional benefits such as disabled access / ability to hail on the street0 . There is no real reduction in use of resources for the same economic output.

True sharing economy type activities include schemes such as ZIP car where people forgo buying a car and use ZIP cars on a need basis. The actual effect of this is to shift a significant proportion of their travel to public transport. There was a study in Cambridge (UK)  a few years back which found the overall effect was to reduce private car usage by about 70%.

On the issue of jobs lost surely the money saved on shared assets will be spent elsewhere potentially creating new jobs?