The sharing economy

Are you looking for a sofa to sleep on? Take your pick out of 400,000 worldwide via CouchSurfing. A spare room? You can find over 1.5 million on Airbnb. Maybe you’re looking for investors for your startup? There are thousands ready to crowdfund on Indiegogo. A lift to the south of France? Blablacar is offering over 2 million trips at any given time. Some holiday cash without the commission? Exchange your euros for rubles on WeSwap. A pet for the afternoon? BorrowMyDoggy will help you locate a canine companion. Or maybe you just can’t be bothered cooking? Fill up on your neighbour’s leftovers with Shareyourmeal.

These are just a few examples of the sharing revolution taking place online. Not long ago, the idea of turning up on a stranger’s doorstep for the weekend, borrowing a household appliance or car from somebody in your neighbourhood or asking a bunch of strangers to fund your latest business idea may have seemed like an alien concept. However, a cross-sector transformation is underway; a “powerful cultural and economic force reinventing not just what we consume, but how we consume”, according to Rachel Botsman, author of What’s Mine is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption is Changing the Way We Live (2010) and a global authority on what has come to be known as the ‘sharing economy’.

On the surface, it may seem like a wholly modern idea, but sharing and cooperation have always been basic to the human condition, from hunting in packs and farming cooperatives, to libraries, launderettes, schools and hospitals. Thus, this revolutionary 21st-century movement is taking us back to when bartering, trading and swapping were par for the course; back to the old market principles and collaborative behaviour hard wired in all of us. Botsman believes that it is “tapping into our primate instincts. We are born and bred to share and cooperate, and we did so for thousands of years before the system of hyperconsumption came along”.

The difference in the 21st century is that technology is enabling us to step it up a notch, sharing on a scale like never before. The sharing economy provides consumers with access to goods and services by removing or strongly reducing the cost of ownership, particularly when the price of an asset is high and it is not always fully utilised (the classic example being the car, which sits unused 92 percent of the time). The power of technology is unlocking the idle capacity and value of all kinds of assets, creating a market for things that never before had a marketplace and, most surprisingly, enabling trust between strangers built on reputation. All of this sharing was feasible in the past, but it was probably more trouble than it was worth.

Thanks to the internet, asset owners and those seeking to use those assets can now easily find each other. The big change is the availability of data about people and their possessions and the ease of communication between parties; many of the platforms are peer-to-peer in nature, i.e. a service or product provided directly from one average Joe to another, which removes the middleman completely. The technological pioneer that first successfully formalised this idea into a structured website was eBay. Since then, the movement has exploded in all directions and sectors.

In Barcelona, you can see the sharing economy popping up on every corner. You can revamp your wardrobe on Chicfy, furnish your apartment through Vibbo or Nolotiro, dine with an award-winning chef via Eatwith and share a taxi to the airport with Joinuptaxi. Barcelona is a hotbed for startups, many of which operate within the sharing economy, including Letmespace (storage and parking space rental), SocialCar (peer-to-peer car hire), Trip4real (local travel experiences) and Sharing Academy (private tuition between fellow students)—the latter having been awarded ‘App of the Year 2016’ at the recent Mobile World Congress.

It is also, both historically and currently, a hub for innovation, and the sharing economy seems to go hand in hand with other innovative movements taking place in the city, such as the Smart City initiative. As usual, Barcelona is ahead of the game in the context of Spain as reported by Barcinno, a news and knowledge-sharing platform for Barcelona’s startup, tech and innovation communities. Rodolfo Küstermann, Marketing Director of Madrid-based Amovens, a lift-sharing platform and key competitor of Blablacar, told Barcinno, “The sharing economy is very developed in Barcelona, maybe more than in Madrid. Other cities in Spain have not yet embraced the idea of the shared economy in the same way as people in Barcelona. They have a particular mindset.” This idea was echoed by Ana María Güezmes from French platform, NightSwapping—a community where members travel by swapping nights rather than money. “Barcelona could be the best breeding ground for many startups such as ours and other peer-to-peer companies to establish their services. This is because the Ajuntament, the citizens and the tourists are cosmopolitan and conscious of the fact that the collaborative economy and brings value.”

The presence of collaborative consumption pioneers in Barcelona also has an influence. “Many of the huge companies, like Airbnb, Wallapop and Socialcar, have global or national headquarters here in Barcelona, and their presence is stimulating the eco-system, making the city very attractive to these kinds of startups,” Albert Cañigueral told Barcinno. Cañigueral was responsible for bringing OuiShare Fest to Barcelona last November, a global event dedicated exclusively to the collaborative economy that brings together thought leaders on the subject—another positive indicator of the city welcoming the movement.  

Natalie Batlle, Director of PR and Brand at Trip4real, offered another perspective. “Peer-to-peer platforms in this city have struck an important balance between serving a community in need of support and a reliable source of income, and a local tourism industry in need of innovation.” The economic argument is particularly applicable in post-crisis Spain. It is in times of crisis, after all, when our best ideas emerge. Indeed, Botsman pinpoints the 2008 global economic crisis as a key turning point at which we started to move away from a 20th century defined by hyperconsumption, and move towards the 21st century, which will be defined by collaborative consumption. According to a study by US-based global information consultants, Nielsen, countries more affected by the financial crisis are more open to the sharing economy, with more than half of Spaniards (53%) willing to share or rent personal property, alongside Portugal and Greece. As well as offering the potential to earn some extra cash, peer-to-peer platforms offer access to goods or service that may otherwise be off limits, budget-wise.

The city, however, seems to be split on its attitude towards the sharing economy. Regulatory authorities in Spain have put roadblocks in place for some of the global pioneers of the sharing economy, including Airbnb, Uber and Blablacar, marking a resistance that threatens to dampen Barcelona’s innovative spirit.

As in many cities around the world, there has been considerable backlash following the success of Airbnb from authorities and Barcelona residents, the former concerning themselves with illegal earnings, unregulated accommodation and lobbying from disgruntled hoteliers, whilst the latter complain of disruptive behaviour and rising housing prices. Airbnb was fined €30,000 by the city council in July 2014, followed by a €60,000 fine in December 2015, for continuing to advertise illegal properties, i.e. properties without a tourist licence. Yet, according to La Vanguardia, nearly 900,000 Airbnb travellers brought €740 million to Barcelona in 2015 as the platform’s fourth most popular city. Airbnb also claims that their clientele in Barcelona tend to stay in the less visited areas, spending 2.3 times more money and staying 2.4 times longer than the average visitor. The revenue being injected into the city from peer-to-peer tourism goes more directly to local residents, but how can individuals get a slice of the pie within a regulated framework? The saga continues.

Uber is another global sharing giant that has fallen foul of Spanish regulations. In December 2014, Spain outlawed the ride-sharing platform following strong opposition from traditional taxi drivers. In July 2015, a Barcelona judge referred the case to the European Court of Justice with a series of questions relating to how the group should be treated for regulatory purposes. A ruling isn’t expected until later in the year but, regardless of the outcome, it is likely to be a landmark decision for regulators and sharing platforms across the continent. Meanwhile, Uber is said to be considering re-entering the Spanish market by implementing a new approach that would involve working exclusively with drivers who carry a valid professional VTC licence (hire cars that come with a driver).

Most recently, the Spanish Confederation of Bus Transportation (Confebús) took lift-sharing platform Blablacar to court in a bid to shut the service down, accusing them of unfair competition and operating a public transportation company without complying with regulations. In February this year, the court ruled against Confebús, providing possibly the first precedent where the Spanish justice system has sided with the sharing economy.

New movements are often met with resistance and, perhaps, a fear of change; the fragility of the local and national economy here probably intensifies this. The sharing economy is still an unknown but potentially powerful force. In the words of Botsman, it represents “a profound economic shift that is destabilising institutional control as we know it and democratising access to consumption, production, education and finance.” A shift from centralised power to distributed power has the potential to disrupt the established way of doing business across all sectors, destabilising the pyramid of institutional authority. Not surprisingly, this is seen as a threat by those who have a vested interest in keeping things just how they are.

But a fear of change won’t make it go away, and regulators have got a delicate balance to maintain. Every facet of the sharing economy raises unprecedented questions that are bound to cause teething problems. How can it be regulated? How can we ensure activities are legal? What about safety for users? And it’s not always a case of one size fits all. Contextual influences—supply and demand, economic climate, existing infrastructure, legal systems, and other local factors such as population density and GDP generators—require forward thinking regulation on a case-by-case basis. In the short to medium term, regulators need to manage the development of collaborative consumption whilst safeguarding the livelihoods of those whose current roles may eventually become obsolete.

In the long term, however, the existing system will need to embrace the economic potential of the sharing economy and find ways to adapt to it in order to unlock that potential. When you place the sharing economy into our present day global context, it really starts to make sense; it feels like another piece of the jigsaw that fits the puzzle of sustainable living. Efficient use of our resources is not only better for our pockets and our communities, but also for the planet; the sharing economy seems to be a model that is compatible with the global environmental aims.

On an individual level, the sharing economy is enabling opportunities that may have been unimaginable only a few years ago. The ease of connecting people who ‘have’ with people who ‘want’ is removing entry barriers to entrepreneurship, unlocking new kinds of wealth by facilitating access to resources that were formerly under-utilised. Now, everyone can be a micro-entrepreneur, even if it is just for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon. And with that comes a sense of empowerment. As Emily Castor, Director of Community Relations at Lyft in San Francisco put it, the sharing economy gives workers the “freedom to quit” an uninspiring job, follow their passion and “unlock their productive power”. An energised and empowered population must have a positive effect on the economy, which is certainly something that Spain could use.

PLAYING HOST?

Never been so popular? Since moving to Barcelona, you may have experienced a remarkable, although not uncommon, surge in your popularity, as every friend, neighbour and relative is booking a visit. No matter how welcome your guests, hosting can be a drain on your time, energy and resources. However, the rise of the peer-to-peer industry means that you can now convert your generous hospitality—or your spare room, valuable city knowledge and free time—into hard cash.

Homegrown platform, Trip4real, is giving locals the chance to do just that. The platform was created in 2013 by Catalan travel enthusiast, Gloria Molins, as ‘a way to connect locals with travellers in pursuit of authentic experiences’. For Natalie Batlle, Director of PR and Brand at Trip4real, the peer-to-peer market is a “logical evolution of travel”. An increasingly well-travelled population “look for ways to connect with like-minded people who have common interests and shared passions when they visit a city”. The platform is growing fast, offering a vast range of experiences in 40 cities across the world, and counts renowned Catalan chef Ferran Adrià amongst its investors. With 2,500 experiences on offer in Barcelona, you can have lunch listening to stories from ex-gangster ‘Dani el Rojo’, spend a day volunteering with Justo, a former monk, and almost everything in between.

We met some of the Barcelona residents who have launched their own experiences with Trip4real:

ANGELA CARROLL. 39, UK.

Angela takes the traditional English afternoon tea and combines it with the mild Mediterranean climate, to create a unique experience—tea on the terrace with city views.

Why did you start offering the experience?

It all started when I made afternoon tea for my Catalan friends here. I just love the whole experience of afternoon tea and I wanted to introduce that to Barcelona.  I like explaining it as a cultural experience. People here are very proud of their traditions, so it’s nice for me to be able to share something I am proud of.

Who comes to the Afternoon Tea parties?

It’s a real mix, but generally it’s a combination of locals with an interest in English culture and foreign residents longing for a taste of home.

Why Trip4real?

Being part of Trip4real makes it easier for a few reasons. It looks professional and it manages the process financially. It has also given me confidence to be part of the platform, and it really helps in terms of marketing.

Could you see this becoming your full-time job?

I don’t really see it as a full-time job, but I’m enjoying working for myself and I’d like to see it grow. I think it could be the first step towards something else. I’m making lots of contacts and I’d like to collaborate with others in the future to create new, tailored events. I think it definitely opens doors. It’s very creative, and I get a lot more satisfaction out of doing it.

ALBERTO FERNANDEZ. 48, ARGENTINA.

Alberto invites travellers to take a walk around the city, visiting hidden places and points of interest, tailored to the individual.

Why did you start offering the experience?

I have a natural curiosity for the places where I live and my background is in tourism. I always stress to my guests that I am not a tour guide. Instead, I like to think of my walking experiences as offering a ‘local friend’ to show you around. The social and cultural aspects are very important to me. I feel quite excited when I get reservations from people from very different cultures—I love to see their reactions to the city. I get to learn something about their culture without leaving the city. Sometimes I even go for dinner with them. This is priceless.

Would you have offered the experience without the help of Trip4real?

I don’t think so. Having a platform is really important in order to connect people, and they offer me lot of support. Of course, I could make my own website, but I wouldn’t want to have to take care of marketing and everything. This way I can focus on the bit that I really enjoy. I think this modern way of buying and selling everything is perfect.

Is this your full-time job?

No, it is part-time, but if I could make this my way of living, that would be amazing. Actually, I hope that it will be. I have done over 100 tours in less than 18 months, and things are on the up.

FRANCISCO BLANCO. 46, VENEZUELA.

Photographer and audiovisual producer, Francisco offers two photography-based activities—a paparazzi-style photoshoot, and a basic photography class.

Why did you start offering the experience?

I am motivated by my passion for photography, but it also gives me the opportunity to meet people from other cultures, share their joy of travel and exchange knowledge with them. That really fills my soul!

Would it work without a peer-to-peer platform?

I don’t think so. The advantage of the platform is that it connects us directly with the travellers who would like to do this kind of activity.

Is this your full-time job?

No, this is something extra that I do alongside my normal job. The amount of bookings depends on the season, but I do it at least once a week. I’m very grateful to be able to access the shared economy through this platform—it makes tailor-made activities available for all.