“What’s Mine Is Yours” is a book that reveals a powerful socioeconomic groundswell called "Collaborative Consumption" — traditional sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping redefined through technology and peer communities — that is transforming business, consumerism, and the way we live.
If the 20th century was defined by hyper consumption, the 21st century will be defined by collaborative consumption, according to Rachel Botsman. She defines collaborative consumption as being about "reputation, community and shared access" as opposed to "credit, advertising and individual ownership". It is about connecting to each other and sharing and exchanging all kinds of assets, including cars, skills and money.
One of the most important parts of collaborative consumption is trust between strangers. Social, mobile and location technologies are coming together to make efficiency and trust. Technology creates the social glue for trust to form between strangers. Sometimes the author mentions Collaborative Revolution, as a turning point where we use technology to reinvent entire sectors, and find a healthy balance of needs of individuals, needs of companies and the greater good of the society. This idea emerges the need to be “human again”, which means to lend/borrow real money to real people; to stay in real homes with real people. This kind of investment provides not only with the required service but also with a social connection, and this way man is back from virtual to real world. At the same time, they enable people to save money, time, and space; build closer relationships; and move from passive consumers to active collaborators.
Collaborative consumption has the power to revolutionize how we manage idling capacity, and by doing so change the way we view and become a part of communities in unique and meaningful ways.
The problem with this collaborative consumption is that it is not discriminating. And people need discrimination somehow to make them feel better. For example if I am a millionaire and you are not, then I need to show this important fact. What is the most obvious way for me to show this? It is by consuming a lot more than you. So, collaborative consumption can work only between poor people if it can work at all.
YanıtlaSilTo my opinion, the main problem that i see in the theory of Collaborative Consumption is the luck of trust. The main problem here in Albania for ex, is this, we doubt for everything,even if a person shares with us something valuable to us, we tend to see after this and don;t realize that my benefit are his benefit. For me, from an economic point of view, the luck of trust is a heavy burden to our economy.
YanıtlaSilI totally agree with your last sentences that Collaborative Consumption has the power to revolutionize many aspects of our way of living. If the communities would live the innovative Collaborative Consumption including the sharing and renting more stuff, then they would produce and waste less stuff, which is good for the planet and even better for one's self-image.
YanıtlaSilIt#s true that collaborative consumption is important and has the power to change the manner how we behave and are part of community because people does not change only physical goods but also they can share, swap skills, knowledge etc. and this leads also to peer pressure (combining with Join Club book).
YanıtlaSilI would agree with Ardit that luck of trust in modern societies is an issue, thus it is something that can block spread of collaborative consumption. Nevertheless there are always some people with positive attitude and bold enough to try this things.
YanıtlaSilCollaborative consumption has become very popular now days and people (at west world)see it as a solution for the economic crisis and opportunity to save money. Collaborative consumption isn't something new in itself, sharing, bartering, exchanging has always been there the innovation is in the role technology plays to create those communities and spread the movement.