The news is full of their names, supposedly the vanguard of a rethinking of capitalism. Lyft, Airbnb, Taskrabbit, Uber, and many more companies have a mandate of disruption and upending the “old order”—and they’ve succeeded in effecting the “biggest change in the American workforce in over a century,” according to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. But this new wave of technology companies is funded and steered by very old-school venture capitalists.
In What’s Yours Is Mine, internationally acclaimed technologist Tom Slee argues the so-called sharing economy damages development, extends harsh free-market practices into previously protected areas of our lives, and presents the opportunity for a few people to make fortunes by damaging communities and pushing vulnerable individuals to take on unsustainable risk.
This revised and updated edition of Slee’s original “smart and searing critique” includes a new foreword by the author.
Building upon his previous empirical critiques, Tom Slee explains how “sharing economy” companies have used feel-good rhetoric to mask illiberal and irresponsible business models.
– Chris Jay Hoofnagle, faculty director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology
1 | The Sharing Economy |
2 | The Sharing Economy Landscape |
3 | A Place to Stay with Airbnb |
4 | On the Move with Uber |
5 | Neighbors Helping Neighbors |
6 | Strangers Trusting Strangers |
7 | A Short History of Openness |
8 | Open Wide |
9 | What’s Yours Is Mine |
Bibliography | |
Notes | |
Acknowledgements | |
Index |