i3 - March/April 2017 - 25

AFTER BARBARA RETRIEVED HER LUGGAGE AT LAS VEGAS'

McCarran Airport, she hustled up an elevator to the
"Rideshare" level of the garage, where an expansive
fleet of Uber and Lyft drivers were being matched with
their CES-bound riders. For Barbara, the first destination was an Airbnb home that she had reserved for
the duration.
In other words, even before CES 2017 began, Barbara
was relying on the app-driven "sharing economy" for her
travel experience. It's part of the "gig economy," "crowdbased capitalism," "peer-to-peer markets," "collaborative
consumption" or even the "gig-ondemand" (GOD) resources. Whatever
you call the massive overhaul in the
services industry, app- and platformdriven services are rearranging the
way we travel, work, eat and conduct
daily activities. By some reckonings,
the boom in sharing economy options
is a natural offshoot of the thriving
e-commerce system.
Soon, Barbara and her peers may
not even need street-based transit.
A week after CES, Europe's Airbus
Group (known for its big jets) confirmed plans to begin testing by
year-end a prototype "Vahana"
self-flying vehicle (drone). The
autonomous flying machines for individual passenger and cargo transport
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES
were unveiled in 2016 by Airbus's A3
ARE RESHAPING THE
("A-cubed") Silicon Valley advanced
WORLD OF WORK
technology unit. Airbus envisions
consumers will eventually book
SHARING,
the "Urban Air Mobility" vehicles
through an app, just as they now do
for automotive ride-hailing services.
There are reports that Airbnb wants to expand its role
PEERING, in the travel business by developing a flight-booking
system to compete with Priceline or Expedia. The value:
one-stop shopping for an entire trip, but without the
traditional travel agency.
GIGGING
These technology leaps come as the regulatory roadblocks and financial uncertainties melt away, albeit with
BY Gary Arlen
some resistance. Collectively, recent developments put the
sharing economy on its way to fulfilling the upbeat predicILLUSTRATION BY
tions of its supporters. PricewaterhouseCoopers says that by
Hank Osuna
2025, shared services will generate $335 billion worldwide
revenues in five major sectors (lodging, transportation,
staffing, music and lending), up from about $15 billion in
2013. That future figure would make "sharing" about equivalent to the "traditional rental sector" in those categories.
A new Federal Reserve Board report on "peer-to-peer
markets" identifies the benefits shared services offer,
adding home care, shopping and other activities to the
initial lodging and transportation sharing offerings.
"Online P2P platforms have the potential to increase
quality of life by reducing transaction costs for many

WELCOME
TO THE
NEW
ECONOMY

MARCH/APRIL 2017

i3 - March/April 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of i3 - March/April 2017