Share and share alike

I frequent my quiet Friday mornings by listening to Freakonomics Radio. Their weekly podcasts are posted on Wednesdays and I enjoy them Fridays as a way to ease the anticipation of it being the last day in the work-week. There are many fascinating topics that arise from that podcast that I would never have attributed to economics (a subject I hold in a prime spot of discontent for its lack of solid foundation) and has actually led me to feel a slight camaraderie with the subject area.

This week's topic has lead me on a spree across the internet in a need to learn more on this fantastic topic (and here is a link to one of the articles I found on The Economist): The Sharing Economy

Simply put: individual fair trade is now supported by large internet based companies. Fantastic!

Pros: individuals can start getting something back from the surplus they may have, individuals can access what they need for a simpler (and usually lower) fee, actual socialization is promoted.

Cons: there are always the small percentage of abusers, local governments are disgruntled as taxes are not being paid for the goods/services, companies still doing things the "traditional" way are feeling threatened.

The thing to remember is that people have been doing this for years, perhaps even decades. Regardless of how disruptive to each other we can easily be, at the foundation of it all we naturally want to share in a way that benefits both parties. We are taught to share at an early age because it is polite and how you make friends. The only change currently is that a handful of people have made it largely available through an international resource. Wow!

What I wonder is simply this: why do so many feel the need to find the negatives or to fight back against this?

It would be easy to answer this question by saying things such as "well the government needs those tax dollars" or "this is hurting other well-developed companies" or even "it hurts the local areas by putting that money into someone's personal pocket rather than back into the community."

These responses have all been and are being used. I feel they are weak defenses. The internet companies have offered to work with local governments to process the appropriate taxes and submit them along with the transaction that occurs. Those well-developed companies should be looking at the competition as an opportunity. After all, there would be no want of sharing businesses if consumers' needs were being fully met. As for the local areas being hurt, I completely disagree. If I stay at a fancy hotel in downtown Seattle, I am most likely going to spend my sight-seeing money in the same places local to that hotel as the other hundred people staying there at the same time. Whereas, if I stay in a residential area then my money goes to the mom-and-pop restaurant that normally only sees the locals' support.

I think this concept is a great growth obstacle and what do we all do instinctively when change is involved??? We resist. Change is scary. It brings the unknown which has the possibility of being bad or hard. That is the real answer to the push back to this new form of business: fear.

Too often we let fear dictate our choices and our actions. It just shouldn't be. Especially when it comes to a concept such as a sharing economy. By definition, that is a business plan based on the idea of helping each other to benefit all parties involved.

Bottom line: just work together. Why is that so hard?