Amaya
Apesteguía, Ethical and Collaborative Consumption Project Officer at Consumers International (CI) Member
OCU, Spain, reports on the findings of a pioneering piece of research she
coordinated on the sharing economy and collaborative consumption.
Carpooling, P2P accommodation, repair cafés, bartering
networks, social eating and micro-task sites are just some of the Collaborative
Consumption (CC) activities and services that have exploded over the last
decade. Driven by technological innovation, all signal a change in the
consumption habits of citizens, a shift from a conventional
Business-to-Consumer (B2C) model, where the providers of goods and services are
always commercial companies, to a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) model based on direct
exchanges between consumers.
Last year, I had the opportunity to coordinate[1]
some very interesting international research about this phenomenon. Entitled "Collaboration
or Business", it used a multi-method design involving 33 experts, over
8,600 consumers, and a sample of 70 P2P CC platforms across four participating
countries.
If I could underline five key- findings, I would choose the following:
1. Collaborative
consumption has high levels of awareness and involvement amongst those citizens
that responded to the survey, and satisfaction
is very high. Only a small percentage of respondents reported being
dissatisfied. Reasons for dissatisfaction seemed to be mainly small
inconveniences: delays, coordination between parties, cleanliness, lack of
personal connection. Unfortunately, the most common way for participants to
deal with problems was to do nothing! Not even writing a bad review in the web profile
of the other party. Our learning is that
better conflict resolutions systems should be put in place by the
platforms, as current systems do not seem to be so effective.
2. Consumers’
reasons for participating in CC are diverse, but the two most frequently
mentioned are economic (saving or
earning money) and practical reasons
(flexible hours, better meets needs, easier, etc.). Ideological motivations
included reasons such as “to foster economic relationships between private
persons”, “protecting the environment”, “getting to know local people”, “sharing
experiences”, and “altruism (donating)”.
3. The
legal environment is extremely complex due to the variety of applicable laws,
which depend on the status of the parties involved, and also because CC establishes
a two level relationship: firstly, between
the user and the platform, which is governed by e-service and e-commerce
regulations; and then the relationship between users (peers) themselves, where
the civil code applies. Additionally, the participation of professional
providers on CC platforms adds to the complexity, as consumer protection laws
become relevant and must be enforced. Airbnb provides one example of this two level
relationship.
The Airbnb platform lists accommodation from peers with space to
offer, and offers a “safe environment to operate” - adding virtual reputation
systems, insurances, and electronic payment options. But the booking itself is
made between peers.
Overall, we concluded that
Peer-to-Peer CC should be simplified rather than over-regulated. However, in
B2C relationships, the existing consumer protection regulations should be
reinforced.
4. Determining the social, economic, and environmental impacts of CC was a
challenging exercise. From our data, it is clear that CC platforms are efficient but their governance models are still far from
being collaborative, as the vast majority of the surveyed platforms favour
centralised governance models. While some of the platforms articulate positive
associations between sustainability and their operations (and in some instances
make ‘green claims’), they provide no evidence about how their activities
actually benefit the environment.
5. A platform’s orientation is
not just a question of what they do but also of how they do it. The balance
between business and collaboration varies greatly from one platform to another,
even within the same sector. There are three typologies of platforms:
- Network oriented: aimed at creating networks of users connected by their common interests and digital reputation. For example: Airbnb and BlaBlacar.
- Transaction oriented: to facilitate easy and practical exchanges between users. For example: Homeaway and Uber Pop.
- Community oriented: a transformative paradigm that aims to create stronger communities and promote more sustainable consumption habits. For example: WWOF, Wijdelen (Peerby), Freecycle.
Through this research we’ve seen that platforms act as intermediaries that create a
safe environment for users, but they do so through a centralised governance
model, whereby they process and control all exchanges. As a result, a risk
exists of creating a monopoly or a power imbalance between platform proprietors
and their users.
In
the future, blockchain technologies look
set to enable direct relations between users. This technology where “the code
is the law”, could obviate the need for platforms as such - opening the door to
a future of distributed and decentralised relations. Technological innovation challenges the
traditional way of doing business and can be a powerful tool for consumers. But the real revolution is not
technological, it’s ethical: people owning the technology to create “human”
P2P economic exchanges in a fair and safe way.
[1] The research involved four consumers associations - OCU (Spain), Altroconsumo
(Italy), Deco Proteste (Portugal), and Test-Achats/Test-Aankoop (Belgium) – in collaboration with Cibersomosaguas (Universidad Complutense of Madrid) and with the
advice of Ouishare Spain.
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