The "sharing economy"— the notion of collectively getting more use out of things by increasing the number of people who can use them — is nothing new.
People have been sharing tools for all of human history. Most people have even let a friend borrow a car before.
But as Le Web conference founder Loic Le Meur noted recently, the Internet, smartphones, and location-aware apps are letting people share like never before. You can hop on Airbnb and rent an empty townhouse in France for the weekend at a fraction of the price of booking with a travel agency.
Can't get a loan from a bank to start your business? You can create a Kickstarter and raise all the money you need from the people who'd be interested in your product in the first place.
It's amazing to see the ways people are coming up with to better take advantage of the web to collaborate on and share the things that we used to have to pay for ourselves.
The Sharing Economy
It's going to be big
Loic's first example is housing rental service Airbnb: Look how many people use it, even though it's still brand new.
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