“Sharing economy” shams: Deception at the core of the Internet’s hottest businesses - Salon.com
▻http://www.salon.com/2014/03/14/sharing_economy_shams_deception_at_the_core_of_the_internets_hottest_business
But there’s one crucial area where the linkages between the gift economy and the sharing economy break down. Reciprocity. The anthropologists who studied the Kwakiutl and other cultures with similar gift economy practices argued that the act of gift giving was meant to be reciprocated. Gift giving created obligations to respond in kind. These mutual obligations were the ties that bound society together.
The sharing economy doesn’t work quite the same way. The most high-profile sharing economy apps are designed to generate significant profits for a relatively small number of people.
“The sharing economy, as practiced by Silicon Valley, is a betrayal of the gift economy. The potlatch has been paved over, and replaced with a digital shopping mall.”
“As best we can tell, the politics of the venture capital elite boil down to fending off higher taxes, keeping labor costs low and reducing the “burden” of government regulation.”