Sharing Economics: Theory Essence and Development Law 9811636486, 9789811636486

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Yuming Zhang

Sharing Economics Theory Essence and Development Law

Sharing Economics

Yuming Zhang

Sharing Economics Theory Essence and Development Law

Yuming Zhang School of Management Shandong University Jinan, Shandong, China

Financial support by the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences ISBN 978-981-16-3648-6 ISBN 978-981-16-3649-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3 Jointly published with Science Press The print edition is not for sale in China (Mainland). Customers from China (Mainland) please order the print book from: Science Press. © Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publishers, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

When sharing economy is everywhere, we need to think about it. How can sharing economy develop rapidly and change the world? Why does sharing economy have such vitality and create great value? How does sharing economy analyze this economic model representing the future in an all-round way?

Preface

The historical progress of the human economy has been accompanied by technological advancement. The reform of the primitive industry has promoted the development of the free market, and capitalism has risen through the free market’s operation. The resultant communications/fossil energy matrix provides a broad common technology platform for the First Industrial Revolution and the Second Industrial Revolution. Economic aggregation is the consequence of this period. The emergence of vertically integrated companies makes the economic model mainly rely on production factors such as capital, land, labor, and entrepreneurs. The market exerts its productivity to the fullest by establishing a new “production function.” Society has developed from a material-deficient society to a “rich society,” and sufficient economic scale has allowed the market to accumulate huge profit margins. At the same time, however, society’s “irrational excitement” has inevitably been spread across the market. The culture of over-consumption and the backwardness of the concept of property have been intensified in transforming from a purely marketexchange economy to a capitalist economy. People unrestrainedly draw resources from nature, and they all want to realize the individual’s existence value through “occupying,” replace the spiritual world with the satisfaction of material consumption, and consume and waste resources at a low level, leading to the destruction and further deterioration of the ecological environment. Today, a new round of economic reform is imminent. The Third Industrial Revolution is based on the Internet/renewable energy matrix, under the background of global collaborative sharing and innovation factors, relying on the development of cloud computing, big data, the Internet, communications technology, energy revolution, and the Internet of things. A new economic model will be used to advance the progress of human society. The mature applications of cloud computing and big data technologies have realized the virtualization of physical resources and the high efficiency of data processing. A vast amount of shared space and comprehensive data analysis provides a platform for the economic structure of the means of land practices and lays a solid foundation. The iterative updates of the Internet and communication technologies can continuously make large and small participants involved in the market, achieve rapid matching between supply and demand, promote consumers’ birth, eliminating vii

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Preface

redundant intermediaries in the traditional economic vertical value chain repeated games, and reduce transaction activities. The energy revolution and the development and evolution of the Internet of things have brought about distributed, coordinated, and horizontally equivalent production and transaction modes, realizing the largescale expansion effects of using renewable energy as the driving force of production and serving the society’s full-scale, cross-industry, and green production. These are the communication media, energy, and transportation channels that a successful economic paradigm must have. On this basis, the sharing economy emerged at the historic moment. Human economic development has entered a new phase with the characteristics of distribution, horizontalization, coordination and zero marginal cost. The arrival of the sharing economy has subverted the traditional economic production and operation modes and people’s working concept of consumption. The horizontal distributed network based on “cooperative sharing” replaces the centralized and controlled corporate structure of “vertical integration” of traditional capitalism. Based on the concept of resource sharing, which is “Whenever you use it, why bother,” it replaces the solidified ownership concept of “consumption that is possession and existence” of traditional capitalism. The creative breakthrough in the sharing economy has brought about a substantial increase in social capital, which has become the focus of much attention. More and more people are conducting research and analysis at this new economic stage, but most are only superficial descriptions of economic phenomena. Conduct in-depth theoretical exploration. “Sharing” is inherent in human beings. Its economic age characteristics are the inevitable choice for social development. Tracing the origin, power, and mechanism of the sharing economy theoretically will discover great value and promote human progress. Future progress and development make a significant contribution. Therefore, building a discipline system of sharing economy will be an epoch-making innovation. Specifically, sharing economy refers to the reproducibility, rapid diffusion, low-cost search, and high-efficiency acquisition of information, knowledge, intelligence and other resources and production data due to modern information and communication technologies and network technologies. The marginal cost of trading becomes more negligible or even zero. People can use a low-cost or freeuse economic phenomenon and the law of development of the theoretical discipline system. The study of the sharing economy cannot end with the description of phenomena. Instead, we should build a theoretical framework for sharing economy from the perspective of a discipline system. Combined with practical case analysis, the system scientifically and comprehensively learns and understands this economic stage and realizes its value. Based on this idea, this book mainly studies the theoretical basis, nature of goals, property rights, feature elements, operational mechanisms, and resource allocation of the sharing economy. Based on the theoretical framework’s comprehensive construction, the studies of specific cases are used to interpret the implementation model, business model, and the application fields of the sharing economy, thus summing up its effectiveness in value creation. In a word, the purpose of this book is to further explore the logic behind the sharing economy phenomena from the perspective of subject research, to establish and perfect the theoretical

Preface

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research system of sharing economy for the first time, and to provide a reference for future academic research and practical application. “Sharing Economics” is another innovation after Prof. Zhang Yuming and his team’s Internet-based “Sharing, Openness, Equality, and Democracy,” the academic monograph Cloud Innovation Theory and Application (Economic Science Press, 2013). This book is proposed by Professor Zhang Yuming, and he created, planned, organized, and wrote the main content and modified the final draft. Zhang Yuanyuan proofread and wrote some content. The authors of each chapter are as follows: Chapter 1 is by Liu Wenjia, Chap. 2 is by Liu Jingjing, Chap. 3 is by Zhang Yuming, Wang Xiaonan, and Li Rong, Chap. 4 is by Wang Xiaonan and Li Rong, Chap. 5 is by Zhang Yuming and Liu Wei, Chap. 6 is by Guan Hang, Chap. 7 is by Ji Hongyu, Chap. 8 is by Wang Yuefeng, Chap. 9 is by Liu Peng and Ji Hongyu, Chap. 10 is by Zhang Yuming and Zhuo Qianru, Chap. 11 is by Zhuo Qianru and Wang Yunchen, Chap. 12 is by Zhang Yuming and Zhao Xiaodong, Chap. 13 is by Li Jiayi, Chap. 14 is by Zhao Xiaodong and Wan Yuxuan, Chap. 15 is by Zhang Yuming and Mao Jingyan, Chap. 16 is by Zhang Yuming and Xu Lei, Chap. 17 is by Xie Xiaoxian, Chap. 18 is by Wang Yunchen, Chap. 19 is by Mao Jingyan, Chap. 20 is by Xu Lei, and Chap. 21 is by Wan Yuxuan; all of them come from the School of Management of Shandong University. At the same time, I would like to take this book as an opportunity to express my gratitude to individuals and organizations who have helped in the writing process. Special thanks to Prof. Zhang Huiming, Former Deputy Dean of School of Economics, Fudan University; Prof. Yang Huixin, Dean of School of Management, Shandong University; and Prof. Chen Jin, Director of Tsinghua University Technology Innovation Research Center. In writing, we also refer to the research results of relevant scholars and get important revelation from them. We have tried our best to give annotations to all the contributions in the book so as to show gratitude to them all. Special thanks to the leaders, editors, and experts of the Science Press for their enthusiastic help and support in the editing and publishing this book. In particular, Ma Yue Editor has devoted a lot of hard work to the publication of this book and put forward a lot of valuable, constructive opinions. Of course, because our level is limited, there are shortcomings in the book without doubt. We hope the predecessors, colleagues, and readers can criticize and correct the shortcomings. Jinan, China February 2017

Prof. Dr. Yuming Zhang

Brief Introduction

What is the principle, essence, and development law of the rapid development of sharing economy? First of all, this book analyzes the inevitability of the sharing economy becoming the mainstream and determines the subjects whose research objects are the production, aggregation, exchange, use, distribution, and value creation of social resources. Secondly, the book defines and analyzes the connotation, category, concept, characteristics, research hypotheses, characteristics of property rights, constituent elements, and income distribution of the sharing economy. The goal of the sharing economy is to improve resource allocation efficiency, which is essential to reduce the transaction costs of the market. Thirdly, the book builds a theoretical system consisting of contingency, collaborative consumption, cognitive surplus, and non-personalized transactions. Finally, the book analyzes the operating mechanism, implementation, resource allocation, business model, profit model, value creation, application cases, challenges, and problems of the sharing economy and proposes countermeasures for development. This book is applicable to universities, scientific research institutions, theoretical researchers, graduate students, undergraduates, etc., in humanities and social sciences such as economics, management, and sociology. It is also suitable for governments and competent authorities at all levels to formulate corresponding development policies or an important reference for innovation, entrepreneurship, transformation, and upgrading of small and medium-sized enterprises and traditional industrial enterprises.

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Contents

1

2

The Age of Sharing Economy Arrives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Sharing Model has a Long History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 Sharing is an Instinctive Choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.2 Sharing Overlooked Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Sharing Economy Kicks Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.1 Sharing Trips: Subvert the Traditional Uber . . . . . . . . 1.2.2 Space Sharing: Unique Airbnb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.3 Sharing Research: MiG Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.4 The Technological Revolution Promotes the Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.5 Sharing Manufacturing: Alibaba Amoy Factory . . . . . 1.3 Sharing Economy Will Become Mainstream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.1 The Arrival of Reuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.2 Marginal Cost Tends to Zero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.3 Sharing Economy Will Lead the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Object of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Determination of Sharing Economy’s Study Object . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Traditional Political Economy’s Social Production Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Total Social Production Process of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3 Value Creation in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Sharing Economy Achieves “Economical” Growth . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Sharing Platform Accelerates Economic Growth . . . . 2.2.2 Sharing Economy Makes Resources Richer . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Sharing Economy Makes the Flow of Resources Smoother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.4 Sharing Economy Optimizes Resource Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.5 Sharing Economy Establishes a New Mechanism for Creating Social Wealth . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 2 3 5 5 6 8 9 11 12 12 13 15 17 17 18 19 23 27 27 30 31 31 32 xiii

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2.2.6 3

4

Sharing Economy Promotes Green and Sustainable Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Research Methods of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Normative Research Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 Normative Research Method and Its Research Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Application of Normative Research Method in Sharing Economy Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.3 Research Prospects of Normative Research in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Empirical Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 Empirical Research Method and Its Research Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 The Application of Empirical Research in Sharing Economy Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.3 Prospects of Empirical Research Methods in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Case Study Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Case Study Method and Its Research Category . . . . . . 3.3.2 Application of Case Study Method in Sharing Economy Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.3 Prospects of the Case Study Method in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Marginal Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.1 Marginal Analysis and Its Research Category . . . . . . . 3.4.2 Marginal Analysis Applied to the Study of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Social Network Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.1 Social Network Analysis and Its Category . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.2 Social Network Analysis Applied to Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical Foundation of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Contingency Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 Connotation of Contingency Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 Performance of Impersonal Exchange Theory in the Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Collaborative Consumption Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 Connotation of Collaborative Consumption Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 Performance of Collaborative Consumption Theory in the Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Cognitive Surplus Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 The Connotation of Cognitive Surplus Theory . . . . . .

33 35 35 36 36 38 39 39 40 42 43 43 44 46 46 47 47 48 48 49 51 51 52 52 54 54 55 56 56

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4.3.2

4.4

4.5

4.6

Performance of Cognitive Surplus Theory in the Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Impersonal Exchange Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 Implications of Impersonal Exchange Theory . . . . . . . 4.4.2 Performance of the Impersonal Exchange Theory in the Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zero Marginal Cost Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.1 The Content of Zero Marginal Cost Theory . . . . . . . . . 4.5.2 Performance of the Zero Marginal Cost Theory in the Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multilateral Platform Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.1 Connotation of Multilateral Platform Theory . . . . . . . 4.6.2 Performance of Multilateral Platform Theory in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57 58 58 59 60 61 61 63 63 64

5

The Connotation and Category of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Definition of the Connotation of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 The Origin of the Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.2 The Discussion of Sharing Economy Concept . . . . . . . 5.1.3 Connotation of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Research Areas of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 Meaning of Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 Sharing of Idle Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.3 Sharing of Inefficient Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.4 Sharing of Quality Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

67 67 68 69 71 75 76 78 81 82

6

The Goal and Essence of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 The Goal of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.1 The General Goal of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.2 The Core Goal of Sharing Economy—Improve the Efficiency of Resource Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 The Essence of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 The Essence is to Reduce Market Transaction Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 The Mechanism of Reducing Market Transaction Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85 85 86

7

Research Hypothesis of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Social Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.1 “Economic Man” Hypothesis in Traditional Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.2 Connotation of Social Person Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.3 Social People in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Human Rationality Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.1 Rational Human Hypothesis in Traditional Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93 96 97 98 103 103 104 105 106 107 107

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7.3

7.4

7.5

7.6

8

7.2.2 The Connotation of the Hypothetical Hypothesis . . . . 7.2.3 Super-Rational People in the Sharing Economy . . . . . Unbalanced Assumptions of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.1 Complete Information Hypothesis in Traditional Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.2 Information Asymmetry and Information Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.3 Re-Discussion on Complete Information and Information Asymmetry—The Perspective of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Incomplete Contract Assumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.1 From Full Contract to Incomplete Contract . . . . . . . . . 7.4.2 Incomplete Contracts in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . The Separability Hypothesis of Property Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5.1 Definition of Property Rights in Traditional Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5.2 Theory of Property Rights in Traditional Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5.3 The Separability of Property Rights in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Massiveness of Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6.1 Resource Scarcity Hypothesis in Traditional Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6.2 Resource Mass Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6.3 Massiveness of Resources in Sharing Economy . . . . .

The Ideas of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 The “Sharing” Concept of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.1 Connotation of “Sharing” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.2 Concept of “Sharing” in Traditional Economic Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.3 The Concept of “Sharing” in the Sharing Economy Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 The “Altruism” Concept of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.1 The Meaning of “Altruism” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.2 “Egoism” in Traditional Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.3 The Concept of “Altruism” in the Sharing Economy Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 The “Synergy” Concept of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.1 The Meaning of “Synergy” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.2 The Concept of “Synergy” in the Sharing Economy Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 The “Public” Concept of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4.1 The Connotation of the “Public” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

108 109 110 110 111

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8.4.2

8.5

8.6

8.7

8.8

9

The Concept of “Public” in the Sharing Economy Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The “Humanism” Concept of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5.1 The Connotation of “Humanism” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5.2 Traditional Economic Activities Ignore “Humanism” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5.3 The Concept of “Humanism” in the Mode of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The “Equality” Concept of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.6.1 The Connotation of “Equality” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.6.2 The Concept of “Equality” in the Sharing Economy Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The “Freedom” Concept of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.7.1 The Connotation of “Freedom” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.7.2 The Concept of “Freedom” in the Sharing Economy Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The “Democratic” Concept of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.8.1 The Connotation of “Democratic” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.8.2 Traditional Economic Activities Are not “Democratic” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.8.3 The Concept of “Democratic” in the Sharing Economy Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Property Rights of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 Use First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1.1 Consistency of Use First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1.2 Performance of Use First in Sharing Economy . . . . . . 9.2 Duality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2.1 Duality of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2.2 Duality Performance in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 Fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.1 Fragmentation of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.2 Debris Performance in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 Transient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4.1 The Instantaneous Connotation of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4.2 Transient Performance in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . 9.5 Commonness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.5.1 The Commonality of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.5.2 Common Performance in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . 9.6 Renting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.6.1 The Connotation of the Lease Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.6.2 Lease Performance in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . 9.7 Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.7.1 Networking Connotation of Sharing Economy . . . . . .

129 130 130 130 131 132 132 133 135 135 135 136 136 137 137 139 139 140 141 142 142 143 144 144 145 147 147 148 149 149 150 151 151 152 153 153

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9.7.2 Network Performance in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . Depersonalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.8.1 The Impersonal Connotation of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.8.2 Impersonal Performance in Sharing Economy . . . . . .

154 156

10 Characteristics of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1 Full Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1.1 The Supply Factors in a Traditional Economy . . . . . . . 10.1.2 The Full Factor Connotation of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1.3 The Full Factor Performance of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2 Full Space-Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2.1 The Time and Space Limitation of the Traditional Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2.2 Space-Time Breakthrough of Sharing Economy . . . . . 10.2.3 Space-Time Connection of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . 10.3 Fully Openness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3.1 The Organization Model of Traditional Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3.2 The Full Openness Connotation of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3.3 The Full Openness Performance of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4 Low Input and High Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4.1 The Input–Output Feature of the Traditional Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4.2 The Low Input Feature of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . 10.4.3 The High Output Feature of Sharing Economy . . . . . . 10.5 Low Cost and High Yield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5.1 The Cost-Return Feature of the Traditional Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5.2 The Low-Cost Feature of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . 10.5.3 The High Yield Feature of Sharing Economy . . . . . . .

159 159 160

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11 The Elements of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1 Main Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.1 Persons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.2 Enterprises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.3 Informal Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.4 Formal Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.5 States Entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Market Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.1 Transaction Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.2 Transaction Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

156 157

160 161 162 162 163 164 165 165 166 166 168 168 169 170 172 172 173 175 179 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187

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11.2.3 Trading Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organization Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.3.1 Supplier and Demand Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.3.2 Sharing Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.3.3 Other Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Core Element: Sharing Platform and Its Functions . . . . . . . . . . . 11.4.1 Connection Function of the Sharing Platform . . . . . . . 11.4.2 Management Function of the Sharing Platform . . . . . . 11.4.3 Matching Function of the Sharing Platform . . . . . . . . .

187 188 189 190 190 192 192 193 197

12 Operating Mechanism of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.1 Spontaneous Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.1.1 The Theory of Spontaneous Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.1.2 Mechanism of Spontaneous Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2 Drive Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2.1 To Enhance the User’s Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2.2 Willingness to Raise Revenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2.3 Promote Information Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2.4 Change of Consumption Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2.5 The Pursuit of Flexible Employment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2.6 Hot Market Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.3 Cooperation Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.3.1 Supply and Demand in the Sharing Platform . . . . . . . . 12.3.2 Platform Provider for Sharing Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . 12.3.3 Third-Party Organizations in the Sharing Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.4 Cultural Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.4.1 “Sharing” Cultural Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.4.2 Mechanism of Action of Cultural Mechanism . . . . . . . 12.5 Dynamic Pricing Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.5.1 Static Pricing Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.5.2 Dynamic Pricing Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.6 Trading Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.6.1 Characteristics of the Trading Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . 12.6.2 The Expression of the Trading Mechanism . . . . . . . . . 12.7 Evaluation and Trust Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.7.1 Establish an Evaluation System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.7.2 Building a Trust System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.8 Constraint and Punishment Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.8.1 Information Perspective Constraint and Punishment Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.8.2 Evaluation Perspective and Punishment Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

199 200 200 201 202 202 202 203 203 203 204 204 205 205

11.3

11.4

206 206 207 207 208 208 209 211 211 212 213 213 214 215 216 216

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13 Practice of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1 Leasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.1 Forms of Leasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.2 Practice of Leasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2 Borrowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.1 Forms of Borrowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.2 Practice of Borrowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3 Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.1 Forms of Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.2 Practice of Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.4 Linking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.4.1 Forms of Linking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.4.2 Practice of Linking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.5 Crowd-Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.5.1 Forms of Crowd-Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.5.2 Practice of Crowd-Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.6 P2P Lending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.6.1 Forms of P2P Lending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.6.2 Practice of P2P Lending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.7 Crowd-Sourcing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.7.1 Forms of Crowd-Sourcing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.7.2 Practice of Crowd-Sourcing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.8 Crowd-Creating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.8.1 Forms of Crowd-Creating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.8.2 Practice of Crowd-Creating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.9 Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.9.1 Forms of Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.9.2 Practice of Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.10 Trading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.10.1 Forms of Trading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.10.2 Practice of Trading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.11 Donation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.11.1 Forms of Donation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.11.2 Practice of Donation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

219 219 220 220 221 222 222 223 223 223 224 225 225 226 227 227 228 229 229 230 230 231 232 233 233 234 235 235 236 236 237 237 238 238

14 Resource Allocation for Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.1 De-intermediation and Re-mediation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.1.1 De-intermediation of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.1.2 Re-intermediation of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.2 Forming an Efficient Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.2.1 The Connotation of Sharing the Economy’s Ultra-Efficient Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.2.2 Technical Support for the Ultra-Efficient Market . . . . 14.3 Fragmented Instant Transaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.3.1 Fragmentation of the Transaction Contract . . . . . . . . .

239 239 240 240 241 242 242 243 243

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14.3.2 Instantaneity of the Transaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Activate Inventory Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4.1 Transfer of Stock Resource Usage Rights . . . . . . . . . . 14.4.2 Efficient Use of Stock Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Easy to Form Scale Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.5.1 “Many-to-Many” Trading Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.5.2 Rich Variety of Trading Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.5.3 Large Scale of Transaction Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . Optimize Supply and Demand Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.6.1 Sharing Platform to Promote Instant Matching Between Supply and Demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.6.2 Increasing Supply and Demand Matching Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transaction Repeatability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.7.1 Repeatable Trading of Use Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.7.2 Can Be Shared by Many Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Smart Big Data-Driven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.8.1 Smart Big Data Facilitates Transaction Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.8.2 Smart Big Data Improve Transaction Efficiency . . . . .

244 245 245 246 247 247 248 249 250

15 Sharing Economy Business Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.1 General Business Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.1.1 Traditional Economic Business Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.1.2 Sharing Economy Business Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.2 Sharing Community Intelligence Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.3 Sharing Innovative Resource Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4 Sharing Travel Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.5 Sharing Space Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.6 Sharing the Financial Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.7 Sharing Food Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.8 Sharing a Medical Health Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.9 Sharing Knowledge Education Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.10 Sharing Public Resource Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.11 Sharing Task Service Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.12 Sharing Technologies and Solution Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.13 Sharing Production Capability Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

257 257 258 259 261 263 264 266 267 269 271 273 274 276 277 279

16 Application of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1 Creativity and Maker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1.1 Creative Sharing and Maker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1.2 Forms of Creative Sharing and Maker Space . . . . . . . . 16.1.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Creative Industries and Makers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2 Entrepreneurship and Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.1 Innovation Sharing and Mass Entrepreneurship . . . . .

283 283 283 284

14.4

14.5

14.6

14.7

14.8

250 251 252 252 253 254 254 255

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16.2.2

The Development Process of Innovative and Entrepreneurial Shared Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Entrepreneurship and Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.3 Technology Research and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.3.1 Sharing Economy and Technology Research and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.3.2 Forms of Sharing in Technology R&D . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.3.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Technology Research and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.4 Culture Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.4.1 Cultural Media Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.4.2 Forms of Cultural Media Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.4.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on the Field of Cultural Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5 Knowledge and Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5.1 Knowledge and Skill-Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5.2 Forms of Knowledge and Skill Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on the Field of Knowledge and Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.6 Financial Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.6.1 Sharing Economic and Financial Services . . . . . . . . . . 16.6.2 Forms of Financial Services Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.6.3 The Impact of Sharing on Financial Services . . . . . . . 16.7 Life Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.7.1 Life Service Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.7.2 Forms of Life Services Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.7.3 Sharing the Impact on the Field of Life Services . . . . 16.8 Express and Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.8.1 Express and Logistics Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.8.2 Forms of Express and Logistics Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . 16.8.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Express and Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.9 Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.9.1 Manufacturing Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.9.2 Forms of Manufacturing Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.9.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.10 Government Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.10.1 Sharing in Government Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.10.2 Forms of Government Information Sharing . . . . . . . . . 16.10.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Government Management Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

287 288 289 289 289 291 291 292 292 293 294 294 295 296 296 297 297 299 299 300 300 302 303 303 304 305 305 306 306 307 308 308 309 309

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17 Profit Model of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.1 Connotation of the Profit Model of the Sharing Economy . . . . . 17.2 Nine Profit Models for Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.2.1 Pumping Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.2.2 Customer Resource Value Mining Mode . . . . . . . . . . . 17.2.3 Platform Resource Extension Service Mode . . . . . . . . 17.2.4 The Platform Charges the Use Fee Model . . . . . . . . . . 17.2.5 Third-Party Charging Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.2.6 Advertising Expense Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.2.7 Traffic Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.2.8 Interface Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.2.9 PPC Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

311 311 313 313 315 316 318 320 321 323 325 326

18 Benefits and Distribution of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.1 Performance Gains of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.1.1 The Connotation of Sharing Economy Performance Gains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.1.2 Performance of Sharing Economy Performance Gains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.2 Strategic Benefits of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.2.1 The Connotation of Strategic Benefits of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.2.2 The Performance of Sharing Economic Strategy Benefit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3 Other Important Benefits of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.1 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.2 Reputation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.3 Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.4 Emotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.5 Opportunity and Entrance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.4 On-Demand Distribution in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.4.1 The Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.4.2 The Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.4.3 The Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

329 329

334 336 336 337 338 338 339 340 340 341 342

19 Value Creation in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.1 Increase Consumer Residuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.2 Producer Value Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.3 Expand Public Effective Demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.4 Reduce the Cost of Innovation and Venture Capital . . . . . . . . . . . 19.5 Generate Collection Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.6 Utilize Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.7 Overcapacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.8 Avoid Social Damage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.9 Make Up for Market Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

345 345 347 349 351 352 354 356 357 359

330 331 333 333

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19.10 Promote Industrial Transformation and Structural Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 19.11 Optimize Social Credit System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 20 Application Cases of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.1 Sharing Promotes Development: Tencent Open Platform . . . . . . 20.1.1 Tencent Open Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.1.2 Open and Share Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.1.3 Operation Mode of Tencent Open Platform . . . . . . . . . 20.1.4 Discovery and Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.2 Sharing Makes Capital More Efficient: Crowdfunding Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.2.1 Crowdfunding Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.2.2 Share Funds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.2.3 Operation Mode of Crowdfunding Network . . . . . . . . 20.2.4 Discovery and Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.3 Mobike Shares Travel to Solve the Last One Kilometer Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.3.1 Mobike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.3.2 Share Traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.3.3 Mobike’s Operating Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.3.4 Discovery and Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.4 Fenda, Discovers the Value of Knowledge and Time by Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.4.1 Fenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.4.2 Share Surplus Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.4.3 Operation Mode of Fenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.4.4 Discovery and Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.5 Sharing Economy Promotes Industrial Upgrading: i5 Intelligent Machine Tool of Shenyang Machine Tool . . . . . . . . . 20.5.1 i5 Intelligent Machine Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.5.2 Share Production Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.5.3 Operation Mode of i5 Intelligent Machine Tool . . . . . 20.5.4 Discovery and Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Challenges, Problems and Countermeasures of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1 Challenges in Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.1 Competition with Traditional Enterprises . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.2 The Test of Social Integrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.3 The Challenge to Traditional Government Supervision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.2 Problems in the Development of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . 21.2.1 Legal Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.2.2 Tax Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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21.2.3

21.3

Reflections on the Development of Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Measures for Developing Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.1 Building an Open and Inclusive Economic Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.2 Innovate Regulatory Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.3 Establish a Credit System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.4 Establish Demand-Side Benefit Protection Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

392 393 393 394 395 396

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

About the Author

Yuming Zhang was born in 1962, Jinan, Shandong, and obtained Ph.D. in economics, Fudan University, and postdoctoral in management. He is currently Professor at the School of Management of Shandong University, Director of the Institute of Small and Medium Enterprises of Shandong University, and Doctoral Supervisor in accounting, management science, and engineering. He is also Academic Member of the Research Center for Technology Innovation of Tsinghua University, the key research base of the Ministry of Education. Research areas are financial accounting and financial securities, the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and corporate growth theory, technological innovation and management. He has presided over the “Science and Technology SMEs Credit Information Platform and Database Construction Research” (15ZDB157) and other national social science fund major, key, and surface projects, “the selection and countermeasures of China’s low carbon independent innovation model” and other Ministry of Education and more than ten provincial- and ministerial-level projects. He has published 15 monographs such as Cloud Innovation Theory and Application andSmall and The Growth Mechanism of MediumSized Technology Enterprise. He has published more than 130 articles in “Research Management” and “Accounting Research,” including 60 articles that can be searched through the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) and 5 articles through EI. His research results have been reprinted by the Chinese Social Science Digest and other magazines. Besides, he has won the Ministry of Education’s Scientific Research Outstanding Achievement Award (Management) and won the first prize. He has been rated as an excellent instructor in the entrepreneurial competition. He has many years of experience in corporate management, financial securities, and investment banking. He has guided and participated in corporate restructuring, merger and acquisition, and issuance of stocks more than 30 times. He also serves as Independent Director of Weichai Heavy Machinery Co., Ltd., and Kingee Culture Development Co., Ltd., and Financial Advisor of Luba Chemical Co., Ltd.

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Chapter 1

The Age of Sharing Economy Arrives

The world is changing rapidly. What are the younger talking about? What is the media reporting? What are policymakers concerned about? What is changing our lives? The answer is the sharing economy. In the past years, the world economy has reached a critical point, and there has been a split between the old and the new economic forms. As a representative of the new economic form, the sharing economy, driven by Internet technology, moves forward with an irresistible trend and pushes the global sharing era. The sharing model has a long history. From animals to humans and from primitive civilization to the information society, sharing has always existed. Today, the development of the sharing economy is gaining momentum. It has penetrated into various fields such as service, manufacturing, innovation, medical care, logistics, finance, and government management. With reuse arrival, the sharing economy is already an arrow detached from the string. It is irresistibly going forward, leading to a new era.

1.1 Sharing Model has a Long History “Sharing” is a vocabulary with Utopia, which is related to its long history. Before the advent of human civilization, labor division between animals for survival can be regarded as a kind of sharing. Each stage of human social development is accompanied by shared behavior, which reflects the concept of sharing. Especially in recent years, the development of technology has brought about iterative progress in society. The Internet and the Internet of Things have made life more convenient. At the same time, more and more severe waste of resources and uncontrolled consumption have caused people to think about the efficiency of resource use. Under the combined effects of various factors, sharing has risen from a survival instinct to a height that promotes the development of human society.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_1

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1.1.1 Sharing is an Instinctive Choice The sharing model has a long history. From the ocean to the land, from animals to humans, they all choose to share as a means of survival in the process of evolution, so sharing is an instinctive choice. 1.

Sharing instincts of marine life

At present, tens of thousands of organisms have been found in the ocean, including algae, coral reefs, shellfish, fish, shrimp, and whales. They shared the resources of the ocean in the evolution of billions of years. The survival mode of marine life also embodies coexistence and co-prosperity. The most human-loved marine life, the dolphins, rely on labor division and cooperation to complete each predation. The United States has done a study on dolphin predation. The researchers divided nine dolphins into experimental and control groups to observe their predatory behavior. The study found that the two groups of dolphins follow the same pattern when preying on food. A dolphin plays the role of a “driver” and is responsible for driving its prey to its peers’ encirclement. Other dolphins play an “obstacle”. When the “driver” rushes the prey to the surroundings, the “obstacle” will encircle the road that obstructs the prey. The dolphins performed their predation procedures in an orderly manner and took the most fish in the least amount of time. The predation of dolphins in this division of labor is not only a manifestation of their “wisdom” but also a “sharing” instinct in the evolution of marine life. 2.

Wolves’ sharing instinct

The blue ocean has numerous secrets, and the predation wisdom of dolphins is only the tip of the iceberg. When our eyes turn from the ocean to land and from the mysterious underwater world to the vast grassland, we can discover animals’ amazing survival skills. Wolves are known for their team spirit. Compared with other animals, the advantage of the wolf in physical strength and endurance is not obvious, but group wolves can cooperate with lions and tigers. At the beginning of predation, the wolf pack leaders give orders in front of them, and the rest of the wolf waiting for the attack. They have a clear division of labor and play different roles—some are responsible for the offense, some are responsible for defense, and some are responsible for making loud noises. From the instinct to escape, prey can run faster than usual. If it is a simple chase battle, wolves can only be discouraged. But wolves will chase after prey through cooperation until the prey’s stamina and physical exhaustion. This orderly and undisciplined cooperation has been repeatedly used as a model for teamwork. In the animal world where the jungle is intense, the “law of the jungle” determines that the greater the efficiency of obtaining limited resources, the greater the probability of survival.

1.1 Sharing Model has a Long History

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Human sharing instinct

When it comes to the wisdom of survival, human beings understand the importance of sharing since the beginning of the primitive civilization era. Nature is unpredictable for human beings. We realize that going it alone is not a clever way of life, so human groups have emerged. The division of labor in human groups is clear and has different responsibilities. Women are responsible for taking care of children, cooking, while men go out for prey and protect their groups. The food and the territories are both shared in the communities. In the era of agricultural civilization, we still depend on the environment. Cooperation and sharing are still essential survival skills. In the era of industrial civilization, the level of medical care, education, infrastructure, and social welfare increased rapidly, and people’s quality of life was guaranteed, but sharing behaviors still existed. Lending cars to friends, sharing community greening with neighbors, and parents take turns picking up children to go to kindergarten. At the end of the twentieth century, the advent of computers and the Internet enabled humankind to leap into the era of information civilization. During this period, people paid more attention to the satisfaction of high-level needs. People share food, travel, and show their lives on social platforms. Sharing life brings people a different sense of satisfaction. In all the people connected, the sharing content is no longer confined to physical objects. Information, data, and skills can be quickly shared through the Internet in the online world. The survival mode of animal division of labor shows that sharing is an instinct. The history of the development of the entire human civilization has always been a sharing behavior. From the original survival instincts to the pursuit of a higher standard of living and the enjoyment of a better quality of life, the sharing philosophy has always existed. It is only due to the different technological development levels that the sharing contents and expressions are different.

1.1.2 Sharing Overlooked Resources The change of technology is accompanied by the development of capitalism and the market economy. After the enclosure movement, the property of resources changed from public to private, and ownership changed from conditional to exclusive. Adam Smith believes that capitalism places too much emphasis on ownership, leading to the deprivation of workers’ livelihood tools and the owners’ increasing greed (Smith, 2008). Due to over-emphasis on ownership and exclusive rights, there are also cases of waste of resources and inefficient use. To increase the efficiency of resource use, sharing economy emerged. Clothing, food, housing, and transportation are the foundation of everyday life. The waste of resources is first seen in terms of food and clothing. Under the strategy of major e-commerce companies, each year on November 11 has evolved from an ordinary day to a shopping festival that detonates consumer revelry. During the “Double Eleventh” shopping festival in 2016, the online transaction volume

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of major e-commerce companies, including Tmall, Taobao, Jingdong, and Suning Tesco, totaled RMB 17.04 billion. According to the “China Youth Daily” report, a survey on consumer goods shows that clothing and food are dominant in consumption. The survey covered 2,002 people. Clothing (73.0%) and food (69.2%) were still the bulk of respondents’ consumption (Gao & Wang, 2016). The vast and astonishing data leads people to think that buying too many clothes and food at one time during the shopping festival is a waste of resources. On the one hand, consumers are eager to purchase goods with quality problems, and the return and replacement process wastes time and effort. On the other hand, impulsive consumption has made it impossible to use many hoarded commodities effectively. When the clothes are out of season, they may not be popular next year. Food can only be thrown away after the expiration date. The situation of cars and housing is also not optimistic. The European Union has released a report on world resources. There are currently more than one billion vehicles in the world, but only 260 million vehicles can be reused, and the remaining 7.4 billion vehicles belong to only one person. The issue of vacant houses has always been a hot issue in China. According to the statistics of Phoenix Real Estate, in 2010, there were 65.4 million sets of vacant houses in China. The vacancy rates for cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen were 22–24%. Other cities with a general development level was 26%, for coastal cities where housing has taken on holiday functions, the idle rate of houses is as high as 40%. Therefore, there was a sensational “ghost town”, that is, a large number of buildings in the evening were only a few houses. The low use rate of real estate means an unreasonable land structure, which will restrict the healthy development of the local national economy and bring about a series of ecological and environmental problems. From all aspects of social reproduction, idle resources can be divided into four types: the idleness of production capacity, the idleness of the product in the production field, the idleness of the product in the circulation field, and the idleness of the product in the consumption field (Pengrong, 1990). Obviously, the degree of the waste of these four types of idle resources is increasing. The idleness of products in the consumption field means that the resources that have been consumed in the first three forms are wasted, so the loss is also the greatest. The sharing economy can solve the problem of idle resources. The efficiency of each type of inefficient resource can be improved on the platform of the sharing economy. Through the interconnection of technical support, the production materials and labor force can be fully integrated, not only the food, clothing, housing, and transportation can be shared, but knowledge, time, technology, productivity can be shared. Everything is moving forward as a process. When talking about evolution, sharing has already appeared in instinctive behavior, so it has an important significance. The popularization of sharing ideas in business activities has given rise to the sharing economy. Today, the sharing economy is profoundly changing social life. The sharing economy has already kicked off, affecting the development of society in various fields and industries.

1.2 Sharing Economy Kicks Off

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1.2 Sharing Economy Kicks Off More than 80 years ago, Keynes once described the future world as follows: Machines liberated humanity from the heavy labor of the market economy system. People engaged in cultural activities in a collaborative and sharing mode, pursuing a lofty goal that transcends the world. Today, the economist’s prediction is becoming a reality: Young people on the streets of Manhattan are using mobile phones to call an Uber; Residents of the north bank of Senna are prepared to receive tourists from all over the world; Tokyo’s exhibition spreads across the world through the Internet; Rows of green bicycles in the streets in Beijing; I5 is processing a mill in Shenzhen, millet, Huawei, Vivo, oppo and other well-known mobile phone brands mobile phone shell and appearance parts are made there.

1.2.1 Sharing Trips: Subvert the Traditional Uber Founded in 2009, Uber is an Internet company and a leader in the sharing economy. After several years of development, Uber has become one of the most promising non-listed companies in the capital market. According to a report by Bloomberg at the end of 2015, Uber’s valuation has reached US$62.5 billion, which is more than 80% of the S&P 500 stocks. In comparison, the market value of Tesla is 30 billion U.S. dollars, the market value of General Motors is 46 billion U.S. dollars, and the market value of Ford Motor is 52 billion U.S. dollars. In other words, if these large companies with decades of history want to merge and acquire the “little brother” who comes from behind, they will have more than enough power. At first glance, Uber is thought to be a taxi company. Its business scope has covered 311 cities in 58 countries and provides travel services for more than 1 million passengers every day. Passengers pay the fare to the driver, of which 20% will be automatically transferred to Uber as a commission. Drivers have flexible working hours and passengers can get more convenient services. Just seeing here is unable to understand why Uber’s valuation is so high. Uber’s most significant value lies in the big data platform it provides, using a business model of a sharing economy. First, build an online platform to gather offline idle capacity to an online platform. Second, differentiate these idle vehicles, including Uber SUV high-end, Uber X and Uber Black mid-range, Uber Taxi low-end, Meet the different needs of users. Third, the business scope will be further expanded to provide automobiles and steamboats, aircraft, logistics, etc. Fourth, a dynamic pricing plan is designed. Different prices are designed to encourage drivers to travel according to various conditions, such as the peak hours of work and off-duty, rain and snow, etc. Fifth, Uber uses the location based service (LBS) technology to locate users accurately, collect information on cars and roads through big data, and use cloud computing to complete the best user match and provide the nearest driver information to passengers to avoid the refusal of the traditional rental industry.

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After sensing the development trend of sharing economy in the world, the domestic mobile car rental business has developed rapidly. The first online car rental company emerged in 2010 and entered the bud. In 2013, the investment in Alibaba and Tencent was marked by DIDI and KUAIDI, the car rental industry entered a period of rapid growth. By 2014, there have been a large number of online car rental companies, and Uber is also targeting the Chinese market and entering cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen. In 2015, the traditional car rental industry underwent a transformation, and Shenzhou Car has launched a unique service. The acquisition of Uber China in 2016 dripped the company’s status as the leading leader in the domestic car rental market. Didi also ranked among the global “unicorns”. The capital market has always been optimistic about the mobile car rental industry. Didi has obtained multiple rounds of financing and has also achieved the top ten global market valuation rankings. However, to seize the market and cultivate consumer spending habits, car rental companies took the form of subsidies, leading many start-up companies to die because they didn’t have enough funds to burn and heat, but didn’t survive the cold winter of capital. Now that the consumer’s spending habits have been formed, the mobile car rental industry is gradually turning to profitability, resulting in a stable profit model and sustainable development. It is not difficult to see that the sharing economy is already changing the way people travel. There is an anomaly in human society’s development: engines and electricity help us break away from the limits of speed. Our travel borders have also been extended to space, but we are trapped in a congested lane on the earth to move slowly. This is inconsistent with human instincts for pursuing convenience and does not meet the goal of maximizing social welfare. More and more people choose to use the mobile car rental service to share their trips. We can optimistically assume that the future of urban transportation will be in line with the smoothness that the technology can achieve and reflect the level of imagination and ability of higher wisdom.

1.2.2 Space Sharing: Unique Airbnb Imagine that if you are traveling, you want to walk into a standard hotel and lay on a white sheet to wait for the waiter to deliver a monotonous meal, or you want to knock on the door of a local family, enjoy local specialties and appreciate the real scenery outside the window? In the past, people only had the former choice, and the latter option only appeared when they visit their friends. Now people can choose their favorite place to stay on the Internet platform before they travel, and settle into the houses of the locals with confidence and customize an exclusive and beautiful trip. This is what Airbnb1 is doing. 1

Airbnb, the abbreviation of Air Bed and Breakfast, is called Airborne Accommodation. Airbnb is a travel house rental community where users publish, search for vacation rental rentals and complete online bookings via the web or mobile application.

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Airbnb represents the sharing economy in the short-term rental industry, and its birth is full of legendary. The three young people who work in San Francisco have little money to pay for rent next month. In times of hardship, they discovered a business opportunity. At that time, San Francisco held a national conference with so many participants that the local hotel was already overcrowded, but many participants did not find a place to stay. The three enthusiastic young people want to help these participants who have nowhere to go, of course, to make money. They spread an airbed in the living room and advertise to the people who are meeting: we have a place to sleep and have breakfast. Unexpectedly, the idea of continuing the picture and the development of air mattresses and breakfasts into the industry was named Airbnb. At the end of 2012, Airbnb’s business scope covered 30,000 cities worldwide, with 21 branches, more than 2,000 permanent employees, and over 40 million shortterm rental services. Its valuation reached 30 billion U.S. dollars in 2016. Like other unicorn companies, Airbnb is also far ahead of the giants in the traditional hotel industry. For example, the Marriott Group2 has more than 4,000 hotels and its valuation is only 21 billion US dollars. Airbnb’s core mechanism is also to provide an Internet platform. Although it does not own fixed assets such as housing resources, it can aggregate offline resources to the platform. The Airbnb collection has a wide range of offline listings. It does everything in its power to collect apartments, dormitories, RVs, and even lighthouses to meet the diversified living needs of travelers. Different from the traditional hotel industry, Airbnb will also provide user experience services, such as traveling to Paris, living in a Parisian home, learning to speak French, tasting the local cuisine, the homeowner will also take the tourists to the special attractions known only to local talents and experience the local customs. At the same time, Airbnb’s platform mechanism focuses on personal branding and reputation. The landlord who provides a unique accommodation experience on Airbnb will form a personal brand through a customer evaluation mechanism. Airbnb will also form a user stickiness. Online short-term rentals also have a large market in China. China has many vacant houses, which lays the foundation for the rapid expansion and penetration of the sharing economy in the accommodation sector. The domestic short-term rental market started in 2011. After a period of rapid growth and death, it is currently developing steadily. It has formed two more mature operating models: the B2C (business-to-customer) model and the C2C (customer-to-customer) model. Tujia is a representative of the B2C model and currently holds the largest share in the domestic short-term rental market. It is one of the earliest established companies in domestic online short-term leases. Tujia is a real estate company with an ample supply of houses to contract housing renovations, hygiene, and real estate. It also trains service personnel. As a result, the initial investment cost is relatively high. Still, the housing is safe and reliable, and the service professional is highly efficient. It forms a solid credit system in the domestic short-term rental market, the C2C model dominates. There 2

Marriott International Group (NYSE:MAR) is the world’s leading international hotel management company.

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are already short-term ants, short-lease pigs, and other companies in the world. The C2C model is direct communication between the owner and the tenant. The platform company does not own the property and is not responsible for the decoration work. Therefore, the assets are lighter and the operation is flexible. The disadvantage is that it is prone to safety problems and the market needs to establish a sound credit mechanism. The short-term rental model is undoubtedly impacting the sharing economy in the traditional hotel industry and the real estate sector. Under the concept of sharing, travel begins with the choice of house and communication with the homeowner. This will allow the community of strangers to return to the acquaintance society. The house may be used as an investment tool—the role of social relations adhesives.

1.2.3 Sharing Research: MiG Lab The sharing economy has found its way into the field of travel and short-term rentals, and it has achieved good development. As the sharing economy’s profitability has become clear from ambiguity, the content of sharing has also expanded from socioeconomic resources such as automobiles and houses to technological resources such as knowledge, information, precision instruments, and a sharing economy began to appear in high-skilled scientific research fields. Scientific research sharing includes the sharing of scientific research data and the sharing of laboratory precision instruments. The sharing of scientific research data is achieved with the continuous improvement of scientific research maturity. Although the idea of laboratory sharing has a long history, the development in practice is not optimistic. In the 1980s, MIT founded Wedlab, which can be seen as the first laboratory shared case. However, it was not until the last few years that shared laboratories developed indeed internationally. In 2000, the United States launched the Xport project and for the first time tried to share instruments on the Internet (Zheng Sheng, 2004). With the help of Internet technology, after continuous trial and error and polishing, foreign scientific research and sharing have come out of a more reliable path and formed a more mature business model. Domestic shared scientific research has just started. The utilization rate of equipment and equipment in some colleges and universities is low, and the sharing effect is unsatisfactory. In May 2016, driven by the sharing economy wave, China’s first scientific research platform based on the concept of sharing economy and crowdsourcing has come into being. According to its founder, MiG Labs, whose name stems from the world famous Russia “MiG series fighter”, has condensed countless scientific researchers’ efforts and sweat for decades, representing a professional, innovative collaborative scientific research and technological innovation. MiG mainly cooperates with universities, research institutes, high-tech companies, entrepreneurial bases, and internet platforms. On the one hand, R&D resources, technical resources and human resources are obtained through cooperation to achieve standardized product design, production and packaging. On the other hand, it connects with the market, locks in user

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groups, and provides users with R&D services and technical services. MiG created a scientific research platform to “crowd up” the idle equipment and inefficient instruments of scientific research institutions by sharing the economic model to improve the efficiency of instruments. At the same time, it solves the problem of shortage of R&D resources for users with scientific research needs, provides overall solutions for users, and ultimately achieves the goal of reducing users’ R&D costs. Internationally shared scientific research has developed well. It has concentrated on experimental outsourcing and technology platforms. It has represented companies such as Science Exchange and Kaggle. These two companies have also established a foothold in the capital market and completed multiple rounds of financing. However, domestic shared scientific research has developed in recent years. There is no outstanding enterprise yet. Mige Laboratories has set up a platform for scientific research sharing. Under the boost of the sharing economy, it is expected to become a leader in the domestic shared scientific research field. In the future, MiG will expand into more industries. It aims at the entire domestic R&D market. The profit margin of this market is very large. The business covers equipment leasing, scientific research services, technology transactions, the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, sales of equipment and consumables, consulting, and talent recruitment. The pioneering progress of the sharing economy in scientific research shows its strong vitality. The power of scientific research will be released to the maximum extent on the sharing economy platform, and it will promote the development of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation”. The sharing economy will play an advantage in more industries and broader fields.

1.2.4 The Technological Revolution Promotes the Sharing Economy From animal collective hunting and coexistence, primitive humans choose a social lifestyle, to civil society, neighbors help each other, share community resources and experiences. Sharing is no stranger to us. We have never stopped contact with the outside world. But now, the boundaries of sharing are no longer clear, and sharing is no longer limited to acquaintances. What factors make sharing more and more popular and standardized and even begin to affect people’s lives? First, consider the development of technology. A New Account of the Tales has said: “Bentwood made of wheels, while straight made of axles. Taming horses and cattle and paddling on the water can replace humans.” Ancients used carriages to travel, it was the best. After the invention of the ship, the water transportation became smooth; after the train appeared, the long-distance passenger transport problem of large flow was solved; and the appearance of the aircraft declared that the human being did not meet the ambition of being trapped on the ground. We can see that the demand for trips has not changed since ancient times, but technological advances

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have made subsequent development possible. The combination of original needs and staged technologies makes history meaningful. The technological advancements brought about by the previous two industrial revolutions have subverted people’s lives, and cars have shortened the distance between space. Telegrams and telephones have helped people realize their desire for instant communication. The twenty-first century Internet technology has made innovation the main driving force for economic development. The new driving force has also spawned a new economic form. Sharing economy is one of them. Second, the technological environment is entirely different from the past. Internet technology is characterized by peer-to-peer and openness. Through Internet terminals, anyone can connect to the Internet, which significantly reduces the cost of communication between users. The booming development of private cars is inseparable from technological progress. The global positioning system (GPS) of the mobile terminal can accurately locate the user. Big data can obtain information about vehicles and roads, then recommend the user to the nearest distance through cloud computing technology. The vehicle issued an order to the driver to avoid the refusal of the traditional car rental industry. In terms of information security, blockchain technology can provide protection for digital information. Also, the rise of third-party payment has changed people’s consumption concepts and lifestyles, simplifying the transaction process and awakening the concept of public finances. Botsman and Rogers (2011) summed up the development of the network in four stages in the book Mine Is Yours: How Cooperative Spending Changes Our Lifestyle. The first stage is the sharing of information among professionals; the second stage is the sharing of food, travel, and life on the Internet; the third stage is the sharing of creative achievements and personal skills through the Internet; the fourth stage is to share real-life resources on the Internet. We have gone through the first three stages and are now entering a sharing economy era of sharing real resources on the Internet. Sharing real resources in the network promotes the development of the Internet of Things, infrared sensors can receive signals, GPS technology is used for precise positioning, and barcode readers facilitate supermarket management. When the distribution range of the sensor is large enough, the Internet of Things can truly realize the state of the Internet of Everything. Many countries have listed the Internet of Things as a national key development project. The wave of global Internet of Things has hit and the curtain of the Internet of Things industry has opened. Throughout the ages, there has been no fundamental change in the concept of sharing, but technological advancement has allowed sharing to grow from an instinct to maximizing resource allocation efficiency. Technology promotes the continuous improvement of society. While accumulating material wealth, it also emphasizes that the ownership of goods also causes the inefficient use of resources. This has also led to a reflection on the efficiency of resource use.

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1.2.5 Sharing Manufacturing: Alibaba Amoy Factory As the interpretation of sharing ideas has become deeper, the field of sharing economy has continued to expand. The sharing economy in the areas of consumption and services has developed relatively well. Under the drive of capital, the biggest bright spot of the sharing economy will appear in the production sector. Through the Internet platform, the factory will share production line idle time and production equipment. Technology companies will share data information, which will promote the development of the sharing economy in the manufacturing industry. The Alibaba Amoy Factory is a typical representative of the sharing economy in the manufacturing industry. It is a platform project of Alibaba’s 1688 Business Unit, which resolves the contradiction between Taobao merchants who know sales but do not understand the supply chain and manufacturers who understand the supply chain but do not understand sales. Taobao platform has already registered more than 100,000 merchants. The number of orders for individual businesses is small, and the design is difficult. Most of the small orders are required to be completed in a short period of time, and each of them will waste a lot of time when contacting the factory, and the small-batch orders will also receive no preferential price, and the time cost and transaction cost will be high. With the platform of Tao Factory, merchants can publish production requirements, such as order quantity and duration, or directly contact the appropriate factory registered on the platform. Manufacturers are affected more by the off-season and peak seasons. They can hardly receive orders in the off-season. The use of machinery, equipment and production lines is inefficient and there is no profit income. Through the Tao factory’s platform, the factory can receive suitable orders on the one hand, and on the other hand, it can also publish its production capacities, such as acceptable product types and remaining production, and wait for appointments. The Tao factory platform connects the two parties of the two ends of the production line, allowing merchants to provide orders more flexible. The factory can also solve the problem of low utilization of off-season production lines. Under the two-way selection mechanism, the matching success rate has also been improved. The Tao factory began trial operation in October 2013 and was formally launched in December. By 2015, 15,000 vendors registered on the platform to provide production services to more than 40,000 Taobao merchants. At present, three major producing areas have been formed and are located in Hangzhou, Dongguan and Zhongshan. Each production area has its unique advantages: Hangzhou origin depends on resource advantages, rich in shuttle fabrics. Dongguan production location is superior, there are preferential prices. Zhongshan production cycle is short, orders flexible, suitable for quick turnover orders in small quantities. The manufacturer of a Tao factory in Guangzhou said that the utilization rate of the production line before entering the Tao factory was only 50% to 60%. In the off-season from June to August, the utilization rate was almost zero. After registering at the Tao Factory, the utilization rate of the production line has doubled, and there is no phenomenon that there is no order in the off-season, and the revenue has increased exponentially

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(Zhou et al., 2016). Besides, Tao factories can also unite, share orders, and share productivity, and this will create a larger business platform. Businesses on the platform will have a balanced production efficiency and will be able to maximize the sharing of resources, the profit is also huge. The booming of the sharing economy in the manufacturing industry shows that the sharing economy has entered an accelerated period of development. In the future, driven by various factors such as capital, the sharing economy will continue to expand and lead mainstream society.

1.3 Sharing Economy Will Become Mainstream In the opening chapter of The Tale of Two Cities, Dickens wrote: This is the best time and this is the worst time at the same time. People have everything in front of them and people have nothing in front of them also. Sincerely, today is an era in which the sharing economy is a symbolic thing that can represent the connotation of this era. It is the product of the times and the promoter of the progress of the times. It has been on the road and seized the opportunity to allow people to reach the other side. Missing will be swallowed by the waves of the times.

1.3.1 The Arrival of Reuse In evolution, Charles Darwin believes that intellectual evolution will promote moral development. A high moral level requires people to seek benefits for the majority of people. It can also deepen the feelings and cooperation between people. We are experiencing changes: Ownership has become less critical, compared to full ownership, it is more important to use it when needed. The pursuit of personal interests began to be replaced by the pursuit of collective interests. In the past, people were expecting to become rich from poverty, and now people are more concerned about the sustainability of high quality of life. Cars were once seen as a symbol of identity, and private cars were the main product of the capitalist market during the Second Industrial Revolution. Today, with the “80 s” and “90 s” gradually becoming the main consumers of the market, car sales have slipped quietly. At the beginning of 2016, Toyota Motor Corp.’s president, Akio Toyoda, said surprisingly: “Now Japanese young people are more interested in bicycles than in cars. Maybe one day, cars will not be sold.” There is a reason for the boss of the car company why to say so. From 2014 to 2015, Japan’s domestic car sales fell from 5.493 million to 5.04 million. Due to the gradual maturity of Japanese society and the spatial crowding brought about by high urbanization, cars are no longer a symbol of wealth. Young people who had previously liked cars have gradually entered middle age, and the car has not attracted new consumers. The younger generation who will soon become the main force of consumption is no

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longer interested in cars (Yuan, 2016). A survey of young people born in 1981–2000 showed that none of their top ten brands were car brands. The sharing economy is explaining this. Compared to owning a car, young people nowadays prefer to use cars. Buying a car costs money firstly, but also to carry out regular maintenance, while the cost of using a car is very low, only need to take a few minutes to complete the procedure at the nearby car rental company. Some large car manufacturers have become leaders in providing sharing car services. GM works with Relayrides to provide point-to-point services for car users. The BMW Group has invested in JustPark, a start-up company engaged in sharing parking, and is now the world leader in sharing parking. The auto giant Daimler Group used its idle inventory of cars to create a sharing car rental service Car2go that is different from the existing business model. In addition to transforming the above traditional car companies to a sharing economy, sharing bikes also indicates the arrival of reuse. At the end of April 2016, Mobike3 was first piloted in Shanghai. Users only need to download Mobike’s APP. After completing the registration and paying a certain deposit, they can use the mobile terminal to scan the QR code to open the lock. The use fee is also very low, 0.5 yuan every half hour. The sharing of bicycles has solved the “last mile” problem of travel. People have obtained equal opportunities for using cars anywhere and anytime. This is the change brought about by the sharing economy. Abandoning market and property rights transactions and promoting interpersonal relationships from a conceptual point of view to achieve structural changes is a shift from the concept of property rights to the concept of sharing (Rifkin, 2000). Sharing usage rights can improve the efficiency of idle resources and reduce transaction costs. The transition from ownership to usage rights may be a strange concept, but just as computers were born, no one believes that it can change the world. In the era of user rights, the efficiency of resource allocation will be maximized, and the marginal curve of transaction costs will be close to zero, all these will also change the world of the future.

1.3.2 Marginal Cost Tends to Zero A new economic model is on the world stage. In the first half of the twentyfirst century, the sharing economy emerged and changed the way of economic life. It significantly reduced transaction costs and achieved global economic democratization. Thirty years ago, even the imagination-rich futurologists would not have thought that Internet technology would change people’s lives so profoundly in 30 years. 3

Mobike, the English name mobike, is an Internet short-distance travel solution developed by Beijing Mobai Technology Co., Ltd., founded by Hu Weiwei, and is a smart hardware that has no pile to return the car mode. People can quickly rent and return a Mobike through a smart phone, and can finish a few kilometers of city riding at an affordable price.

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At present, more than one-third of the world’s population has access to Internet terminals, communicate online through the Internet, exchange audio, video and text information, and read news from around the world. Chinese Internet users watch the counterattack of the women’s volleyball team at the Rio Olympic Games, which is not more than five minutes away from the live broadcast time—almost cheering at the same time. People who are concerned about the international situation will also feel ups and downs with the results of the election of the United States. Through the mobile terminal, anyone can broadcast what is happening around them and communicate their opinions and ideas. The cost of sharing is almost free. Now imagine the situation after 30 years: the scope of sharing will further expand. It is not just sharing via the Internet. In the Internet of Things, components of the global economy such as energy, materials, electrical appliances, automotive drives, and knowledge and information will all be shared. Can you believe it? In fact, millions of pioneers have already made their way. They obtain renewable energy through solar energy and wind energy, freeing people from dependence on fossil fuels. The global energy research report released by BP shows that the amount of solar energy collected in 2011 increased by 73.3% and the electricity generation volume was 63.4 GW,4 which is a tenfold increase from five years ago (Rifkin, 2015). In the past 20 years, the power generation of solar energy equipment has doubled every two years, and this trend has not slowed down. According to the current situation of solar and wind power plants, Energy Observatory optimistically predicts that green energy will account for 50% of the global power market in 2017, and the marginal cost of electricity will approach zero. The 3D printing revolution will realize the dream of “everything can be printed everywhere.” Early 3D printing technology was expensive, and as open source code became popular among programmers, the technical cost of 3D printing was also rapidly reduced. Entrepreneurial companies use 3D printing technology to process cheap and easily accessible materials into new products. A Dutch student uses the plastic collected from the old refrigerator to print a chair with multiple patterns and colors within 3 h. Engineers, architects, and designers are eager to bring 3D printing technology to the construction market. We can be confident that houses built using 3D printing technology will subvert our concept of living in the next ten years. Farther ahead, Forster Architects, one of the world’s largest construction companies, has already reached an agreement with the European Space Agency to use 3D printing technology to build a permanent base on the moon. The sharing of energy and technology promotes the continuous advancement of human society. Free energy can release productivity and save people from resource constraints. 3D printing technology improves the efficiency of resource use and reduces the cost constraints of producing new products. In the future, factories and schools relying on energy-driven automobiles and machines will not need to consider the issue of transaction costs, and they will be able to develop in a freer social environment. In such a social environment, human intelligence, health, and wellbeing will all be greatly enhanced. It will truly realize the maximum release of social welfare and gain humanity. All this is the welfare that the sharing economy can bring. 4

Jiwa (GW), physical terms, power units.

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1.3.3 Sharing Economy Will Lead the Future The twenty-first century is an “era of subversion”. With the current level of technology and understanding, the impact of the sharing economy on life has become obvious. Changes appear as a result and have unpredictable effects on the development after the change. Therefore, we can say that the sharing economy will bring about more incredible changes and will lead to growth in all walks of life in the future. Sharing economy will change the way of education in the future. In the sharing economy era, learning is defined as sharing experiences among peer groups and inspiring creativity and tempering cooperative spirit. In traditional teaching, teachers and students are a kind of relationship between teaching and receiving, and the scope is limited to the classroom. In the sharing economy model, teachers act as mentors, inspiring students to think and cultivating their interest in learning. The forms of teaching are also varied. Students can participate in surveys and develop practical abilities. They can establish relationships with others through cooperative learning. The teaching scope can also be turned from the classroom to the outside, and even learn new skills in the virtual world through the web platform. On the sharing platform for teaching, there are learning emotions, practical activities, and experimental procedures shared by students from all over the world. Students can receive more extensive reviews, gain more open ideas, fully stimulate potential, form strict standards of behavior, and foster an international perspective. The sharing economy will subvert future traffic. The road ahead will restore the initial convenience of its construction, and each road will be able to operate smoothly because the number of cars in the future will be significantly reduced. Due to artificial intelligence development, people no longer need a driver’s license but use driverless technology to travel. People just need to call a car by mobile phone before traveling. It will soon appear at the designated place and be delivered to the destination automatically. There is no need to worry about parking or traffic jam. The sharing economy will also give birth to other modes of travel, such as sharing a seat and sharing a journey. Sharing learning and sharing traffic is still in the public domain only, but the future of sharing healthcare will involve a lot of private information. We can find the best treatment through the sharing of medical records. Through participation in mutual help groups, patients seek mutual support and encouragement. Patients on the Internet to find a description similar to their illness, judge the condition, promote the hospital’s diagnosis, and treat disease. As hospitals have used electronic medical records to streamline medical procedures in recent years, a large number of medical sharing websites have begun to appear. In gene research, DNA big data libraries can be built in the future as the cost of DNA sequencing is reduced. People with similar DNA can relate to each other and share life habits, such as diet, hobbies of tobacco and alcohol, physical exercise, etc., to seek new progress in gene research. Everything in the future can be shared. Clothes, kitchen pots and pans, children’s toys, furniture, and other items can be recycled through sharing, saving costs and getting the most out of it. The sharing economy has a strong vitality and is moving

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forward with an irresistible trend. This is a need for the development of productivity and will also adjust the relations of production. This economic form makes full use of idle resources, activates stocks, and stimulates efficiency. It has the vitality of sustainable development. We can take a look at Ms. Robin Chase, author of “Sharing Economy”, and look forward to the ideal of sharing economy. This is also a new era that has already begun. “I want to think about the sharing economy. It has many possibilities in the future. We think about the best kind. All assets are open and everyone is connected. What does this mean? It means that in the future of the sharing economy, I can do several kinds of work at the same time, many of which I like. I can tell them quickly because I have the opportunity to work on multiple platforms at the same time. Imagine that I am a smart but poor scientist. I can step into a company and pay a small amount of rent to use their advanced equipment and do my favorite research work. In the era of sharing economy, we can use the best platform and gather people, assets and data to do the best, and this is the best opportunity we can get. So I believe that the future era of sharing economy will be very beautiful.”

Chapter 2

Research Object of Sharing Economy

The era of “Internet+” has given rise to sharing economy. Sharing economy, with its advantages in resource allocation and cost reduction, has swept the globe within a short time, and become a world-fashionable phenomenon. The prevalence of sharing economy, not only changed people’s lifestyles, but also changed the economic model of traditional industries. The sharing economy has brought disruptive innovation to the global economic landscape. A new era of sharing economy is coming. As an academic discipline, sharing economy is a study of the laws of social resources circulation links, including production, converging, exchange, use, distribution and value creation, as well as the “economic growth” it brings. Its study subjects cover every stage of the total social production process, from production to distribution, and specific ways and impacts of its value creation in the whole process. As a complete discipline system, sharing economy has its clear study objects, so precise definition of research object is the prerequisite and basis for further study and exploration of its development laws.

2.1 Determination of Sharing Economy’s Study Object As a result of human’s development, which discards the dross and selects the essence, sharing economy is compatible with the current world economic situation. Compared to the existing economic theories, sharing economy inherits them and has its unique theoretical development at the same time. The “selecting the essence” reflects in the division of the total social production process. It inherits the criteria for the classification of political economy and differs from the traditional ones because of the uniqueness of sharing economy’s economic model. As a new economic paradigm, the sharing economy is the study of the circulation of social resources as a total production process and value creation through resource exchanges in the whole community, including five social production chains, production, converging, exchange, use, distribution, and value creation rule. © Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_2

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2.1.1 Traditional Political Economy’s Social Production Process The social production process of Marx’s political economy is divided into four links, including production, distribution, exchange and consumption, which connects and restraints with each other. Production is the starting point and consumption is the endpoint. Also, distribution and exchange are intermediate links. 1.

The Production of Traditional Political Economy

Political Economy believes that “production” is the most important part of the social production process and points out that this “production” concept is different from the concepts Adam Smith, Ricardo and Rousseau raised. “Production” generally refers to people take advantage of production tools to change the physical forms of materials which originally exist in the world to form a new utility to meet people’s needs, which abstracts from specific production processes (Say, 1997). Marx believes that this material production is material production on a certain stage of human society, which is associated with the production technology and the development of human society. Previous economists’ general rules on production were limited to certain production technology and the level of productivity at the time. “All the wisdom of modern economists which proves the existing social relation is perpetuating and harmony forgets these differences” (Marx & Engels, 1995). So with the development of technology and productivity, the connotation of “production” definition should be different from others under different social conditions, which also provides theoretical support for sharing economists putting forward a new connotation of “production” to accommodate new economic circumstance. 2.

The Distribution and Exchange of Traditional Political Economy

“Distribution” and “exchange”, as the intermediate links of the process of social production, connect production and consumption. “Distribution” refers to distribute factors of production or products and revenue based on factors of production in accordance with certain laws. Marx believes that there are two main distribution methods in human society, distribution according to work and distribution according to need. Distribution according to work, refers to the overall social products divided to each individual and each person’s labor is the only measure of the distribution of personal consumer goods. That is, the equivalent amount of labor for the equivalent product. Distribution according to the community members to “Do the best and take what they need” means each member of the community can meet the material needs and spiritual needs in an assignment. Distribution and production are two closely connected links, one after another. First of all, production decides the object of distribution. Only products that already have been produced can be distributed, so it’s impossible to distribute without production and products. Second, production decides the level of distribution. When the level of production improves, the level of distribution gets a corresponding increase. The level of distribution is based on

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the level of production which is a prerequisite. Finally, production dominates the modes of distribution. Distribution structure and distribution relations depend on the structure of the production and the relations of production. The distribution itself is a product of the production. Some forms of participating in production determine some particular forms of participating in distribution. As for distribution, production plays a decisive role. “Exchange” means the process of redistribution of factors of production, products and incomes among members after once distribution. Similar to distribution, the object, level and modes of exchange are determined by the production process. As the intermediate links, Distribution and exchange connect with production and consumption, so these two links also impact consumption. Distribution is the premise of consumption, and the exchange is the means by which consumption can be achieved. 3.

The Consumption of Traditional Political Economy

Consumption is the last link in the whole social production process. The total social production process can be finished only if consumption is completed. Production and consumption link together at the very start. Consumption is where production ends up, and it is production’s ultimate goal and core value. The production itself contains the natural purpose of human beings, which means consuming is the behavior to meet the people’s needs. Without consumption, production would be unfounded. Products formed by the social production process and reproduction process are different from natural resources, which can’t realize their value to become real products unless they can be consumed to meet people’s material needs or spiritual needs.

2.1.2 Total Social Production Process of Sharing Economy Different from the political economy, the total social production process of sharing economy is divided into five links, including production, gathering, exchange, use and distribution. These five links are interdependent and indispensable. Production is the basis of the overall process of social production and plays a decisive role in gathering, exchange, use and distribution, and these four links have counteractions on production. As the core idea of sharing economy, sharing is throughout the whole process and each specific connection. 1.

The Production of Sharing Economy

The production of the sharing economy refers to the process in which people use production tools to convert raw materials into tangible and intangible products through their labor. It is worth noting that the production tools, the raw materials, and even the labor in this process can be shared in the sharing economy mode. Sharing in the production process breaks down the convention that producers can only use their own tools, work through their own labor or hire laborers, and use their raw materials for productive activities, such as processing and production. While producers in

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sharing economy, break through the limitations of the long-standing property right system and select hire instead of purchase to get tools, labors and the others they may need in their productive activities. At the same time, producers can share materials with a higher cost of holding with other producers on the sharing platform and get the other producers’ materials to complete their production process. Tsingtao Brewery’s production process is a typical example of sharing in the production processes of sharing economy. As a world-renown beer brand, sales of Tsingtao Brewery have never been reduced for many years. Facing a large demand for orders, Tsingtao Brewery makes full use of the resource advantage of sharing economy to integrate surrounding resources. For example, beer bottles and beer caps are from specialized manufacturers, and the water needed for winemaking is selected chiefly locally. As for machines, labors and other materials, necessary for the production, they are also shared with other resource providers. Tsingtao Brewery fulfills its production process by sharing all productive resources besides its brewing formula. It can be seen that the production of sharing economic mode has thoroughly broken the stereotype that a factory can only complete its production when it owns all the factors of production. By sharing, a producer can only have a part of all the elements needed for the production and the other necessary part could be “indirectly owned” by sharing with other producers who have these goods and services, and finally complete the production process by integrating his own resources and resources shared by others. 2.

The Gathering of Sharing Economy

The gathering is the special link of the sharing economy’s social production process that distinguishes the process from other economic modes’ rest social production process. Gathering means that the holders of shared goods and shared services providers bring these goods and services together on the sharing platform for potential buyers to learn about the relevant product information. Compared with the long-term economic model that existed before, the emergence sharing platform is a huge innovation of sharing economic mode. It provides the necessary material foundation and technical support for this gathering link. Gathering, as a key part of the total production process, not only lays the foundation for the following link–exchange, but also is the premise to creating collective value in sharing economic mode. Only by gathering shareable goods and services together can we give full play to the advantages of sharing economy to reduce transaction costs and reduce asymmetric information. Only by bringing together a large number of shareable products and services on the sharing platform can we ensure a large number of users, and ensure accuracy and speed of matching supply and demand parties, thus we can create collective value. Taking eBay as an example, millions of products are collected on the eBay platform every day, including high-value furniture, electronic products, and unremarkable items, so that it can meet the different needs of different consumers. Consumers with consumption needs can purchase goods that meet their needs through the eBay platform; Consumers with collection needs can purchase new or used collections through the platform. As a representative of an online commodity trading platform, eBay platform is a representation of sharing platform. It gathers a large number of products and

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provides necessary prerequisites for the smooth running of the exchange. Countless goods and services gather on the platform for the users of the platform to choose so that the probability of transaction successfully could increase and collective value could be created. 3.

The Exchange of Sharing Economy

The intrinsic meaning of an exchange link in the sharing economy’s production process is to use sharing platforms to exchange shareable goods and services. It is somewhat similar to the traditional economic model transaction, but it is different from the traditional economic model. Firstly, the exchange can be paid or unpaid. The exchange of sharing economy is based on the supply’s willingness and demand on the sharing platform. It is an entirely free and autonomous process. As long as both two sides reach a consensus, then the sharing of goods or services can be accomplished at any mutually acceptable price, and even the price can be zero. Secondly, unlike transaction, which is tied to various types of trading markets, which is tied to various types of goods and services, depends on the sharing platform. Products and services that could be exchanged are the products and services that have already completed the gathering process on the sharing platform. Based on instant communication and big data analysis provided by the sharing platform, the needs of supply and demand parties can complete a more efficient matching. Transaction cost is significantly reduced so that the probability of successful exchange could be significantly improved. Finally, the transfer of ownership may not occur during the process of exchange. A major feature of sharing economic mode is the separation of ownership and use rights. In most cases, only the right to use of shared goods has been transferred, and the owner of the goods still retains the ownership. While trading in the traditional economic model, under normal circumstances, the ownership and the use right of goods transferred from the supplier to the consumer. 4.

The Use of Sharing Economy

The link of use refers to the process by which shared goods and services could meet the needs of the demanders (both material needs and spiritual needs), thereby realizing the value of the shared goods and services. Marxist political economics defines the value and use value as commodity two factors, and believes that the two factors are common in the same body and are interdependent, mutually conditional, as well as inseparable. And it emphasizes that the use value is the material carrier of the value. After the goods have been used for consumption, that is, to satisfy people’s needs, the use value can be converted into the value. The use of sharing economy is the key step in turning the use value of goods into value. After the exchange of shared goods or services has been completed, some consumers have acquired the ownership as well as the use right, and the others have just obtained the right to use the goods. When consumers use the right to consume and shared goods or services to satisfy their needs, the use value of the commodity is converted into the value of the commodity. So far, the use in the social production process of sharing economy has been completed. Different from previous economic models, the precondition for

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the use of sharing economy is no longer having ownership. Even if the consumers do not have ownership of the goods or services, this link can also be completed if they exchange the right to use the goods on the sharing platform so that they can use them to meet their needs. Thus, it can be seen that the emergence of a sharing platform provides the possibility of exchanging the rights to use on a large scale. Exchange and use are closely linked and inseparable. Exchanges provide a universal basis for using the right to use, making it possible to realize the value of f shared goods and services. 5.

The Distribution of Sharing Economy

As the last link in the overall social production process of sharing economy, distribution plays a crucial role in creating social value. The distribution of sharing economy refers to the process of allocating production factors (including both the factors of production used for the first time, and the reusable factors of production) or products and benefits based on the distribution of production factors in accordance with certain social laws. Compared with traditional economic models, the most significant feature of sharing economy is to allow the allocated elements to realize their use value thoroughly so that they can achieve value creation again in the process of social production. In the traditional economic model, the assigned production factors can only be left as idle resources in the hands of consumers, or in their “acquaintance circles,” which are consumer-centered and their social distances as the radius. The use value of these idle resources is then converted to a low level of value, resulting in a tremendous waste of social resources. The distribution in the sharing economy includes the distribution of new factors of production and the distribution of products and revenue based on these new allocations, as well as the products and factors have been used but already in idle and the distribution of products and revenue based on the re-circulation of these used products or factors. From this we can see that the research object of sharing economy is built around sharing in the social production process. This “sharing” is a whole process of sharing. Although most of the sharing at this stage involves sharing idle social resources, sharing economy emphasizes the concept that sharing could happen throughout the entire process. It is not just to focus on the sharing of idle resources that have already been produced and that have already completed the process of exchange and use, it is also involved in the production and gathering links, this “sharing” is an all-in-one sharing and is not limited to industrial products. The sharing also includes the sharing of labor, capital, space and so on. In a word, it is not only the sharing of the virtual economy but also the sharing of the real economy; This “sharing” is a share of total factors that include the substances needed for production, advanced technology, and innovative ideas, as well as monetary capital and human capital. The concept of sharing runs through the research of sharing economy and it is the core concept of sharing economy.

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2.1.3 Value Creation in Sharing Economy The reasons that sharing economy has attracted the attention of policymakers, scholars, and industrialists on a global scale, is not only because of the creativity of the idea that is sharing in the circulation of social resources it advocates, but also because of sharing economy’s new business model has great potential in creating social wealth. The core of sharing economy’s value creation lies in the replacement of resources. It emphasizes the importance of efficient use of existing resources rather than developing new resources. On the surface, sharing economy is about sharing physical products or virtual services, but its essence is to cut purchase and rent (Benfu Lv & Junlan Zhou, 2016). Through high frequency and multiple times sharing of social resources, the sunk costs of resource owners are reduced, so as to achieve the goal of maximizing social wealth. In general, sharing economy can create value for society through the following ways. 1.

Making Use of Idle and Inefficient Resources, Improving Resource Utilization

After three industrial revolutions, the productivity of human society has reached an unprecedented level. With the improvement of production level, human society has developed from the original situation of material scarcity to an enormous enrichment of material resources. People’s desire for consumption has also increased from satisfying life necessities to pursuing a high quality of life. After capitalist countries experienced the “Great Depression” of 1929, Keynesianism came into being, which advocates reducing the impact of economic fluctuations by stimulating consumption to drive economic growth. Since then, people’s consumption concept has changed. People begin to focus on the psychological satisfaction that consumption brings to them in the process of pursuing their material needs and spiritual needs. This change promoted consumption dramatically and boosted economic growth. However, excessive demands also brought about excessive production, resulting in a large amount of waste of resources, and eventually formed a lot of idle and inefficient resources. The emergence of a sharing economy has opened up a new path for activating idle resources and improving inefficient resource utilization. For individual participants in the sharing economy market, as long as they have idle resources or inefficient resources that are of interest to other participants, they can provide the right to use these assets or goods at a lower marginal cost or provide corresponding services to get corresponding marginal revenue. The sharing economy breaks the limitation that you can only use your own resources under the traditional economic model, and the “dead capital” could be alive again by allowing others to use idle resources and inefficient resources. The sum of the individual’s differences that marginal cost less than the marginal benefit, also called marginal profit, constitutes the total marginal profit of society. If the participants can trade frequently, the total marginal profit of society will increase significantly.

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Expand Market Capacity, Enhance Market Competition

Based on a perfectly competitive market hypothesis, it can be informed fully competitive market is efficient. Social resources could always automatically flow to the commodity production sectors that can best meet the needs of consumers. The market can always select the best choice among different combinations of different applications and different benefits in the production process during the continuous flow of resources. Effective selection increases the efficiency of resource allocation, increases social wealth, and maximizes consumer demand utility. However, the premise of a perfectly competitive market requires a large number of sellers and buyers as price receivers to provide homogenous goods in the market without information asymmetry and idleness of social resources is too harsh, resulting in a perfectly competitive market is almost non-existent in a real world. However, we can seek a more competitive market to have a more efficient market, and to have higher resource allocation efficiency and better social benefits. One of the differences between the existing market and the perfectly competitive market lies in the fact that due to space limitations, the market for the same commodity is split into several parts so that even if homogenous or near-homogeneous products cannot be traded at the same price, letting the opportunities for arbitrage between different markets. The sharing platform uses internet technology to gather multiple sellers and buyers. Sellers provide a large number of diverse products and services and buyers can choose products and services selectively according to their own needs. The sharing platform breaks the space limitations. Its collective role enables the supply-side and demand-side in the market to achieve the largest range of agglomeration across space, unifying the market that was originally fragmented by space together. Meanwhile, the unified market can accommodate more buyers and sellers to conduct transactions. The comparison of homogenous goods is more convenient and rapid, and the market becomes more competitive, bringing more extensive specialization. 3.

Expand Trading Range, Reduce Transaction Cost

In 1937, Ronald H. Coase put forward the transaction cost theory for the first time in his classic book “The Nature of the Firm”. He believes that the market and the enterprise are two different ways of organizing the division of labor. The reason for enterprises is that the transaction cost of the labor division in the enterprise is lower than the labor division in the market. From the perspective of reducing costs and pursuing economic efficiency, choosing the division of labor by the enterprise can be more conducive to wealth accumulation. Sharing economy presents challenges to property rights theory based on transaction cost theory. In the production process of sharing economy, the gathering link completes the accumulation of a large number of goods and services on the sharing platform. For each type of commodity and service, sharing platform integrates the market that was fragmented due to space constraints in the past and expands the market capacity. Traders (including buyers and sellers) have more potential trading partners to choose based on the sharing platform, thus expanding the trading range. With the development of Internet technologies such as big data and cloud computing, real-time analysis of market trades

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can be achieved. In sharing economy, detailed information about the products and services can be displayed on the platform using graphics or videos. The specific requirements of the demand side can be reflected in a timely manner by keyword search or system’s accurate analysis of the user’s past transaction data. The formation of an instant engagement mechanism reduces the cost of information for both sides. The application of advanced Internet technology makes it possible to precisely match the needs of the supply and demand sides quickly, which reduces the search costs of these two sides. At the same time, the emergence of a sharing platform has made it possible for transactions to take place across regions and across time zones. Therefore, providers and demanders everywhere in the world can communicate having jet-lagged. Modern instant messaging technologies and developed logistics systems provide the basic technical conditions for realizing the transaction and play an important role in reducing the bargaining costs and decision-making costs. Besides, the sharing platform is usually equipped with a monitoring mechanism for transaction security, which can establish trading rules that both parties must abide by, monitor the trading process carried out on the platform, and escort the security of transactions, reducing the cost associated with transaction security. In summary, with the advent of the sharing platform, the value creation process of the sharing economy has been realized by expanding the scope of transactions and reducing transaction costs. 4.

Reduce Information Asymmetry

Information asymmetry is caused by different economic entities in the market grasping different information. Specifically, the seller in the market knows more details about the commodities than the buyer, and the one with more information can benefit from the market by virtue of its information advantage so he can get a dominant position in market transactions. While the other one with less information will always try to obtain information from the other participants or through other channels in an attempt to change its inferior position in the transaction due to asymmetric information. Due to the existence of information asymmetry, a complete market economy system is not natural and reasonable. Market failures and inefficient allocation of resources may not necessarily produce the best results if the free market mechanism completely resolves them. According to previous studies, the degree of information asymmetry can be mainly regulated by market signals or government policies to overcome the problem of low operating efficiency caused by information asymmetry. The sharing economy has provided new ideas for improving information asymmetry. One of the innovations that distinguish it from the traditional economic model is the widespread use of the modern Internet and third-party payment technologies. Under the traditional business model, people mainly passively accept commodity information provided by merchants. Besides, the way for buyers to obtain information is more limited to word of mouth from their acquaintances, but this way can only offer a small amount of product information. If buyers want to get more information, they may choose to do market research, collecting user feedback and other means, but they have to pay a huge amount of money to get the information. The Web-based sharing platform enables both providers and demanders to publish details about the items they

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want to supply or require through the Internet. While the supplier actively provides product information, the sharing platform will present the consumer reviews related to the product to the potential consumers as a reference. This forms a reputation feedback mechanism. The corresponding rating method can standardize the past market performance of existing market participants in conjunction with the corresponding rating method. In this way, the supply side and demand side have more methods to grasp more detailed information about the trading partners, so that the degree of information asymmetry is significantly reduced. At the same time, it becomes convenient and quick to obtain comments on relevant products on the sharing platform. The marginal cost of obtaining each comment approaches zero after establishing the platform evaluation mechanism, which effectively reduces the cost of information. The establishment of sharing platform has expanded the channel for obtaining commodity information, which has reduced the transaction cost while improving the quality of the transaction. That is conducive to both sides of the transaction to improve welfare and create value. 5.

Increase Consumer Surplus

Consumer surplus was widely used after Alfred Marshall put it in the book “Principles of Economics”, as a tool to measure the social value created by consumer utility and economic model. Consumer surplus is the difference between the buyer’s willingness to pay and the amount the buyer does pay, which can measure the additional benefits obtained by the buyer. The reason why people can enjoy consumer surplus and get a sense of well-being from their respective purchase behaviors is that each unit of their purchased goods, that is, from the first unit to the last unit, is paid for the same price which is the price of the last unit of the successful transaction. For each consumer who consumes this product, they are willing to pay different prices, so each consumer can get a sense of welfare from the difference between the price he is willing to pay and the actual price. In the traditional economic model, due to the unsatisfiable conditions of the perfectly competitive market, together with the intervention of the “third hand”, represented by the government, on the pricing of certain goods or services, the actual market price of the product is not the price when the marginal cost is equal to the marginal income. In most cases, the market price after price intervention is higher than the equilibrium price when the marginal cost is equal to the marginal income, so consumer surplus is difficult to achieve maximization. The sharing economy model has impacted lots of traditional industries with low operational efficiency and insufficient supply, which has been protected by government or other institutions for a long time by gathering products and services that were difficult to be traded in the past to enhance market competition. In the meantime, through free and independent pricing between buyers and sellers, the pricing flexibility is increased, and consumer surplus is increased. For example, the taxi industry has been dominated by taxi companies for a long time. Because of the high barriers to entry, the whole industry has monopolized to some extent. With monopoly status, taxi companies have strong pricing power to set a higher market price than the price that maximizes consumer surplus. Once Uber came out, it broke

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the barriers to entry in the taxi industry. Every car owner can provide services on the platform of Uber. The increase of practitioners has enhanced the regulatory effect of market rules on prices and reduced the degree of price deviation. And then consumer surplus and the total utility of society will increase, the social value will be created.

2.2 Sharing Economy Achieves “Economical” Growth Sharing economy had completed the transfer of resources using production, gathering, exchange, use, and distribution these five pre-and post-acceptance social production links, and achieved value creation relying on lower transaction costs and higher efficiency of resource flow. Consumer welfare has been improved, and the overall welfare level of the society has thus been enhanced. In summary, sharing economy has promoted the development of the social economy. At the same time, sharing economy has corrected the drawback that only pursuing the growth of the economy while ignoring the fact that the growth is not economic growth, to some extent. The growth pursued by sharing economy is a greener and healthier growth.

2.2.1 Sharing Platform Accelerates Economic Growth As a key part of sharing economy, sharing platform plays a crucial role in economic growth. The effective use of sharing platforms can accelerate value creation, increase the accumulation of social wealth, and promote economic growth. The accelerating effect of sharing platforms on economic growth mainly depends on the following five acceleration factors. 1.

The Increment of Value

The increment of value refers to the increment in the amount of value obtained by users after using the sharing platform to trade goods or services compared to traditional approaches.  value = the amount of value obtained by using the sharing platform − the amount of value obtained by not using the sharing platform =  material value +  spiritual value The increment of value includes not only the material lay but also the spiritual lay. Taking Zhihu as an example, Zhihu is a platform for knowledge sharing, whose users can share their knowledge and experience with other users. In the process of sharing knowledge and experience, users can get a certain amount of money through Live, which is the increase in the material value by using the sharing platform. At the same time, users can also make friends in various fields on Zhihu’s platform and

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expand their social circle, which increases the spiritual value obtained by using this sharing platform. The sum of the added value of the material lay and the added value of the spiritual lay is the incremental value of the sharing platform. 2.

The Reduction in Cost

The reduction of cost refers to the reduction in the amount of cost of using the sharing platform to obtain goods or services compared to the cost of traditional modes.  cost = the cost of not using the sharing platform − the cost of using the sharing platform =  economic cost +  time cost It can be known from the approaches of sharing economy’s value creation that, the agglomeration of sharing platform greatly reduces the economic costs represented by transaction costs, and the instant matchmaking mechanism greatly reduces the time cost of completing the transaction. For example, XYWY.com, as the largest medical healthcare service website in China, maintains cooperative relationships with numerous hospitals and provides online answers to medical questions raised by patients. In the past, if patients had problems with medicine or healthcare, they could only go to the hospital to queue up and register for help. However, sometimes because of the lack of medical knowledge, there will be the case the patients don’t know which department to choose and what to check. It will waste time and waste money because of unnecessary checks. This platform enables the patient to understand his current condition and possible inspection before going to the hospital to receive more detailed medical examinations, effectively reducing the economic costs and time costs of the patient. 3.

The Increase in the Frequency of Use

The increase in frequency refers to the increase in the number of users using shared goods or services at a certain time on the sharing platform relative to the traditional economic model. The traditional economic model meets the demander’s need for goods and services but does not take the frequency of use into account. Therefore, the low frequency causes many goods and services in an idle state at most times. The sharing platform trades goods and services in the idle state through a wide range of supply and demand matching, thereby effectively increasing the frequency of use and reducing the time when goods or services are idle. For eBay, the amount of used goods in the products traded on the eBay platform occupies a large proportion. The suppliers of these used goods choose to sell them because they are rarely used or even unused in their daily life. These old goods are transferred on sharing platforms between different consumers with different needs, so the frequency increases and it can make the most of existing social resources to reduce the waste of social resources.

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The Incremental Industrial Value Relative to the Existing Industrial Value

The incremental industrial value relative to the existing industrial value, refers to the new value increment that the sharing platform can provide, compared to the existing industry value under the existing traditional model.  industrial value = industrial value created by using sharing platforms − existing industry value under the existing economic model When studying the success probability or development strategy of a specific industrial model innovation, it is necessary to compare the new value that this industry can create with the existing value. The existing value here refers to the existing value of the underlying industry under the original model. When the use of the sharing platform can create greater industrial value, the sharing platform has a positive effect on the value creation of the industry and can promote the economic growth of the underlying industry. Taking Taobao as an example, relative to the traditional retail industry, the industry value created by Taobao’s shopping platform is much higher than the existing value under the traditional model, which has an accelerating effect on the economic growth of the retail industry. 5.

The Ratio of the Increase in Disposable Income

The ratio of the increase in disposable income refers to the ratio of the increase in disposable income, from the decrease in transaction prices after using the sharing platform, to the initial disposable income. the ratio of the increase in disposable income =  disposable income ÷ the initial disposable income = (disposable income with the use of sharing platform − disposable income without the use of sharing platform) ÷ the initial disposable income The economic growth created by the sharing platform is greatly influenced by the positioning of the platform’s client base. Currently, the positioning is mainly based on the users’ income level. According to elastic theory and the law of diminishing marginal utility, consumers with lower income levels are more sensitive to price changes. Therefore, the higher the ratio, the greater the change in the disposable income that sharing platform brings to consumers. People at this level of income are more interested in using the sharing platform. The more users share the platform, the more pronounced the accelerating effect of the sharing economy on economic growth. The more users of the sharing platform, the more pronounced the accelerating effect of the sharing economy on economic growth.

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2.2.2 Sharing Economy Makes Resources Richer Under the traditional economic model, the amount of resources generally refers to the sum of the resources that have been identified and potential resources, which focuses on the unused part. Sharing economy expands the definition of resources. Compared to developing the unused part, sharing economy emphasizes the reuse of resources that have already been developed. Reuse can increase the utilization rate of idle resources and inefficient resources to increase the total amount of available resources. The proposal of this resource concept has changed the traditional economic model to a certain extent only by paying attention to the satisfaction of consumer demand, but it does not consider the frequency of use of the product, which leads to large-scale production that consumes a lot of resources but is wasted due to the low frequency of product use. Mass production consumes a large number of resources; however, ignoring the frequency of use causes a lot of waste because of the low frequency of use of the products produced. A related organization found that the actual utilization of home-owned items in developed countries is less than 60%. According to the existing economic theories, if the sharing economy participants have the goods or services needed by other participants in the market and can provide them at a lower marginal cost in exchange for a marginal revenue higher which is than marginal costs, then this transaction will happen. Nowadays, for each, the commodities he or she owns are far more than their needs, so there is a large amount of idle or inefficient resources can be reused. Reusing the used resources by switching between different consumers on the platform not only revives idle resources, but also reduce the exploitation and use of untapped resources effectively, which further abandons the original concept of “resource development for development” and the development model of “high input, high consumption, high emission”. As a result, the resource constraints of economic development gradually. The saving of untapped resources can also effectively eliminate the phenomenon of “generational inequities” in the use of resources, leaving more resources for future generations to develop and use. This effectively prevents the entire society from falling into the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” where self-development is hindered and overall social welfare is reduced. By adjusting the stock of resources, sharing economy can be used to publicize private resources, maximize the use of social resources, reduce the waste caused by idle resources, increase the total amount of available social resources, and make production resources more prosperous.

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2.2.3 Sharing Economy Makes the Flow of Resources Smoother Sharing economy not only fully revitalizes idle social resources and inefficient resources to increase the total amount of socially available resources, but the construction of sharing platform also makes the flow of production resources smoother and the circulation speed within the social sphere higher. The sharing platform is built on modern Internet technologies, and the development of Internet technology enables timely matching of supply and demand on the platform. The improvement of transportation conditions makes spatial factors no longer the main factors that restrict the flow of production resources. Therefore, under the current economic conditions, the flow rate mainly depends on whether the market’s supply and demand can be matched in time. Suppose the information between the demand side and the supply side of sharing economy’s market is unobstructed. In that case, the supply side can respond to the demand in a timely manner after the demand side requests the time and quality of the goods or services. This way effectively shortens the waiting time for trades in the market. The specific requirements of the consumers for production resources can be reflected collectively on the sharing platform. The supply side can select the demand side to achieve the transaction and exchange resources according to their supply ability and trading preferences, thereby completing a transfer of production resources at the social level. We assume that the time for each flow of production resources is t, the time for resources waiting for transactions in the market is u, and the transportation time is g. Under ideal conditions, we can definet = u + g, that is, the time for each flow is the sum of the waiting time and the transportation time. The construction of the sharing platform effectively reduces the time required for matching supply and demand, shortens the waiting time be traded in the market. Meanwhile, the main factors influencing the transportation time of production resources are the transportation conditions and the distance of transportation. Since both parties can independently choose the nearest partner when trading on the sharing platform, transportation time can also be effectively reduced. As a result, the time for each flow of production resources is reduced significantly.

2.2.4 Sharing Economy Optimizes Resource Allocation Sharing economy can improve the speed of resource flow and make significant contributions to improving resource allocation efficiency and optimizing resource allocation. Resource allocation efficiency is an important part of social total factor productivity. Improvement of resource allocation efficiency means optimization of the overall social resource allocation, and social production can obtain a higher marginal output with a certain amount of input of production factors. According to the related research, the main factors affecting resource allocation efficiency are labor, capital,

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and technology. Compared with the traditional economic model, sharing economy can effectively reduce the impact of labor distortions, capital distortions, and technological distortions on resource allocation efficiency, improve resource allocation efficiency, and optimize resource allocation across society. Based on existing studies, the main cause of labor distortions, capital distortions, and technological distortions is the asymmetry of information in the market. However, sharing economy can effectively reduce the degree of asymmetry. On the one hand, participants in the sharing economy will take the initiative to provide more information. On sharing platform, to attract more potential trading partners, suppliers tend to display more information on their goods or services to differentiate their goods or services from the others. On the other hand, other users will provide more information for other potential traders by evaluating the goods or services, so that the level of information asymmetry is further reduced. The degree of information asymmetry is reduced, and the market can discriminate between producers with different pros and cons. And resources can be automatically transferred from producers with low marginal output to producers with high marginal output, thus optimizing the allocation of resources and reducing the distortion of resource allocation due to asymmetric information.

2.2.5 Sharing Economy Establishes a New Mechanism for Creating Social Wealth The creation of social wealth for sharing economy is mainly based on following five methods, making use of spare resources and inefficient resources to increase resource utilization, expanding market capacity and enhancing market competition, expanding the trading range and reducing transaction cost, reducing information asymmetry, and increasing consumer surplus. The value creation process is inseparable from the sharing platform, which forms a collective value through the accumulation of shared goods and services, increases the accuracy and timeliness of transaction matching, and accelerates the process of social wealth creation. The emergence of the sharing economy has increased consumer demand. Sharing economy more emphasizes the use right of property rights than ownership, which fundamentally expands the market demand. According to the market principle of supply and demand, the transaction price is determined by the supply curve and the demand curve. Only the part that is willing to bid for the goods or services higher than the market price can be traded. This principle limits the demands of the consumers who have a demand for goods but cannot afford them at the market price. In sharing economy mode, complete property rights are accurately divided, so consumers can trade a part of these rights by paying the corresponding price. This part of the transaction price is far lower than the price needed to obtain the full property rights of the products. In this way, the threshold for consumers to trade is reduced, so that more consumers can participate in sharing economy and choose what they need. The

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number of traders has greatly increased, and the sharing economy has also created a market size where traditional economic models are difficult to achieve. At the same time, the application of Internet technology makes it possible for separate pricing, so the market price of sharing economy is closer to the price each consumer is willing to pay for the goods or services, which brings social consumer surplus closer to the area of the triangle formed by the demand curve and the axes. The sharing economy has established new mechanisms for creating social wealth. While increasing the market demand, it also increases social consumer surplus, making the distribution of social resources more Pareto optimal.

2.2.6 Sharing Economy Promotes Green and Sustainable Development Nowadays, human faces severe challenges in energy use and environmental protection. Saving resources and protecting the environment are not only the basic state policy of China, but also the consensus reached by all countries in the world. Since the eighteenth century, every industrial revolution has brought about a significant improvement in the economic level and a great deal of energy consumption and severe environmental pollution. When people realize the importance of saving energy and protecting the environment, the adverse consequences of predatory and immoderate requests for natural resources in the past have been difficult to restore. The emergence of the sharing economy has provided new ideas for solving energy and environmental issues. With the ability to reuse the existing resources and increase resource utilization, sharing economy is considered to be a kind of re-consumption economy based on the concept of green sustainable development of the modern economy. It is helpful to correct the over-consumption consumption tendency that is currently prevalent, and to suppress the erroneous consumption concept of “What I consume is what I have. What I have is my existence”. In addition to lower transaction costs and higher symmetry of information, a large part of the attractiveness of sharing economy for people derives from the conservation of energy and protecting the environment. Compared with the traditional economic models, the sharing economy is a green and sustainable economic model that is more in line with energy conservation and environmental protection. To a certain extent, the rapid development of sharing economy can curb mass production without considering the frequency of use to better use idle resources. Broader promotion of sharing economy will enable the wider promotion of energy conservation and environmental protection and contribute to the sustainable development of the economy.

Chapter 3

Research Methods of Sharing Economy

The research method refers to people discovering new phenomena and new things in the research and analyzing and summarizing puts forward new ideas or new theories. If a worker wants to do good, he must first sharpen his tools. Understanding the research methods of sharing economy is helpful to understand the research objects of sharing economy, starting from the research hypothesis, goal and essence, and deeply exploring the connotation and category of sharing economy, operating mechanism, profit model, and application fields, etc. Due to differences in research objects, perspectives, etc., there is no unified understanding of the classification of research methods and it has been in dynamic development. After fully grasping the research results of sharing economy, a series of research methods that can be used in the subject of sharing economy are summarized and prospected, mainly including normative research methods, empirical research methods, case study methods, marginalization methods and social network analysis. Specific to each research method, the following section will focus on the applications and the method used in sharing economy.

3.1 Normative Research Method The normative research method is a research method that uses logical reasoning to draw conclusions based on the assumptions of things and uses logical reasoning. It is widely used in various disciplines and fields such as economics, accounting, and public administration. This section discusses the three parts of the normative research method: normative research method and its research category, normative research method using in sharing economy research, the future of normative research method in sharing economy.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_3

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3.1.1 Normative Research Method and Its Research Category The normative research method mainly answers the question of what should be the economic operation, i.e., what should it be and how it should be solved. At the same time, normative research is carried out on the “meta-problem” (the socalled meta-problem, that is, all basic issues that humanities and social sciences must work hard to solve and must deal with) (Yue Mei, 2007). On the meta-problem of sharing economy, normative research method includes basic issues such as the object, category and content of sharing economy. The normative research method is based on individual value judgments and the social goals of the researcher. It is guided by individual values and does not need to claim value neutrality. Therefore, the research conclusions do not have any objectivity and no distinction between true and false (Ren Jiantao, 2008). The normative research method is widely used in various disciplines. For example, in economics, the normative research method mainly adopts value judgment, that is, the analysis and prediction of economic phenomena from the perspective of values (He Yun, 2011); in management, the research method is used to discover management norm theory and solve practical problems and conflicts in management practice. It is of great significance for solving local management problems and discovering local management theories (Lu Li, 2013), in accounting, accounting theory researchers often use Starting from a specific value judgment basis, we strive to summarize the optimal accounting matters from a highly logical perspective, and then guide accounting affairs, achieve the standardization of accounting affairs. Its practical purpose is to formulate accounting standards for services (Yu Yulin, 2010).

3.1.2 Application of Normative Research Method in Sharing Economy Research In recent years, many researchers at home and abroad have used the normative research method to study the sharing economy issues. It can be roughly divided into the following three categories. (1)

Comprehensive analysis of the origin, concept, theoretical basis, operational mechanism, problems, and sharing economy suggestions. For example, Lu Xianxiang (2016) used the normative research method to analyze the essence of the sharing economy and believed that the sharing economy can match supply and demand sides through a sharing platform, reduce transaction costs, expand the scope of tradable resources. Qiao Hongwu and Zhang Jiangcheng (2016) expounded on the sharing economy’s connotation, background, and ethical origin. Dong Chenghui (2016) analyzed the definition, types, and development process of the sharing economy. She believed that the sharing economy requires four preconditions: the network platform, idle production capacity, sharing ideas, and mutual trust. At the same time, it analyzes it from four aspects: the

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collectivization mechanism of consumption, dematerialized new consumption concept, the best use of resources and on-demand distribution of resources, green ecological consumption model. And finally, it analyzes the problems existing in the sharing economy and gives suggestions. Zheng Zhilai (2016a) used the normative research method to analyze the causes, connotations, and business models of the sharing economy. Song Yiqun and Wang Yuhai (2016) defined the connotation of the sharing economy and analyzed the impact of sharing economy on individuals, enterprises, industry, and society. Liu Xiaohe and Xia Jiechang (2016) proposed the drivers, profit model, impact assessment in the sharing economy, and comparison with traditional service models, and came up with a series of policy implications. Ma Qiang (2016) analyzed the existing problems and proposed a series of countermeasures by sorting out the development history and development status of the sharing economy in China. Schor and Fitzmaurice (2015) proposed a new sharing model, namely sharing goods and services between strangers. Based on the relationship between people rather than the existing market, the model of coordinated consumption rises. Participation in the sharing economy can promote social interaction. More importantly, it is an economic and ecological factor. Focus on the extent to which the sharing economy effectively promotes social interaction and coordinates economic and environmental balances. Modern technology can break barriers to trust and reputation. Market-oriented and sharing platform organizations are essential factors in building a sharing economic platform and providing a reliable alternative economic configuration. Belk (2014) believes that sharing occurs with the advent of humans, but collaborative consumption and the sharing economy are products of the Internet era. He compares sharing and collaborative consumption. Consumption patterns that do not require proprietary ownership are emerging. Deng (2016) analyzed that the matching condition of the sharing transaction is that the supplier has durable goods and the supply and demand parties are close so that the transaction will be convenient. The short-term impact of the sharing economy is the easing of private property rights; in the long run, the active peer-to-peer (P2P) market will become a convenient urban infrastructure that can capitalize on personal property and form an agglomeration economy that can strengthen private property rights at the macro level. (2)

Analyze the application of the sharing economy in a specific area. For example, Tang Qingli (2015) analyzed the special type of sharing economy “special car” and believed that it should establish “cooperative supervision + self-regulatory” mixed regulation model in which local government, society, and consumers participate together to avoid blindly boycotting and prohibition. Ding Yuanzhu (2016) based on the research and analysis of Internet special vehicles, proposed that the sharing economy will subvert the traditional management rights of the industry, that the sharing economy can ease the downward pressure on China’s economy by activating the stock economy, expanding employment and increasing revenue, and specifically proposed Five ideas. Li Bo and Wang Jinlan (2016) proceeded from the perspective of taxation, studied the necessity and feasibility of a new economic model of sharing

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economy, and proposed a series of regulatory recommendations. Qi Yongzhi and Zhang Mengxia (2016) analyzed the emergence and evolution of the sharing economy, focusing on analyzing its impact on consumer’s concept of value, roles, consumption processes, and consumer values, as well as the impact on retail companies. Miller (2016) described the opportunities that the prevalence of the sharing economy can bring to the government: the government will subsidize the sharing economy; the government will seek the services of the low-income group to share the economy by granting licenses or using jurisdiction; the sharing economy will bring Changes in government contracts and government property rights. Understand sharing economy from different perspectives. For example, Xie Zhigang (2015) puts forward a framework of knowledge structure analysis in the knowledge structure communication activities from the perspective of knowledge economics and uses it to analyze the sharing economy model. He believes that the key to sharing economy lies in the dynamic optimization of social knowledge structure. Gao Ming and Wen Chengwei (2016) believe that the sharing economy is a new type of consumption and its essence is “technology consumption”. On the one hand, information technology has made our consumer demand clearer and uncovered our potential consumer demand; on the other hand, our consumer demand and consumer rationality may also be controlled by technology, and we need to mask our actual needs through technology, so we need to rewrite the “technical code” of the existing sharing economy to avoid the negative impact of consumer rationality being led by technology.

3.1.3 Research Prospects of Normative Research in Sharing Economy While the entire sharing economy research is still in the stage of phenomenon description and case analysis, it is necessary to use the literature review and inductive reasoning of the normative research method to study the intrinsic operating law of sharing economy development and its impact on the economy and society. And then the entire sharing economy research has seen a leap from the “phenomenon description” to the “regular discovery” stage. The application of the future normative research method in the sharing economy can mainly be carried out from the following aspects. (1)

As a new economic form, the sharing economy must follow certain economic laws. Therefore, we should first explore the theoretical basis for its application and dependence. For example, through the rise of Uber, Airbnb and other sharing economy platforms, the analysis of people’s consumption concept has shifted from purchase (emphasizing ownership) to consumption (user right), that is, compared to traditional economic development models that emphasize ownership, the sharing economy is admitting based on ownership, the concept

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(2)

(3)

(4)

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of attaching greater importance to the right of use is more in line with the requirements of the development of the modern era and meets the requirements of the theory of contingency. The exploration of the internal theoretical basis helps to realize the scientific and orderly development of sharing economy in theory and practice. After clarifying its theoretical basis, it is possible to summarize the origin’s internal laws, research object, connotation, essence, goal, operational mechanism, implementation, and business model of the sharing economy through the analysis and induction. How does the sharing economy apply in different fields (such as the service industry, manufacturing industry, etc.). For example, most of the existing sharing economy enterprises, Zipcar, Uber, etc., are concentrated in the service industries such as accommodation and travel. In the future, they can focus on how mergers and acquisitions in the manufacturing industry, such as improving the efficiency of the allocation of idle resources or inefficient resources, are part of the application of the sharing economy in the manufacturing industry. Or study specific issues such as taxation and regulation in the sharing economy. Using different theories or perspectives to analyze the sharing economy, such as complex adaptive system theory, social networks, knowledge and spontaneous order theory. For example, as the sharing economy has multiple actors such as platform parties, resource providers, resource demanders, and regulatory agencies, the use of complex adaptive system theory to analyze helps to reveal its characteristics and operational mechanisms.

3.2 Empirical Research The empirical research method is a method that obtains experience through investigation and observation, and then summarizes the experience as a theory. It is a mainstream research method corresponding to the normative research method, and is widely used in economics, accounting, library science, etc. This section discusses the three parts of empirical research methods and their research categories, applying empirical research methods in sharing economy research, and the research perspective of empirical research methods in sharing economy.

3.2.1 Empirical Research Method and Its Research Category The empirical research method mainly analyzes the “How is it” rather than “What it should be” objective economic phenomena. The object of empirical research is falsified assumptions based on phenomena or theory, that is, discovering new problems through theoretical analysis or phenomena, using statistical or econometric

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methods to test phenomena, theories, and models, or by constructing a new theoretical model that objectively describes and explains economic phenomena, summarizes their nature and operating rules, and provides people with certain knowledge or theory. The empirical research method has a narrow sense and broad sense. The narrow sense empirical research method uses related quantitative analysis techniques to study the specific quantitative relationship between different factors (variables) and draws a broad conclusion through analysis. The empirical research law emphasizes practice and experience, and pays attention to the first-hand information obtained. However, it does not necessarily lead to widely applicable conclusions. It includes all empirical research methods such as survey research, field research, and statistical analysis, including narrow empirical. The research method includes case law. The empirical research methods discussed here are mainly narrow empirical research methods. The empirical research method is widely used in various disciplines and fields. For example, in economics research, more and more attention is paid to empirical economic methods. Through empirical research methods, an objective causal relationship between economic phenomena is expressed and the actual economic problems are sought to be solved, focusing on economic policies rather than economic theory (Liu Yu, 2000). In the study of accounting, empirical research methods are widely used in various accounting fields, and are the main methods for the construction of accounting theories. Empirical methods are used to derive causality and accordingly selecting accounting-related concepts, principles, guidelines, and specific processing methods. In the study of library science, empirical research methods are used in the research of information distribution law, library service quality evaluation, network metrology, and enterprise competitive intelligence (Liu Liwen, 2008), and the two types of empirical methods of questionnaire survey and field survey are widely used in the study of library science (Ye Fei et al., 2011).

3.2.2 The Application of Empirical Research in Sharing Economy Research The sharing economy has only gradually emerged in recent years. Due to data acquisition limitations, empirical research methods are gradually being explored in the sharing economy. Existing research generally includes the following two categories. (1)

Using a large sample to conduct empirical tests, describe phenomena by data collection to answer certain questions, or include the complete process from theoretical analysis, hypothesis-raising, and empirical testing.

Hamari et al. (2015) studied why people participate in collaborative consumption in the sharing economy. They believe that the development of information and communication technologies has led to collaborative consumption, which is based on community network services and the acquisition, grant, or sharing of products or

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services on a human-made basis. Collaborative consumption can alleviate problems such as excessive consumption and pollution, but his study lacks evidence of people’s motivation to participate in collaborative consumption. The study investigated the motivation of people participating in collaborative consumption by investigating 168 members registered on collaborative consumer websites. The results show that people participating in collaborative consumption are driven by many factors such as persistence and pleasure and being driven by economic benefits. Sustainability can only be combined with a positive attitude toward collaborative consumption to promote participation. This shows that sustainability can only be driven by those who value ecological consumption. However, there are also differences in people’s attitudes and behaviors toward collaborative consumption: Some people think that collaborative consumption is beneficial, but positive attitudes do not necessarily lead to behavior. Li et al. (2016) believe that an important difference between the market in the sharing economy and the traditional bilateral market is that the supply side of the sharing economy includes a large number of non-professional decision-makers in addition to corporate and professional agents. A study using Airbnb’s listed prices and other data found that there is a consistent difference in operational and financial performance between professional and non-professional homeowners. In particular, after controlling property and market characteristics, compared with non-professional homeowners, professional homeowners earned 16.9% higher daily income, 15.5% higher occupancy rate, and 13.6% lower probability of leaving the market. This difference can be partially explained by non-efficiency pricing, as evidence shows that nonprofessional homeowners do not set different prices based on time (such as major festivals, etc.). Zervas et al. (2016) believe that individuals’ personal markets (i.e., the sharing economy) appear as a new supply of goods and services. Through the analysis of Airbnb, the impact of the sharing economy on existing companies was explored, and the impact of Airbnb’s entry into the Texas hotel industry on the region for ten years was analyzed. It was tested that in Airbnb’s most popular Austin area, Airbnb’s impact on hotel industry income was 8–10%, and this impact has the greatest impact on low-end hotels and hotels that are not located in business travel customers. Ert et al. (2016) pointed out that the sharing economy platform (such as Airbnb, etc.) has risen in the tourism industry. The appearance of suppliers on these platforms has driven the study, and that consumers will infer the credibility of homeowners through these photos and thus influence consumer decision-making. With Airbnb’s data and a controlled experiment, if the consumer perceives the homeowner as trustworthy from the photograph, the price will be higher and the probability of being selected will be greater. At the same time, the homeowner’s reputation expressed in online reviews does not have a significant effect on the price and the likelihood of being selected. Differences in ratings affect customer decisions, but the effects of photos still exist. (2)

Deriving a scientific research framework for sharing problems in economics by constructing a theoretical model.

Horton and Zeckhauser (2016) pointed out that the emerging Internet market allows owners to lease out their idle consumer goods. Such markets are

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modeled to determine factors such as ownership, rental rates, volume, and earnings. The study examined the market costs such as labor costs and transaction costs by building a model, and considered the pricing issue of the operating platform. Large-scale surveys of consumers support the assumptions used by the model (e.g., ownership is determined by the individual’s evaluation of plans for future use). Kung and Zhong (2016) pointed out that due to technology development, a new type of service delivery is emerging in the era of sharing economy. Instacart transports goods from independent retailers to consumers through independent freight contractors to run their own cargo transportation services with no warehouses or full-time couriers. This study represents and studies the platform transportation game theory model and discusses the profitability of three common pricing strategies, namely, member-based pricing, transaction-based pricing, and cross-subsidization. The results show that for a complete platform, the profitability of the three pricing strategies is the same, but in general, the member-based pricing strategy is better than the other two.

3.2.3 Prospects of Empirical Research Methods in Sharing Economy Summarizing the above research, we can find that the empirical research method mainly obtains objective data on the theory and practice of sharing economy through observation, investigation and experiment, and uses scientific analysis tools, models and methods to sum up the essential attributes and development rules of the sharing economy. The application of the empirical research method in the sharing economy field can still be started from the above two categories: first, by collecting data using large samples to conduct empirical tests to describe or clarify certain causal relationships; The second is to construct a theoretical model to propose a scientific research framework for some problems in sharing economy. Specifically, empirical tests using big data can be mainly used in the following research: ➀ Starting from a single sharing economy case, with the development of sharing economy platforms (such as Zipcar, Airbnb, Uber, Zhihu, etc.), researchers can gain more data such as companies, consumers, and sharers on platform and explore the impact of various factors (economic benefits, social responsibility, social needs, etc.) on the motivation of sharers and consumers. ➁ With reference to Li et al. (2016), we obtain data from various sharing platforms to explore the impact of factors such as property characteristics, market characteristics, and individual characteristics of participants on pricing, profitability, and so on. ➂ The research of Zervas et al. (2016) can be used to analyze the impact of the development of the sharing economy in different fields on the development of the related industries and regions. For example, analyze the impact of the rise of Uber et al. on the traditional taxi companies’ passenger loading rate, profit, etc.; analyze the impact of the increase of Airbnb on the traditional hotel industry occupancy rate, pricing, income, profitability, and so on. We can also construct a theoretical model by devising a method that focuses

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on a specific perspective, such as sharing the economic platform, participants, cost, profit model, and operating mechanism, and construct a theoretical model to explain it scientifically.

3.3 Case Study Method The case study method is a commonly used qualitative research method. As the most primitive and effective research method of sharing economy, the case study method plays an important role in the study of sharing economy. This section discusses how to apply the case study method to sharing economy research from three aspects: case study method and its research category, the application of the case study method in the sharing economy research, and the research perspective of the case study method in the sharing economy.

3.3.1 Case Study Method and Its Research Category The case study method is a commonly used qualitative research method, which is suitable for the in-depth and comprehensive investigation of a complex and specific problem in reality (Sun Haifa and Zhu Yingchu, 2004). To describe and explore certain phenomena and things, people often use case studies. For some existing problems, the case study method is also an important way to find a solution. Case study methods can also help people establish new theories, or test, modify, promote existing theories. The case study method can be widely applied to the research process of various disciplines such as management, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and history, and has a wide range of applications. Typical cases can be used in the case study method as material, and the common characteristics behind it can be found through in-depth, concrete analysis, anatomy, and research, and then rise to the theoretical level, revealing the laws of the development of sharing economy. That is to achieve “from special to general”, “from individual to universal”, and then guide the sharing of economic and social activities. Case studies can generally be divided into the following two categories. (1)

(2)

Normative case studies: The normative case studies have obvious objective value judgments and mainly answer what they should be. For example, case studies conducted to establish a certain theory fall within the category of normative case studies. Positivist case studies: Empirical case study methods consider that the authenticity of knowledge or theory can only be verified through actual observation or perception. For example, case studies conducted to test theories belong to the category of empirical case studies.

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The sharing economy is based on an in-depth analysis of Uber, Airbnb and other classic cases to attract attention, and then began to rise and develop. The main areas of sharing economy at home and abroad include community wisdom sharing, innovation and entrepreneurship sharing, traffic sharing, space sharing, financial sharing, food sharing, medical and health sharing, knowledge education sharing, public resource sharing, task service sharing, and production capacity sharing. The construction of the sharing economy theoretical system needs to conduct in-depth and concrete analysis (especially focusing on the Chinese characteristics and the exploration and analysis of Chinese cases) in accordance with the new cases emerging from its development, and continue to develop and improve.

3.3.2 Application of Case Study Method in Sharing Economy Research Today, the sharing economy has covered people’s clothing, food, housing, and transportation. All walks of life can see the use of the sharing economy. Table 3.1 list some major domestic and international sharing economy industries. At present, domestic case studies mainly focus on the field of car rental. Ding Yuanzhu (2016) proposed five suggestions for promoting the sharing economy’s development based on research and reflection on Internet special cars at home and abroad. Zheng Zhilai (2016b) analyzed and compared the profit models of Uber and Airbnb and concluded the common business model and three major profit points of the sharing economy. Peng Yue (2016) took the Internet car as an example to study the legal regulation of the sharing economy, arguing that to encourage market innovation, regulators should practice responsive regulatory strategies and explore the underlying rationale and value of regulation and reduce administrative intervention. Yu Xiaodong et al. (2016) studied the human resource management model under the background of sharing economy with drip behavior examples. Sundararajan (2013) uses Zipcar as an example to study issues such as the business model of the sharing economy. Cheng Xixi et al. (2016) used Airbnb as an example to study the sharing economy and the emerging human resource management model, summarized the four characteristics of human resource management under the current sharing economy model, and analyzed the successful experience of the model of sharing economy in the field of human resource management. It provides theoretical references and practical implications for the management of human resources in the era of sharing economy. Meleo (2016) uses Airbnb as an example to use case studies and SWOT analysis to understand the main features of the sharing economy and how to operate such a platform. Meng Fanxin (2015) used the Taobao platform as an example to study the issue of governance of the online trading market under the sharing economy model. He pointed out that in the future, effective management of the online trading market requires the rational determination of the boundaries of the order of governance at all levels and the strengthening of the interactive transformation and the

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Table 3.1 Main industries related to sharing economy in China and Abroad Sharing economy

Domestic enterprises Foreign companies

Shared services

Community wisdom sharing

Easy Science

ResearchGate, Academia.edu, InnoCentive, IdeaConnection, YourEncore, Kaggle, Science Exchange

Multidisciplinary academic research and sharing platform, open crowdsourcing scientific research platform, professional social network, scientific experiment outsourcing service platform

Innovation and entrepreneurship sharing

HiWork, MO.ffice, SOHO 3Q, Yoko factory

WeWork, Rocket Space Co-working space, startup incubator, startup accelerator

Traffic sharing

DiDi, Kuaidi, Mobike

Uber, Zipcar, Spinlister, Just Park, Park TAG

Share car rental, driving, biking, parking space

Space sharing

Piglet short rent, Tujia

Airbnb, Dog Vacay, Storemates, StoreFront

Shared accommodation, pet space, retail space

Financial sharing

Hongling venture capital and lujin institute

Lending Club3) , Kickstarter, Seedrs, Crowdcube

P2P online loan, network crowdfunding

Food sharing

Love chefs, Good cooks, EWC1) , Go home for dinner, Huang Taiji, U taste

EatWith, Kitchit

Chef’s visit, private dinner, home-kitchen sharing

Medical health sharing

Spring rain doctor, good doctor

Medicast, Pager, ClassPass

Online consultation, fitness sharing

Knowledge Education Sharing

Zhihu, in line2) , little Coursera, EdX, TED red book

Sharing knowledge education

Public resource sharing

Safe WiFi

Fon, Open Garden, Solar City

WiFi sharing, internet sharing, solar energy shared

Task Service Sharing

Pig net, Dada

TaskRabbit, Thumbtack, Instacart, Postmates

Service skills sharing, logistics and distribution sharing

Production capacity sharing

Alibaba amoy factory, i5 Intelligent system

Business collaboration, crowdsourcing production

order of government. Sundararajan (2014) compared Airbnb with Uber and studied the cultural construction of the sharing economy platform. He believed that the right platform culture is the key to sustained success. Schor (2016) is based on interviews with three U.S. profit-oriented platform providers (Airbnb, RelayRides, and TaskRabbit) to investigate whether the sharing economy has increased inequality by 80%.

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3.3.3 Prospects of the Case Study Method in Sharing Economy As a commonly used qualitative research method, the case study method is also the most primitive and effective research method of sharing economy, and plays an important role in the study of sharing economy. Using the case study method to study sharing economy, we can use the typical case as the material, combined with the development of the sharing economy, and through its in-depth, concrete analysis, anatomy, research, etc. to find out the common characteristics behind it and summarize it, reveal the law of the development of sharing economy. The current case study methods are used to study the sharing economy mostly for normative case studies and based on case studies, to study the theoretical causes, connotation, business model, and how to establish legal market governance in the sharing economy. Among them, the major studies are the taxi industry, shared space case studies. In the era of sharing economy, everything can be shared, and the case study method is very easy to spread, imitate, and apply on the Internet. The application of future case study methods in the sharing economy area can continue in two parts: ➀ Normative case studies: To study the use, development, summary of characteristics, operating mechanisms, and business models of the sharing economy in various fields, as well as legal management regulations (e.g., group sharing, innovation sharing, space sharing, financial sharing, food sharing, health sharing, knowledge education sharing, sharing of public resources, sharing of mission services, sharing of production capabilities, etc., rather than being limited to the area of the car rental and room rental). ➁ Empirical case studies: using relevant cases from all walks of life, verify the theoretical basis, connotation and scope of sharing economy, and the nature of goals.

3.4 Marginal Analysis Marginal analysis is widely used in economics research and analysis. It is an analysis method to test the law of movement of things. The concept of “zero marginal cost” is also an important concept of sharing economy. Under the background of the sharing economy, people can share materials and ideas with marginal costs close to zero. Therefore, marginal analysis is very important in the study of sharing economy. This section will discuss two aspects: the marginal analysis method and its research category, and the marginal analysis method applied to the study of sharing economy.

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3.4.1 Marginal Analysis and Its Research Category The marginal analysis method is a method to test the law of movement of things. It is from the perspective of mathematical analysis to analyze the magnitude of the change of the dependent variable that occurs with the slight change of the independent variables in the process of development and change. This method is used to study the relationship between complex economic phenomena and economic quantities, which is usually represented by the economic incremental analysis method. The use of marginal analysis in the analysis of economics is extremely extensive. Therefore, the concept of marginalization and the formulation of marginal analysis is considered to be a revolution in economic methods. “Marginal” can be understood as meaning “increase”, and “marginal amount” means “increment”. Specifically, the increase in the dependent variable due to an increment of one independent variable unit is the marginal amount. The so-called marginal cost refers to the increment of the total cost brought by the newly-added production of each unit. In contrast, marginal revenue refers to the increase in the income generated by each new production unit. The transaction cost of the market is a basic concept of economics, and it is the core content of the enterprise theories. The essence of sharing economy is to reduce market transaction costs. An important theoretical basis for the sharing economy is the “zero marginal cost”, which requires the full use of the marginal analysis method in the study to conduct an in-depth analysis of the evolution of the market economy transaction costs of the sharing economy. If we want to achieve more “economic” growth, green development, and the prosperity of the sharing economy, we need a mechanism for continuously reducing transaction costs. The marginal analysis method that closely affects the transaction costs of the market and maximizes the profits of the organization is very important.

3.4.2 Marginal Analysis Applied to the Study of Sharing Economy Western economics believes that monopoly leads to reduced output, waste of resources, and technical inefficiency. Monopoly shifts consumer surplus to producer surplus (Li Zhen, 2016). The monopolistic vendor organizations use lower production and higher prices to seek monopoly profits and reduce consumer surplus. This also caused a social loss (i.e., “necessary loss”). And an important value concept of the sharing economy is “being used at any time, no need to own.” This has greatly increased consumer surplus, and to a certain extent, reduced the high costs and social losses caused by monopolies and won the public. Well-being creates a wider range of social welfare. Take Airbnb as an example. Under the traditional business model, information costs, transaction costs, and sunk costs are high. This makes it difficult to effectively match and match between service providers and demanders in the sharing mode of

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sharing accommodation, and the transaction costs are high and cannot meet the needs of consumers in time. Under the sharing economy model, thanks to the support and mature operation of emerging technologies such as the Internet, Internet of Things, big data, and cloud computing, the sharing platform can quickly and accurately match the information and data of the supply and demand sides, effectively integrating services as well as transactions. In this way, due to the economies of scale, the marginal cost decreases, attracting more buyers and sellers to participate, further reducing transaction costs. Besides, the sharing economy makes more use of idle resources, so that resource providers require lower returns, which results in a match. In the era of sharing economy, with the development of science and technology, the marginal cost is getting lower and lower, and people can use the marginal cost of near-zero to replicate information, products and services on a large scale at low cost. Today, the rapid development of the sharing economy has covered books, parking, WiFi, cars, bicycles, creative projects, business ideas, loans, children’s products, private lessons, groceries, free time or skills, and the sharing economy is reaching and change all aspects of people’s production and life. Therefore, as an important method of economic analysis, the marginal analysis method can also be used to analyze the marginality of the sharing economy, and it can be widely used to analyze the marginal cost of the sharing economy in all walks of life.

3.5 Social Network Analysis Social network analysis is a sociological research method. It regards society as a vast network and makes an accurate quantitative analysis of the relationships in the network. This section discusses the basic principles of social network analysis and its research areas in detail, and analyzes its application prospects in sharing economy.

3.5.1 Social Network Analysis and Its Category Society is a vast network of diverse relationships. As a sociological research method, social network analysis can accurately quantify the relationships in social networks. The analysis of the relationships in networks explores the structure and attributes of networks (including individual attributes and overall attributes in the network). The traditional view of social structure holds that social structure is an institutionalized social system at the macro level, emphasizing the decisive role of social norms and values on participants’ behaviors. That is, the social status (social structure factor) of participants determines their roles and behaviors. Social network analysis focuses on the relationship between participants, emphasizes the dialectical relationship between social structure and individual actions, affirms the active role of participants, and provides an effective path for promoting research from the microscopic to the macroscopic aspects of social relations. The social network analysis mainly

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includes two different research orientations: the overall network and the individual network. The overall network analysis uses indicators such as the scale, density, and centrality of the overall network to reveal the overall network characteristics. The individual network analysis is based on the commonly used four indicators of the centrality (degree of the center, middle center, near center, and center of feature vector) reveal the importance of each node in the network. Actors in all fields rely on certain social networks. The application of social network research methods is no longer confined to sociological research but is widely used for knowledge sharing in organizations and other areas of study (Li Gang et al., 2015; Feng Bohe and Liu Jia, 2007), such as information dissemination (Li Wei, 2013), innovation and entrepreneurship (Li Lin and Wang Xiaofeng, 2014; Broekel and Boschma, 2011). Gu Bin and Huang Jialiang (2014) summarized three characteristics that the research environment can try to use social network analysis method should meet: ➀ There should be “social relations” between the objects to be studied or within the research object, and form a social network. In other words, there should be an interaction between the participants, which is the basic premise for the application of social network analysis. ➁ “Social relations” or “social relations structure” has a clear meaning in explaining the behavior of the research subjects. In other words, there are links between the actors such as resource transfer or circulation, and the results of the social relations provide opportunities or restrictions for the actors’ actions (e.g., the intercompany cooperation is affected by the social relations between the companies, and the mutual assistance between the residents influenced by the relationship between residents, trade behavior between countries is affected by international relations, etc.). This is an essential principle for the application of social network analysis. ➂ The social network data between research subjects or within the research object can be collected more completely and correctly, and this is an objective condition for applying social network analysis to conduct research.

3.5.2 Social Network Analysis Applied to Sharing Economy An important assumption of sharing economy is social assumptions. The meaning of this hypothesis is that as a social existence, people pursue a balance between economic interests and social needs such as self-esteem and social status. People’s behavior is divided by internal utility functions and social experience and other people’s influence, etc. Therefore, we must understand the behavior of human beings from the whole network of individuals. Also, the development of the sharing economy itself is based on the rapid development of Internet technology. Especially based on the sharing platform, many entities participate in it, allowing users to share and exchange knowledge, information, and physical resources with each other, forming a very complex social network. The above properties indicate that there are social relationships between the supply side, demand side, and platform side in the shared economy system, and that their social relationships have a clear meaning for the behavior of the research subjects.

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The above analysis shows that the sharing economy meets the research environment required by the social network analysis method and can study the sharing economy from the perspective of social networks. Examples are as follows: ➀ The social network analysis method can be used to analyze the relationship between participants’ network characteristics and personal characteristics on the sharing platform. The social network analysis method is used to analyze the structural characteristics of the social network on the sharing platform, and further explain the sharing behavior or other personal characteristics of the participants according to the structural characteristics to make a deeper understanding of their operating modes and laws. For example, the network characteristics and personal characteristics of the social network can be researched in the sharing platform Airbnb, and the characteristics of each participating subject and the relationship between them can be clarified, thereby effectively improving and supervising the social network, making the shared platform became more healthy and efficient. ➁ Analysis of the relationship between participants’ social networks and the macro environment. In addition to analyzing the social network of the sharing economy, we can also use social network analysis to study the macroeconomic impact of the sharing economy on society (such as the macro-elements of the credit evaluation system and regulatory system of the whole society relationship). Putting the platform network into the overall macroenvironment and exploring its impact on society can provide a theoretical basis for the relevant departments to regulate and supervise the new economic paradigm of sharing economy.

Chapter 4

Theoretical Foundation of Sharing Economy

In recent years, with the mature applications of cloud computing and big data, the iterative updating of the Internet and communication technologies, the evolution of the energy revolution and the Internet of Things, the Internet-based platform economy has achieved rapid development, mainly represented by Uber and Airbnb. The success and spread of the sharing economy business model have opened up all material and non-material, tangible and intangible, idle and inefficient resources for sharing, and has presented a full-fledged trend. However, as the practice of sharing economy continues to enrich and deepen, disputes over unfair competition, trust, regulation, and taxation in the sharing economy are also becoming increasingly fierce. This shows that academics, policymakers are not yet fully prepared for this trend. However, the academic circle only stays at the stage of case analysis and phenomenon description. The fundamental theoretical research lags behind the development of practice. Thus, it is necessary to explore the theory behind the development of sharing economy to build a more complete theoretical framework to lay a theoretical foundation for the healthy and sustainable development of the sharing economy. Overall, theories that play a vital role in the development of the sharing economy include six core theories: contingency theory, cooperative consumption theory, cognitive surplus theory, non-personalized trading theory, zero marginal cost theory, and multilateral platform theory.

4.1 Contingency Theory The contingency theory requires that different organizational management principles and methods be adopted according to specific corporate management practices. This section discusses the contingency theory’s connotation and the performance of the contingency theory in the sharing economy.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_4

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4.1.1 Connotation of Contingency Theory The core of the contingency theory is the contingency of specific analysis of specific situations advocated by western management. This is a management theory that has gradually developed based on empirical schools. It is also known as contingency management theory or strain theory, which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Contingency refers to weighing and changing with specific circumstances or specific situations. That is to say, in the organization’s management practice, no completely unchanged principle or method applies to all situations. We must adapt to the changes in the organization’s internal and external conditions and the environment and find targeted management models or methods that are suitable for the current status of the organization and conducive to achieving the organization’s goals. In sharing economy, the connotation of contingency theory is as follows: Compared with the concept that capitalism emphasizes that resources belong to individuals and advocate private ownership, sharing economy recognizes the emphasis on ownership of traditional economics and pays more attention to the use of resources. The supply and demand sides have gathered to share various idle and inefficient resources on the “common land” of the sharing platform. The private ownership of resources becomes public resources, which can effectively avoid the disadvantages of idle and wasteful resources, irrational excitement, and “uneconomic” growth brought about by capitalist private ownership. The emergence of cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things has provided the technological foundation for resource sharing. That is to say, compared with the traditional capitalist private ownership, the economic paradigm of sharing economy is more in line with the requirements of the development of the modern era.

4.1.2 Performance of Impersonal Exchange Theory in the Sharing Economy Specifically, capitalism is an economic system that emphasizes that capital belongs to individuals. The capitalist system believes that capital is the main body and claims that individuals own property, which advocates private ownership. On the one hand, this kind of economic system that has emerged from the era of the industrial revolution and once dominated has played a huge role in the liberation and development of human productive forces and has greatly enriched humankind’s material life. On the other hand, human society is trapped in an “irrational excitement” because capitalism emphasizes ownership and exclusive rights—recklessly absorbing resources, overemphasizing material enjoyment and ignoring the spiritual world, low-level consumption and even waste are common phenomena. In today’s society, which is increasingly emphasizing spiritual civilization, it seems that it is in a dilemma. Although the capitalist system has brought about rapid economic development for society, the many negative influences that accompany it have become

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increasingly serious. Positive gains brought about by economic growth are gradually offset by environmental damage, resource shortages, and other costs and have become “uneconomic”. In the face of a series of problems brought about by the traditional economic development model, how to solve the difficulties facing society, change the traditional thinking of economic growth, and change the economic paradigm is a significant issue that merits careful consideration. The emergence of the sharing economy has guided solving these problems. The sharing economy is the leasing economic model of the Internet era. Based on the recognition of resource ownership, achieving the use of idle resources and inefficient resources between individuals through the Internet platform is essentially a temporary transfer of the right to use. From the perspective of resource utilization, the inefficient use of resources has laid a material foundation for the emergence of the sharing economy. There is a car that can join Uber or Didi through the platform. If you have a free room, you can choose to join Airbnb. From the perspective of the supply side, some people have idle housing, and some people have cars but do not always in use. In the long run, they cause a waste of resources. From the demand side, some people only want to obtain the temporary rights to use about housing and cars, not necessarily own. Based on this, the development of modern technology makes the above-mentioned supply and demand effective docking more convenient, so that the supply and demand sides can quickly match; at the same time, the Internet platform enables both parties to learn more information and establish trust and contractual relationships faster with the help of big data. The rapid development of modern technologies such as cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and more and more people are involved in it. Individuals can also participate as independent participants. The choices between suppliers and demanders are more accessible, and transaction costs and information asymmetry are greatly reduced. The efficiency of economic operations has greatly increased. While the sharing economy makes full use of inefficient resources, it brings to the owner economic benefits such as money and non-economic benefits such as self-satisfaction and pleasure. Take the consumption of cars as an example to analyze this issue. Generally speaking, use is the main purpose of consumers buying most of the goods (especially for durable consumer goods such as automobiles). In this case, ownership is not necessary. Undoubtedly, compared with the right to use, ownership contains more rights, but at the same time, the cost of purchase (acquisition of ownership) is also much higher than the cost of the lease (acquisition of the right to use). For auto consumers, if they want to obtain a car ownership, they need a large amount of money. In the course of use, they also need to pay insurance premiums, maintenance fees, etc. But until now, most consumers still choose to buy rather than lease, analyze the reasons, information asymmetry and high transaction costs are the main reasons for leasing has not yet become mainstream. The use of vehicles by the public has a random nature. Before the advent of the mobile internet era, it is difficult for taxis to match the needs at any time. In the process of leasing, due to the unfamiliarity with the owners or drivers, there are also hidden risks. Internet technology has greatly reduced the information asymmetry and transaction costs in the car rental market, enabling

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the shared platform to inexpensively, effectively, and timely achieve car rental supply and demand matching. Consumers have more knowledge of the owner’s information. The network effect of the emerging economy, a sharing economy, has caused the cost of leasing to continue to fall as the number of participants increases, and this has led to the increasingly common pattern of leasing access.

4.2 Collaborative Consumption Theory As the name suggests, collaborative consumption is a new consumption model in which consumers consume products or services together. This section discusses the connotation of the theory of collaborative consumption and the performance of the theory of collaborative consumption in the sharing economy.

4.2.1 Connotation of Collaborative Consumption Theory As one of the three carriages that can promote economic development, consumption stimulates economic growth by continuously purchasing, using, and eliminating products. Modern consumerism even advocates no thrift. This continuous consumption trend, constant abandonment, and continuous replacement have intensified, overdrawing consumer financial resources and wasting limited social resources (Dong, 2016). “Pan-Pacific waste belt” is one of the serious negative effects brought about by modern consumerism. People gradually realized the disadvantages of this consumerism and began to break new ground. First, people’s consumption concepts began to change, realizing that the supply of resources is limited, and high consumption cannot be maintained forever. We should be free from excessive consumption. Second, the over-pursuit of substances has brought us out of groups and societies. We should build a more solid collective society. This phenomenon of collectivization manifests itself in the form of social cooperative groups, namely “Collaborative Consumption”. Felson and Spaeth (1978) defined collaborative consumption as the event in which multiple people consume goods or services in a joint participation activity. It refers to consumers working together or together to consume products or services, such as private cars, living room sofas. Belk (2007) believes that the act and process of using all of our things for others, or using other people’s goods or services, is synergistic consumption, which involves a wide range of content such as donations, resales, transactions, loans, leasing, gifts, and exchanges. This kind of behavior is based on the relationship between individuals and individuals rather than existing market entities. There is no need to transfer ownership (Lovelock & Gummesson, 2004), and it is possible to obtain economic compensation or internal satisfaction through coordinated consumption.

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4.2.2 Performance of Collaborative Consumption Theory in the Sharing Economy Sharing behavior can be traced back to ancient times, but synergistic consumption originated in the era of the mobile internet. The traditional high consumption model, with the change of people’s concept, ownership is no longer the ultimate pursuit of consumers, is gradually entering the “post-ownership” era (Belk, 2014), in the social network, cloud computing, big data, the real-time point under the impetus of modern technology, a new type of interactive consumption system has been formed— cooperative consumption. Collaborative consumption brings people sharing the right to use goods, services, and virtual assets higher than personal ownership. It can increase the efficiency of the use of goods, reduce waste, and promote to reduce the reduction of excess surplus production capacity and excessive consumption of surplus goods for individuals and society, and bring more benefits. Besides, we can make new friends and make people become active social citizens once again and build a more stable collective society. Collaborative consumption has developed into a new culture and a new economic form based on the Internet and social networking platforms, which consume goods, information, and even time. Botsman and Rogers (2011) divide the common collaborative consumption patterns into three types, namely product service systems, redistribution markets, and collaborative lifestyles. Product service system, that is, people begin to accept a new concept of “use” and are willing to pay for the use-value of the product or service, without regard to taking ownership of the product, such as car rental services provided by Zipcar; redistribution of the market, i.e., in the market or through a certain platform, selling or giving away your own items to others, or exchanging them for free. It can happen between acquaintances or between strangers. Collaborative consumption lifestyle brings groups of people with common interests to share or exchange virtual assets such as time, skills, space, and funds, which is beyond the scope of the matter. Regarding the reasons people participate in collaborative consumption, some studies have pointed out that the supply and demand sides can extend their selfworth through shared behaviors. The sharing economy can to a certain extent eliminate people-to-people levels and boundaries related to materials and property (Belk, 2010). Hamari et al. (2015) studied the motivation for people to participate in collaborative consumption. The results show that, in addition to economic compensation, sustainability and pleasure are also important factors driving collaborative consumption, but the importance of different aspects to different consumers varies. Collaborative consumption, a new consumption model, enables people to break traditional ownership restrictions and gain access to products and services that they do not own. It saves money, time and space, increases resource use efficiency, and changes the content of transactions from ownership to the right to use, which is a healthy, efficient consumption model. In this process, the relationship between people and things and people will also be redefined (Chen, 2009). The mutual connection and deep participation brought about by the Internet make people gradually transition from my time to ours.

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4.3 Cognitive Surplus Theory The Cognitive Surplus Theory refers to people who have been educated and have free time and who have a willingness to share bring free time together and use certain platforms to share it with others. This has great social effects. This section discusses the connotation of cognitive surplus theory and the performance of cognitive surplus theory in the field of sharing economy.

4.3.1 The Connotation of Cognitive Surplus Theory The concept of “cognitive surplus” was first proposed by New York University professor Shirky (2010). The Cognitive Surplus Theory refers to people who have been educated and have free time and who have a willingness to share bring free time together and use certain platforms to share it with others. This has great social effects. If the free time of all educated people is seen as a set, a brand new resource, the more people involved in sharing their free time, the more cognitive surplus will be created, and even change our business model. In essence, cognitive surplus means that people’s time, intelligence resources and so on are regarded as a collection of social resources. In the past, after these resources were put into people’s daily work and study, the rest were mostly consumed by entertainment; In the era of mobile internet, the rapid development of network media has enabled the remaining time, intelligence, and other resources to become a public social resource through people’s participation in collaboration. And create rich civilization achievements such as Wikipedia, Baidu Encyclopedia, Zhihu, etc. Non-economic benefits are the main motives for people to use spare time to create and share cognitive surplus resources, including: ➀ Direct and indirect reciprocity (Zhang et al., 2016). Martin Nowak interprets direct reciprocity and indirect reciprocity as “I’ll scratch my back and you’ll scratch my back.” “I’ll scratch my back and you’ll have someone else to scratch my back.” The rapid development of science and technology and the rapid transfer of information bring everyone convenience and comfort while also placing everyone in more intense competition. Sharing spare time to create more cognitive surpluses can effectively achieve cooperation and reciprocity among different participants. Each participant can obtain various kinds of information, which helps participants update their knowledge quickly and realize learning intangibly. There are many participants from various regions engaged in various occupations on the sharing platform. These participants have both competition and cooperation. The process of cooperation and competition with others is also a process of self-improvement. In the process of cooperation, the opinions and suggestions put forward by the partners based on their own perspectives are conducive to the improvement of the professional quality of participants while improving the quality

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of innovation. ➁ Kleine Shecky believes that in addition to gaining economic benefits, people may also participate in sharing for pure interest. Intrinsic motivations (such as satisfaction, self-government and competence, wanting to share, etc.) can make participation itself a return. The continuous accumulation of attitudes toward participation in the entire population has made people willing to share spare time and create a cognitive surplus. Specifically speaking, it is sometimes satisfied that one’s attendance is important. When you see or hear the results created with others, you will enjoy the joy contained in them. These are not simply economic interests that can be explained. In other words, people who are willing to share or contribute their free time to create cognitive surpluses are more valuable than completing a series of inconsequential and separate personal activities such as entertainment.

4.3.2 Performance of Cognitive Surplus Theory in the Sharing Economy The cognitive surplus can be shared as a resource for the entire society. This is in line with the development background of today’s era: ➀ The number of educated people has skyrocketed, and well-educated people can accumulate a wealth of knowledge. They have a wide range of access to things, and their thinking ability is active. The disposable free time is constantly accumulating and proliferating, forming a resource that can be widely shared. ➁ The development of mobile internet technology provides technical means to combine all people’s time. With a high-quality group foundation, the rapid development of information technology is the technical basis for people’s extensive participation in sharing activities. Through the Internet, our free time has become a communal public resource, and we can easily use it through new ways of participation such as a series of platforms. The demand side can initiate activities through the network information platform, while the public with cognitive surplus resources can provide their knowledge, design, creativity, etc., anytime, anywhere, making sharing possible. In the Internet age, free time is no longer just a series of time for personal leisure and entertainment, but has become a universal social resource. In general, the motivation for human participation in sharing does not change much, but chances change with the environment. When opportunities change dramatically and they can meet people’s intrinsic motivation, behavior naturally changes. In today’s society, the development of mobile Internet technology as a tool has given us the possibility of changes in our behavior. When we use the Internet, we obtain an interface to connect with others and use social media to meet the requirements of connecting with others. ➂ The value of sharing and creating is far greater than consumption, which is a revolution in the field of consumption. In the era of mobile internet, people only need to share their time, intelligence, and other resources to participate in many major global projects. It can be said that the Internet gives people the opportunity to participate in large projects at a very low cost. Participating in sharing will turn the remaining time into a public social resource. Whether it is for

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individuals or society, its value is far greater than simply spending the remaining time. Take Zhihu as an example: ➀ As already mentioned, people’s motives are not prone to change, and more is the possibility that the environment provides for people’s behavior. Here, knowing does not change people’s ideas or shape people’s behaviors. It merely serves as a sharing platform to make people’s behavior more convenient, and provides greater possibilities for us to participate in sharing and create cognitive surpluses. ➁ People use this platform to make full use of their spare time and share their knowledge and experience with society. It is not to obtain economic benefits, but it is not a mere sharing. The same functions of thanks to and praise of design can enable people to acquire a sense of participation, identity and satisfaction after answering questions (Michael, 2012). In summary, in the age of the Internet, we can turn simple personal leisure and entertainment activities, which also consume free time, into a shared social behavior with sharing and participation characteristics. For example, we can smirk a person watching a video site, turn it into a message on a video site, and share content with everyone. It takes almost the same amount of time to do the same self-serving entertainment, while the latter acts to create and share cognitive surpluses with spare time.

4.4 Impersonal Exchange Theory An impersonal exchange is a transaction that occurs when people have no knowledge of the other party to the transaction. It is irrelevant whether it is a long-term partner or a stranger that has never been exchanged, and it is not related to geographical distance. This section discusses the connotation of the non-personalized transaction theory and the performance of the non-personalized trading theory in the sharing economy.

4.4.1 Implications of Impersonal Exchange Theory North pointed out that “personification exchange is based on the exchange of mutual understanding between individuals. In this exchange, due to the low level of people’s knowledge, the small size of the economy, the higher transaction costs”. The socalled “impersonalized transaction means that we do not have any understanding of the other party to the transaction before the transaction and cannot distinguish the counterparty from each other in any individual form”. Personalized transactions (exchanges) are the early forms of exchange in the market economy. The transaction between the two parties, the previous transaction is the basis for the next transaction, and the interests of each other also depend on the stability of the partnership. In this form, the possibility of opportunistic acts

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such as fraud is low, and transactions between the two parties rely on mutual trust between people and rely on the transaction personality between the parties to support long-term mutual benefit and win–win cooperation between them. It does not rely on mandatory laws and regulations. Therefore, in the personification transaction, the main constraints of the two parties’ transactions are the informal system constraints such as ethics and value standards. The parties involved in the transaction are mainly based on mutual understanding. People are willing to abide by established norms and guidelines. The formation of long-term trading activities and ethical consensus basically guarantees the continuity of the transaction. Non-personalized transactions (exchanges) are a common form of exchange in modern market economies. There are wide choices of trading partners in this form, and there are no obstacles and discrimination between trading parties. Autonomous trading, complete competition, free flow, and equal opportunities are the basic characteristics of non-personalized transactions (Chen & Qing, 1999). However, these characteristics require strict system constraints. Because of the expansion of the range of trading objects, which means that the two sides lack the necessary understanding of actual transactions, the number of transactions is often very small, even one-time. Therefore, informal rules, such as the non-formal constraints of ethics and values, will be less effective. To improve the reliability and security of transactions, it is necessary to formulate formal legal and institutional constraints. In the presence of formal institutional constraints, when one of the parties involved in the transaction breaches the contract, the other party can sue according to law, and the law will sanction the offending party. In this case, it is not necessary for both parties to investigate the credit details of the other party before the transaction and they can directly deal with strangers. In short, personified transactions refer to exchanges within the limited scope of acquaintance circles, which are based on reciprocity, transactions, and informal norms. Personalized transactions limit the scope of economic activities, limit transactions to acquaintances, and require repeated face-to-face transactions. Nonpersonalized trading is a more advanced form of transaction. It breaks through the original “circle”, such as blood or family, and can be traded between strangers.

4.4.2 Performance of the Impersonal Exchange Theory in the Sharing Economy With the development of science and technology and the popularization of the Internet, there are more and more ways to obtain information. Non-personalized transactions have gradually replaced individual transactions. The development of the sharing economy has broken through the original limitations and it has changed from personification to non-personalization. In the shared economic environment, the emergence of the Internet makes it easier for the owners of assets and those seeking to use them to find each other, providing people with conditions for non-personalized

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transactions. People’s transactions are no longer limited to acquaintance circles but more to strangers. Since the impersonal transaction is a more advanced form of transaction, it breaks through the original “circle”, such as blood or family, and can trade between strangers. This nature requires the development of economic and political systems to solve the problem of exchanges between strangers, punish those who violate the rules, and provide incentives for non-personalized transactions. Under the sharing economy, the credit issues in non-personalized transactions have also been guaranteed to make non-personalized transactions proceed smoothly. In the traditional economy, credit issues are mainly resolved through institutional arrangements such as organization and the rule of law. There are more and more opportunities and ways to obtain open information in the Internet age, real-time interconnection, realizing all-weather conditions, accurately recording your identity, all your consumption, and “who you are” has become increasingly clear. Individuals in the transaction behavior, if there is inappropriate behavior, the input cost becomes very high, and the victim’s search ability is improved. The search cost becomes very low, and the information is essentially symmetrical and transparent. Furthermore, the third-party sharing platform (including transaction payment, credit evaluation, supervisors, etc.) solves the trust and security of such impersonal transactions. Therefore, Internet-based sharing has become a common business model from the individual behaviors of friends and family in the past, becoming an economic form. The emergence of the Internet has changed the relationship between people, making it possible for people to deal with strangers, which greatly increases the potential for market exchanges. In a sharing economic environment, the shift from personification to nonpersonalized transactions will increase transaction costs on the one hand, and will significantly reduce production costs on the other, and reduce production costs far beyond the increased transaction costs. Overall, the costs of the entire society will be A great degree of reduction. This has also contributed to the rapid growth of the modern economy (Lu, 2016).

4.5 Zero Marginal Cost Theory The zero marginal cost refers to the fact that, as technology advances, without considering fixed costs, when the product reaches the highest point of the theory, the cost per piece of additional product produced is zero. This section discusses the connotations of the zero marginal cost theory and the performance of the zero marginal cost theory in the sharing economy.

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4.5.1 The Content of Zero Marginal Cost Theory The marginal cost refers to the increase in the variable cost of adding one unit of output at any output level. In general, due to economies of scale, the marginal cost decreases as production increases. In the era of sharing economy, with science and technology development, the marginal cost is getting lower and lower. People can use a marginal cost close to zero to replicate information, products, and services on a large scale at a low cost. Rifkin (2014) believes that the open-source economy (i.e., sharing economy) is a new economic paradigm that is transformed from a market economy. Its core mechanism is collaborative sharing and the construction of zero marginal cost (at this time, the product or service is free). He even boldly predicted: “The arrival of zero marginal cost society is the trend of the times and will become the beginning of capitalism faded out of the world stage.” The automobile sharing service industry in China is also emerging and growing. The next few years will gradually surpass the European and American countries. Housing sharing has gradually developed rapidly in China. They use a marginal cost close to zero to connect millions of apartment tenants to potential tenants. They rented rooms at a much lower price than traditional hotels, which has a significant advantage over chain hotels where the cost of day-to-day management and maintenance is huge. As smart technology gradually replaces the traditional labor force, in various industries’ professional and technical fields, business activities of enterprises are more and more efficient, intelligence, and the cost are low. The marginal labor cost of production and distributor goods and services has dropped to nearly zero. As smart technology gradually replaces the tens of millions of workers in all walks of life and professional organizations around the world, the marginal cost will gradually decline and the “zero marginal cost” society will finally come.

4.5.2 Performance of the Zero Marginal Cost Theory in the Sharing Economy In recent years, the sharing economy has developed rapidly and currently covers books, education, bicycles, automobiles, parking spots, creative projects, loans, groceries, free time or skills (Yang, 2016). The sharing economy is touching and changing people’s production and life. 1.

The information shows a zero marginal cost trend in the “Internet+” context.

On the one hand, the price of information-related equipment has declined exponentially. Since the birth of computers, the computing power and cost of data have changed exponentially. The first mass-produced commercial computer (IBM 1401) in 1959 was able to perform 1,930,008-digit additions in 60s, at a rental cost of $30,000 per year. Nowadays, low-cost smartphones have only increased thousands

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of times in computing power, and the price is only tens of US dollars (without considering inflation). In terms of information storage, the cost of a 1G hard disk in 2000 was about US$44. By 2015, there was a large amount of free cloud storage space on the network. The average cost of a 1G physical hard disk was also less than 5 cents. On the other hand, with the widespread use of Internet technology, the cost of acquiring information and transmitting information through the Internet and media on the existing “information superhighway” is almost zero. The “Internet Plus” platform has a distributed, peer-to-peer nature, bringing together millions of small players, consisting of social enterprises and salesmen, to build a horizontal economy of scale. In the future, everyone can become a producer and seller, and they can directly share resources and thinking on the Internet at a marginal cost that is close to zero. It is because online virtual retailers have achieved zero marginal cost compared to physical stores, creating the success of a large number of online retailers (such as Amazon). Nearly zero marginal costs make many goods and services almost free. 2.

The production and manufacturing cost has rapidly declined, and the demand for raw materials has become lower and lower.

With the reduction of energy costs and information costs, manufacturing costs in the industrial sector have dropped significantly, mainly because of the great wealth of products and the sharp drop in prices. With the further development of the knowledge economy, the value brought about by the manufacturing process will drop. Especially in the trend of gradual improvement of 3D printing technology, manufacturing will no longer rely on large-scale factory equipment. The manufacturing link can be set in any place with 3D printing equipment. Small batch and multi-category customized production will replace the existing large-scale production method with extremely low cost. With the formation of the concept of molecular manufacturing, the manufacturing industry will gradually get rid of the dependence on the quality of raw materials and even the raw materials themselves, and the raw material costs in the production process will also be unprecedentedly compressed. 3.

The energy structure is changing quietly, and the marginal cost of energy is becoming zero.

Energy used to be an important factor in economic growth during the industrial economy, and its contribution to economic growth was as high as 86%. The remaining 14% was provided by laborer performance and machine capital. In the “Internet+” era, this pattern will be completely broken. With the change of energy structure, the proportion of fossil fuel energy has gradually declined, and the market share of renewable energy such as wind energy and solar energy has risen rapidly. It is conservatively estimated that by 2033, green energy accounts for more than 50% of total energy, and the more optimistic estimate is in 2017 will achieve this goal. For these green renewable energy sources, the marginal cost of energy is almost zero, except for a certain amount of up-front investment (the input cost also follows an exponential curve decline). The use of these “zero marginal cost” energy sources

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will inevitably lead to the development of energy in the direction of zero marginal cost. In fact, the sharing economy shares more than just the right to use, resource ownership can also be shared, and other people’s assets can also be shared with their own intangible assets that are close to zero marginal cost. For example, Tsingtao Beer at various sales locations today is produced from nearby breweries, but bottles and lids come from another manufacturer that specializes in caps. In other words, what Tsingtao Beer does is to produce its own formula to the nearby manufacturers and paste its own label. It can be obtained only at a low cost (shared with other entities) by millions of tons and dozens of companies. The marginal cost of the Tsingtao Beer sharing formula is extremely low. It can be said that the sharing economy has achieved a combination of producers and consumers, and the concept of intellectual property has become more open. In China, the younger generation has gradually begun to engage and participate in the sharing economy. They have shifted from consumers to producers and have produced and shared financial, news, transportation, housing, music, video, and knowledge at a marginal cost of nearly zero.

4.6 Multilateral Platform Theory Multi-side platforms (MSPs) are platforms that bring together two or more interdependent, but distinctly differentiated customer groups. This section will discuss the connotation of the multilateral platform theory and the performance of the multilateral platform theory in the sharing economy.

4.6.1 Connotation of Multilateral Platform Theory The multilateral platform theory is an extension and supplement to the concept of the bilateral market. The supply-side, demand-side, network platform, and other participants (third-party payment, assessment, credit, regulatory agencies, etc.) in the sharing economy form a multilateral platform structure. The sharing economy utilizes third-party platforms (such as the Internet) to temporarily transfer the use right of the unused resources of the supply side to the users, thereby realizing the socialization of production factors and promoting the sustainable development of the social economy. 1.

The basic theory of traditional bilateral markets

There are two different types of users in a bilateral market that function or trade through an intermediary or platform. Among them, one side of the user’s decision will affect the other side of the user’s results (Liang, 2012).

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For example, in third-party payment platforms (such as Alipay, WeChat and other intermediary agencies or platforms), two different types of users are consumers and businesses that use the Internet to pay. If consumers do not use online payment, businesses will not accept it, and correspondingly, if the company does not accept online payment, consumers are naturally reluctant to use it. This shows that there is some externality between different types of users. It is called indirect network externalities (distinguishable from direct network externalities). The existence of indirect network externalities has caused the classic “chicken and egg” problem: On the one hand, platforms can attract companies only if there are a large number of users; on the other hand, users are willing to use only if there are a large number of expected enterprises platform trading. 2.

Multilateral platform theory

The multilateral platform theory actually extends and complements the concept of the bilateral market of Rochet and Tirole (2001). The concept of a multilateral platform has evolved based on the concept of two-sided platforms. A multilateral platform refers to a platform that brings together two or more customers that are dependent on each other but have significant differences. Compared with traditional unilateral markets, the characteristics of multilateral platforms are indirect network effects, cross-network externalities, non-neutral prices, and complementary dependencies of demand (Su, 2013). The indirect network effect refers to the increase in the customer’s expectation of trading effectiveness as the size of the customer on the other side increases. This means that if the price of one side of the multilateral platform goes up, it will lead to a drop in market demand on the one hand while the market demand on the other side will drop. The interaction between the two markets will make the price increase unprofitable. Therefore, the indirect network effect limits platform operators’ ability to increase prices and reflects the complementary dependence of the needs of parties on multilateral platforms. When the indirect network effect cannot enter the cost or income function through the price mechanism, cross-network externalities arise, so that the equilibrium price of the multilateral platform is usually not equal to the marginal cost.

4.6.2 Performance of Multilateral Platform Theory in Sharing Economy In the sharing economy, sharing economy platform companies, as the organizers of direct transactions between service providers and users, form the initial bilateral market, helping to use the previously unused resources more effectively to increase competitiveness. The sharing platform companies provide consumers with more choices (Golovin, 2014). With the emergence of third-party payment agencies and the participation of other stakeholders, a multilateral market platform has gradually

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emerged. In short, in the sharing economy, the supply side, demand side, network platform, other participants (third party payment, assessment, credit information, regulatory agencies, etc.) form a multilateral platform structure. The sharing economy involves participants such as suppliers, demanders, network platforms, and other participants. From the perspective of the supplier, as long as each individual or company has idle resources and is willing to transfer the right to use idle resources temporarily, each person or company can become a supplier of products and services. Therefore, for the supply side, its market capacity is huge and the potential for outreach expansion is significant. From the demand side, individuals or businesses can also become demanders of products and services. The demanding party does not own the ownership of the goods directly, but has the right to use them. It can meet the needs of products and services at a low price and conveniently through the sharing and renting methods. From the sharing economy platform’s perspective, the sharing economy platform applies the network big data algorithm to accurately match the supply end and the demand end of idle resources and help each other to benefit each other. The cost of the Internet sharing platform itself is mainly derived from related expenditures such as constructing and maintaining the sharing economy platform. There is no fixed cost expenditure based on products and services like other companies. The cost is much lower than that of traditional enterprises, and it belongs to asset-light operations. Through this mode of operation, the sharing economy platform realizes the reduction of fixed-cost expenditures and the increase in the success rate of transactions, and improves the efficiency of idle resource utilization on the supply side to satisfy demand-side personality and customized services (Zhilai, 2016c). Typical multilateral platforms include financial exchanges, payment systems, operating system platforms, e-commerce, social networking sites, search engines, advertising support media, and so on. The platform formed by the combination of the traditional mobile phone industry and the Internet contains advantageous resources (including user resources, data resources, and technical resources) that are difficult to imitate and many application software developers, accessory suppliers, communication operators, and data. Analysts and others provide channels for complementary advantages and collaborative innovation, which can often produce significant benefits. For example, Apple’s innovation platform, which is based on the combination of smartphone hardware, the iTunes app store, and the iOS operating system, has brought great benefits to Apple. Another example is the integration of the traditional retail industry with the Internet, using more effective ways to promote the interaction of multiple parties (manufacturers, distributors, service providers, shoppers, consumers) and sharing of resource channels on multilateral platforms such as Alibaba Group. Its large customer base has established an innovative ecosystem centered on an online retail platform to attract various types of sellers, logistics companies, advertisers, etc., and provide technical support to provide data for business users to innovate. With the establishment and promotion of the multi-platform

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model of modern retail enterprises, the platform has experienced four stages of development, they are co-creation, symbiosis, sharing, and win–win. In the era of big data, retail enterprises gradually shifted from commodity retailers to daily consumer service providers.

Chapter 5

The Connotation and Category of Sharing Economy

The emergence of the sharing economy model and its rapid development benefit from the support of the concepts of collaborative consumption and cognitive surplus. Under the premise of overcapacity in the traditional economic industry, people’s perceptions of double surpluses, and the rapid development of the Internet, the economic development model of sharing and collaboration has emerged. Under this general trend, it is possible for traditional economic models to transform into zero-marginal and high-quality resource allocations. The emergence of the economic phenomenon has aroused the attention and research of the discipline of economics in academia. Therefore, based on the chapters mentioned above, this chapter summarizes the connotations of economics and explains the scope of the research on economics.

5.1 Definition of the Connotation of Sharing Economy The emergence of the sharing economy is an inevitable outcome of a society developing to a certain stage. When the economic and social develop to a certain extent and thus have the preconditions for the emergence of the sharing economy, this new economic model will develop. Simply speaking, the development of the sharing economy is based on overcapacity in the social sphere, the rapid development of Internet technology, the transformation of the concept of people’s property rights, and the impact of the economic crisis on the quality of life. With the rise and development of the sharing economy, the concept of sharing economy has begun to attract the attention of the academic community. This section will summarize the history of the concept of sharing economy proposed by different scholars and then put forward the author’s further understanding.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_5

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5.1.1 The Origin of the Sharing Economy In the 1970s, Marcus Felson, professor of sociology at Texas State University, and Joel Spaeth, professor of sociology at the University of Illinois, proposed the concept of sharing economy for the first time. They proposed that sharing economy in a general sense refers to a new type of business model in which organizations or individuals with idle resources have the right to transfer the right to use resources to others, and the transferee obtains returns, and the sharer uses the idle resources shared by others to create value (Huang, 2016). This narrowly defined business model is a more rational allocation of idle resources for the purpose of remuneration. The rise of this concept of focusing on idle resources is due to overcapacity in society. With the development of the economy and technology, society has emerged from the past era of economic shortage and entered a new era of oversupply. The oversupply leads to the idleness of resources and provides a material basis for sharing economy. Digging out of old things to get new use-value realizes turning excess production capacity into waste. What’s more, sharing economy will enable some people to use resources they need without investing in high costs and energy to find, mine and invest other resources. Sharing economy slowed down the actual problems of wasted resources and facilitated the use of resource demanders. From this point of view, the idleness of resources caused by overcapacity within the social sphere has become an important reason for the emergence of sharing economy. Another important reason for the rise of the sharing economy is the development of Internet technologies. With the development of Internet technology and economic society, the concept of sharing economy has been continuously developed and improved. From a historical point of view, the sharing economy based on resource sharing has existed for a long time. At the beginning of the development of the sharing economy, it can be defined as an economic form in which institutions or individuals with idle resources transfer the resources’ using right to others for remuneration and sharers use the idle resources shared to create value. Individuals, companies, non-profit organizations, and other collectives that participate in the sharing economy can obtain sufficient information through the sharing platform, making it possible to allocate surplus or idle resources and services more efficiently. The early sharing economy was based on the separation of consumer ownership and use rights. This kind of sharing economy emphasizes the using efficiency of surplus resources. However, Continuous economic crisis has constantly raised concerns about the conflicts of resource adequacy, social sustainability, and various types of structural imbalances, as well as the growing “multi-level differentiation” in economic and financial development, coupled with the continuous deepening of the Internet’s iterative impact on the social structure, the sharing mechanism gradually moves closer to the “sharing mechanism” we emphasize today. Therefore, compared to the traditional economy, the sharing economy emphasizes the information technology tools and channels as a bridge to achieve the result that the public can share all social resources more equally. They pay and benefit from each other in different ways and enjoy the economic dividend together. This transformation

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not only reflects the dream of an early solution to the income distribution problem, but also provides the possibility of socially sustainable development and inclusive win–win development (Yao & Yang, 2015). With the development of Internet technology, the Internet platform’s appearance gave new meaning to the sharing economy, and the Internet sharing economy emerged. The emergence of the Internet sharing economy depends on the development of Internet technology. Tian Suning, chairman of Broadband Capital, pointed out that the integration of cloud computing, big data, broadband networks, and smart terminals is driving the development of sharing economy. The rapid development of Internet technology has greatly improved the situation of information asymmetry in the economic market, increased the dissemination efficiency of information, and expanded the scope of subject and object of participation in economic transactions. Therefore, the sharing economy is a result of the development of the Internet. Before the application of the Internet has become widespread, people’s activities are limited by the region, and the resources they enjoy are also limited. After the rapid development of Internet technology, the inherently open and collaborative features make it possible for people to move toward the whole world. It also provides conditions for the sharing of resources in different geographical areas. At the same time, the application of intelligent electronic products in recent years has enabled people to interact with the Internet anytime, anywhere, improving the matching of supply and demand of resources, and facilitating the acquisition of resources by demanders. The Internet-sharing economy refers to using the Internet platform to share social resources such as material resources and human resources on a fee basis, and to pay and benefit from each other in different ways to enjoy the economic dividend together. That is, a business model in which the right to use personal belongings temporarily shifts through the Internet. The definition of the Internet sharing economy emphasizes the sharing economy’s realization platform based on the original definition, which further enriches the connotation of the sharing economy.

5.1.2 The Discussion of Sharing Economy Concept As mentioned in the section on the origin of sharing economy, the emergence of sharing economy is overcapacity within the social sphere and the rapid development of Internet technology. Because of the economic phenomena caused by these two aspects of social phenomena, the academic community has discussed the definition of the concept of sharing economy, thus promoting the development of sharing economy. At present, for the definition of sharing economy, the academic community has not yet formed a unified conclusion. The interpretation of the sharing economy mainly has the following aspects. (1) In the beginning, the academic community’s discussion of the sharing economy focused on the use of idle resources, stressing that the result of the shared economy phenomenon is the more rational allocation of idle resources. Yan (2016) mentioned in his article Connotation, Characteristics and Development of the Sharing Economy

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that sharing economy is a paid activity that provides idle resources to others for use and does not transfer ownership. He defines idle resources in the three areas of idle goods, idle real estate, and idle time, and defines the sharing of idle funds as investment activities. This concept is actually a restatement of the early sharing economy’s concept, thus summarizing the specific categories of idle resources in the practice of sharing economy. Benkler (2004) describes the concept of sharing as a reciprocal activity based on social behavior. The explanation for reciprocity can be understood from the perspective that shared results can satisfy the needs of all parties involved. Belk (2007) described the concept of sharing as a process of property distribution without transferring legal ownership within a limited period of time (Liu, 2016), which was understood from the point of view that sharing economy emphasizes the right to use rather than the ownership. The allocation of usage rights enables more rational use of resources. From the above perspective of the sharing economy, the sharing economy achieves a balance between consumers and available resources. (2) Based on research on the objects of sharing economy, some scholars put forward the concept of an Internet-based platform for the realization of the sharing economy. The sharing economy proposed in Silicon Valley in the United States emphasizes the role of mobile Internet as an important platform in the sharing economy. It points out that the sharing economy uses the mobile Internet to provide idle or underutilized resources, provides technical services to demanders in the nearest place and uses the Internet platform for the rational allocation and rational scheduling of supply and demand resources. This definition focuses on the Internet platform and forms a de facto product brand through transactions under a virtual Internet platform. Service providers on the platform provide resources and services independently in their own name, and the Internet platform collects commissions for intermediate services (Wang, 2015). Zhilai (2016) paid attention to the realization of the sharing economy, defined the content of the sharing economy as the process of de-intermediation and re-intermediation. Traditional business organizations are no longer the intermediate links necessary for certain exchanges but are replaced by sharing economic platforms, which involve the process of de-intermediation and re-intermediation. (3) In the abundance of the concept of sharing economy, scholars believe that the study of sharing economy is not only an economic phenomenon, but also a transformation of the social development model and the concept of social consumption. Yang (2016) defines the sharing economy as a green development model. He pointed out that the sharing economy needed to share housing, automobiles, knowledge, and skills and other idle energy resources through a sharing platform. This model can improve the efficiency of social resource allocation while meeting social needs to achieve a green development model. In 2010, the famous British scholar Botsman (2010) mentioned the concept of sharing economy. She described the sharing economy as “cooperative consumption”, indicating that people can choose to share resources including code, life, and various offline asset resources in order to obtain almost the same resource wealth at a lower cost of consumption or consumption pressure. This definition shows that the sharing economy brings about

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Fig. 5.1 Research framework for sharing economy

a change in the concept of consumption patterns, expressing the sharing economy using “cooperative consumption” mainly from the consumer point of view. (4) From the perspective of the perfection of the concept of sharing economy, the academic community supplemented the concept of the realization platform of the sharing economy based on the original concept, and at the same time emphasized that the sharing economy model is a sharing of resource use rights. In summary, the historical sharing economy research framework can be understood from the following several aspects reflected in Fig. 5.1: The sharing economy is built on the backdrop of overcapacity and the rapid development of Internet information technology, using modern information technology platforms such as the Internet to integrate and share vast amounts of idle resources, This new economic model implies changes in the social development model, the concept of social property rights, and the concept of people’s consumption. Ultimately, it can effectively allocate idle resources.

5.1.3 Connotation of Sharing Economy Based on the ideas mentioned above, the research framework of the sharing economy for scholars in history has been summarized. As shown in Fig. 5.2, the development of the sharing economy is based on overcapacity, the development of Internet technology, and the shift in the concept of social property rights. It uses the Internet sharing platform to conduct activities that everyone can participate in and share all resources. The result is a low-cost, high-efficiency optimization of the resource configuration. Scholars’ description of the sharing economy phenomenon shows that compared with the traditional economy, the sharing economy has obvious advantages. First, the sharing economy has changed the traditional trading relationship, emphasized the degree of participation of the subject in the sharing economy model, and upgraded

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Fig. 5.2 Research framework of sharing economy

the user experience to a core position. Second, the use of a sharing economy platform increases trust and mutual supervision among users. The increase in the transparency of transaction information is conducive to the establishment of a social trust mechanism so that the supplier and the demand side are in an equal position. Third, the sharing economy model has changed the traditional pursuit of ownership, improved the efficiency of resource allocation, and thus saved resources. However, looking at these existing studies, scholars start their research from the application of economics, analyze the characteristics of the economy, and summarize the benefits of economic participation, the path to achieving and the object of enjoyment, and obtain the concept of sharing economy. Or they can classify the economy according to the areas in which this kind of economy exists, and summarize the practices of sharing. Therefore, most of these concepts are based on the description of phenomena and do not really define the economy in essence. This elaboration of the economy from the perspective of the phenomenon cannot accurately explain the specific connotations of the subject of economics. Based on the previous studies’ summarization, this chapter studies the substance through phenomena, explains the phenomenon of sharing economy and gets the connotation of sharing economy. Sharing economy refers to using modern information and communication technologies and network technologies to make information, knowledge, intelligence, and other resources and production materials reproducible, rapidly diffusive, lowcost search, and high-efficiency acquisition, so that the transaction costs become small or even zero and people can use resources at low prices or free of charge. The definition of the concept of sharing economy is not simply based on the description of phenomena, but it expands the concept of sharing economy and

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explains what sharing economy is in essence and terms of characteristics. Therefore, according to the definition of sharing economy, the sharing economy can be understood from the following aspects. (1) The sharing economy is a process of de-intermediation and re-intermediation. The vigorous development of the mobile Internet has made sharing become a new economic form. Under the sharing economy model, transactions between suppliers and demanders no longer depend on traditional physical business organizations, but more on third-party information platforms such as the Internet. This means that the sharing economy is actually a process of de-intermediation. For example, the use of P2P for investment and financing transactions, capital providers and fund demanders do not need to coordinate in the middle of the traditional financial institutions to coordinate transactions, and can be achieved through the Internet platform for immediate matching; The emergence of mobile taxi software such as Uber, Dribbling, etc. makes a barrier-free connection between the driver and the driver without dependence on the intermediary coordination of the rental company in the traditional model. In other words, the “de-intermediation” of the sharing economy is to leave out the traditional commercial entity mediation model and use the newly developed mobile Internet technology to realize the immediate transfer of the right to use. However, this sharing mechanism requires a powerful platform for everyone to participate, which requires the funding and technical support coming from specific organizations and teams, and creates a sharing platform for the low-cost exchange of resources. From this perspective, the sharing economy is a process of re-intermediation. The intermediary used is a variety of software and virtual communities developed through Internet technology and mobile information technology, which can realize the exchange of resources under the network environment. For example, the P2P network lending platform, taxi software mobile client, and network short-rent platform have become the new intermediary platforms for the sharing economy. The parties to the transaction can even achieve zero-cost and timeless transactions under this new information technology platform. (2) Sharing economy means that the use rights will get more attention than ownership. Sharing economy is a change of concept from property rights to sharing. Under the sharing economy model, “occupy” is no longer the standard for measuring value. People pay more attention to the use of resources, and what people need is not the product itself, but the value of using the product. This sharing of use-value enables the full use of resources and more rational allocation than the traditional model of resource possession. It effectively solves the problem of waste of resources and emphasizes the notion of “not to own, but to use”. One of the characteristics of the sharing economy is the temporary transfer of the right to use the resources. The “temporary transfer” here refers to the fact that the right to use the resources obtained by the trading participants on the sharing platform is temporary. The demanders obtain the goods or services through the sharing platform. Short-term use rights do not occupy these resources or services. After the use is over, they need to be returned to the owner (Huang, 2016). (3) The resources shared in the sharing economy model are massive and extensive. The development of the sharing economy stems from the excess capacity of the

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entire society. This sharing can obtain the necessary resources at a much lower cost than buying new raw materials. It can also help the owners of the resources obtain additional benefits. Therefore, at the beginning of the sharing economy, the academic community defined it as the shared use and rational distribution of idle resources. In fact, with the exception of idle resources, all resources that can generate more than the value generated by their own applications can be shared, even those which are used. Owners of resources can share the resources that they cannot efficiently use to maximize the value of resources. They can also share the resources that can be used efficiently with other consumers and exchange more benefits from the users. The resources explained in the definition given in this book are resources such as information, knowledge, intelligence, and production materials. This shows that the forms of shared resources are diverse. Such resources include physical resources such as automobiles and equipment as well as intangible resources such as knowledge, technology and space, what’s more, the sharing of funds and the sharing of services. (4) The sharing economy emphasizes the unrestricted participation of participants, that is “everyone participates” model. The sharing economy platform is for the general public. Whether it is the government, enterprises, social groups, or ordinary individuals, it can become the supply and demand side of the sharing economy model. The shared-for-everyone model makes the transactions on the sharing platform more user-friendly. Participants can obtain products and quality that are consistent with their own needs. At the same time, they can also harvest personalized special services. Such an equitable and unbounded multi-platform can, on the one hand, provide a more extensive source of resources for resource demanders and more resource users for resource owners. On the other hand, the public participation platform is conducive to enhancing the transparency of information, thereby raising the level of social supervision, lowering regulatory costs, and standardizing platform trading. (5) The result of sharing economy is that traders can realize real-time transactions at low cost or even zero cost. As mentioned in Chap. 4, the sharing economy practices a zero-marginal-cost model. People use the Internet platform to realize the reproduction, dissemination, and sharing of various resources through low-cost or even zero-cost, reduce the barriers to resource acquisition caused by high costs under the traditional economic model, contribute to the realization of a zero-marginalcost society, and ultimately benefit all participating parties. The so-called real-time transaction means that the sharing economy model reduces the time and cost of the transactions between the two parties. Under the traditional economic model, there will be some time delays between resource demanders publicizing their needs and actual demand satisfaction. This kind of delay is often caused by factors such as the unobstructed distribution of news channels and the spatial disparity in the distribution of resources. Under the sharing economy model, resource providers break through the time and space constraints, concentrate resources on a sharing platform that can be contacted by a large number of consumers, and overcome problems such as the inaccessibility of information dissemination and uneven distribution of resources. The problem of time delays satisfies the requirements for real-time trading between the parties.

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5.2 Research Areas of Sharing Economy The economic field in which the sharing economy phenomenon exists is extensive. Therefore, starting from the sharing economy phenomenon, the study of sharing economics involves the study of the specific research category of the sharing economy. This section discusses the research scope of sharing economy. Before understanding the scope of the study of sharing economy, we must first systematically understand the economic areas in which sharing economy phenomena are present. In the era of mobile Internet, the practice of sharing resources has been increasingly sought after by people, gradually changing the way people live. Therefore, the sharing economy has a very large area of influence, ranging from material exchanges between individuals as well as between enterprises. In other words, the sharing economy has a wide range of impacts in today’s economic society. Power has applications in various economic fields. At present, the areas sharing economy influences are mainly reflected shown in Fig. 5.3.

Fig. 5.3 Nine areas of the penetration of the sharing economy. Source Ni and Yu (2015)

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From Fig. 5.3, it can be seen that the sharing economy affects all aspects of people’s lives. Involving clothing, food, housing, transportation, knowledge, resources, and funds all infiltrate the shadow of the sharing economy. Since its rise, the sharing economy has grown rapidly and has been fully developed. The scope of its influence has also attracted the attention of the academic community. However, from the perspective of the development of the concept of sharing economy in academic circles, few scholars begin to explain the scope of their research by sharing the discipline of economics. Most scholars, however, summarize the impact areas of sharing economy. For example, Botsman and Rogers (2011) divided the economy into four categories: online housing platform, vehicle leasing platform, online old product exchange platform, and online task subcontracting and product production platform according to the transaction method or platform (Zhang et al., 2016). Yang (2016) divided the economy into four main types depending on the main parties involved in the economy, they are business-to-business, business-to-individual, individual-to-business, and individual-to-individual. Whether categorizing according to a sharing platform or categorizing the nature of the participants, or categorizing from the perspective of sharing content, what is obtained is the scope in which the sharing economy can have a specific role. So there is a certain difference with what we usually emphasize. Therefore, we need to find out the similarities between various types from the concrete to the general, and then sort out the similarities between various types, so as to see the essence of the phenomenon and obtain the concept of sharing economy research category.

5.2.1 Meaning of Categories First of all, let’s understand the concept of categories. Philosophy interprets categories as the most general concepts. These concepts reflect the basic nature and regularity of objective reality phenomena, and stipulate the characteristics of scientific theoretical thinking in a certain era. Categories are the basic concepts that reflect the nature of things and the general connection. In philosophy, the category concept is used in the broadest category of all existences, such as time, space, quantity, relationship and so on. In taxonomy, categories are the collective names of the highest levels of classes. Therefore, the research category of sharing economics can be understood as the scope of economic and commercial activities covered by sharing economy, that is, which economic activities are currently part of the scope of sharing economics research. The division of sharing economics research category in this chapter is using the validity of the shared objects studied by sharing economics as a criterion to determine the research scope of sharing economy based on summarizing scholars’ classification of sharing economic activities. In the discussion on the concept of sharing economy, it has been pointed out that the current academic research on the sharing economy is mainly due to the description of sharing instances, and most of the definitions limit the shared resources to idle resources, but is the sharing economy confined to the sharing and utilization of idle

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resources? Is it possible to share resources that can generate more than their own value? These issues require us to continue discussions. In fact, the sharing economy shares more than idle resources, including inefficient and high-quality resources owned by resource owners, which can be shared by different users through resource provision and resource acquisition. The Tsingtao Brewery, a classic case of the manufacturing industry, explores shared resource sharing in sharing economy. Tsingtao Brewery’s practice of sharing economy is achieved by sharing its formula. The Tsingtao beer we drink today can be said to be the product of several manufacturers sharing resources. Tsingtao breweries are responsible for providing the right to use formulas. Manufacturers specializing in the production of bottle caps and glass bottles are responsible for providing beer containers. At the same time, Tsingtao Brewery can also obtain the plant, equipment, talent, capital, brand, land and other resources by providing its own formula. This sharing of intangible assets and products enables the acquisition of other needed resources at almost zero marginal cost. Judging from this sharing process, Tsingtao Brewery obtains other resources it needs by sharing the right to use the formula. Its ownership of formula use rights belongs to a kind of high-quality patent intangible assets. Through this sharing of quality resources, Tsingtao Brewery can obtain high-quality resources owned by other companies at low cost, realize the spread of high-quality resources across the entire industry chain, and realize the integration of the production capacity of the whole industry chain. The use-value of beer bottle caps, beer bottles and other products and resources obtained through the sharing of recipes exceeds the use-value of the formula itself to the enterprise. This type of sharing transaction can actually be seen as a co-production mode close to zero cost. Through this cooperation, the products produced by container manufacturers and breweries can achieve greater results than their own application values. Besides, China COMAC’s domestic production of C919 aircraft is a kind of sharing economy based on the industry chain. The C919 aircraft is a project finished by China COMAC cooperates and 16 companies, more than 200 companies and more than 30 universities participating in joint research and development. This sharing economic model based on industrial chain cooperation also adjusts the scope to idle resources and achieves the effect of “1 + 1 > 2” through the sharing of technologies, materials, human resources and components. Therefore, the concept of sharing economy should jump out of the limitations of idle resources. Inefficient resources that can generate new value exceed the value brought by using it alone can become the object of the sharing model. High-quality resources that can be efficiently used can also be shared and used by demanders to obtain a greater use-value. In summary, it means that all resources can be shared. Therefore, starting from the effectiveness of resources, we classify the impact of sharing economy based on the effectiveness of resources, that is, focusing on all resources including idle resources, inefficient resources, and high-quality resources. Next, we discuss the scope of sharing economics research from the validity of resources.

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5.2.2 Sharing of Idle Resources From the discussion of the concept of sharing economy, we can find that the academic understanding of the sharing economy is mostly concentrated in that sharing economy is the sharing of idle resources, emphasizes that by sharing idle resources, resource providers can obtain excess returns while achieving effective resource allocation. One of the backgrounds of the emergence of the sharing economy is the large excess of production capacity. Therefore, the development of the sharing economy begins with the use of idle resources. Thus, the division of sharing economics research in this book also focuses on the sharing of idle resources. The most common understanding of idle resources is something that cannot be used for any reason, including tangible and intangible resources. The phenomenon of excess capacity can explain the existence of idle resources. In sharing economy activity, different forms of shared objects can be classified according to the effectiveness of resources. Among them, the sharing of idle resources mainly includes the following three aspects: sharing of space, sharing idle products, and sharing funds. (1) The sharing of space is mainly the sharing of houses. It usually refers to using the Internet platform to focus on the distribution of idle housing resources on the market, to facilitate the sharing and transmission of information. Housing sharing shares idle housing resources. Owners who have idle housing resources provide resources to people who need space, thereby realizing the reuse of idle resources. The sharing of idle space can be achieved through O2O (online to offline) mode. This mode is mainly used for the sharing of idle office space, that is, timely booking and using office space around. This kind of idle space sharing mode is essentially a combination of offline business opportunities and the Internet. The offline transaction platform is transformed from an intermediary organization under the traditional economy to an Internet platform, thus, new technology is used to achieve barrierfree information transfer and commercial activity that achieves space rental with high efficiency and no time lag. The sharing of idle houses can also be achieved through the B2C model. This type of idle housing is controlled by the platform, unified decoration, and unified management. Rent income is divided by the platform and the landlord according to a certain percentage. For example, HomeAway and Tujia in china are also space sharing. However, the space resources under this model are mostly from real estate developers and can be managed in a unified way. For example, Tujia will use its subsidiary Sweideng Hotel Apartment as the main listings or adopt a method of bulk contracting with real estate companies, which is more convenient for their own management and government supervision. Also, renting a whole set of properties at one time can improve the security and privacy issues of the C2C model. However, due to the high maintenance cost and the emphasis on the quality of service provision, the sharing cost of idle resources under this model is relatively high. Another mode of sharing idle space is the C2C mode. This type of idle housing includes ordinary apartments, specialty hotels, holiday villas and other personalized

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short-term accommodation products. It is a mode of realizing direct communication and transaction between the landlord and the tenant on the Internet platform. This model originated from the earliest practice of space sharing. The sharing of houses in foreign countries initially existed in the form of family hotels. Residents rented out the space that they do not need to live in or the free space of the house as a hotel, and later developed into the current C2C space sharing. In most cases, the houses are mainly houses of individuals in the city. The homeowners live with the tenants and share space. For example, Airbnb, which has a significant influence in the field of housing in foreign countries, and domestic piglets, which are increasingly popular in recent years, are short-term rentals. Airbnb mode space sharing is an organic combination product of mobile internet, short-term lease, and short-term use. It is a mode of housing resource sharing between hotels and general house leasing. Unlike the “standardized” homes provided by Tujia, Airbnb places greater emphasis on “personalized” housing, which is in response to the notion that the sharing economy is based on users’ experience. The space resources provided by Airbnb are mostly private residences, and it is common for landlords and tenants to share the same house. Therefore, it also has certain positive significance for satisfying the social needs of users and establishing a community of trust. The decentralized sharing model represented by the “Weshare I enjoy the vacation” platform can also achieve the sharing of idle space. This space sharing practice is a two-dimensional sharing model of “property sharing + live sharing”. On this platform, the developer divides each vacation home into 12 properties and has property rights sold out on a per-share basis. Each share of decentralization can be exchanged for 28 days one year. Buyers purchase shares with property rights according to their own needs. In the 28 days of each year, if they are not available, vacant vacation time can also be commissioned for rental, so as to achieve the sharing of idle space resources. From the above perspective of sharing space, this type of sharing can be divided into patterns for sharing idle resources. (2) Sharing of idle products. The sharing of idle products represents the sharing of idle entities. The development of sharing concepts can effectively improve the efficiency of the use of idle physical resources and achieve a more rational allocation of idle products. This type of sharing is mainly through the idle product owners publish idle information on the sharing platform and the demanders collect idle information, or the demanders publish their own needs, the product owner captures the matching information to achieve. This type of sharing involves transportation, retail and other industries. The practice of sharing in the field of transportation can be understood as the sharing of idle cars. The demanders can publish their information through mobile devices or networks, providers who can provide idle vehicle products can maximize the value of their own vehicles. We use Zipcar as an example to analyze the sharing economy’s sharing of idle products. Before the birth of Zipcar, Bostonians could only choose to go out for a taxi or buy a car themselves. Under such circumstances, on the one hand, the taxi fares are relatively expensive; on the other hand, the cost of latestage insurance, depreciation, and other costs for buying cars is high. The emergence

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of Zipcar reduces the cost of people going out to travel. People can reserve the nearest unused car through a sharing platform and can bring additional income to the car owner. The key to Zipcar’s success is that it only requires people to pay for what they need to pay, and it can bring more benefits to owners of idle vehicles. In other words, instead of letting 1000 city dwellers have 400 cars, it would be better to use Zipcar to make 1000 drivers who drive regularly use 30 cars to meet the needs of 1000 people. As a result, the vehicles registered under the Zipcar platform are used 60% of the time, while private cars are used only 5% of the day and the remaining 95% are idle. So, if most private cars are involved in such sharing, idle vehicle resources are bound to decrease, and people’s living costs will be reduced accordingly. With the development of Zipcar, Uber, Didi taxi, Easy Access Vehicle, and Shenzhou Special Vehicle are all practicing the concept of sharing idle vehicle products in the field of transportation. For the retail industry, the typical representative of product sharing is Rent the Runway. Rent the Runway satisfies the need for users to use special clothing only occasionally by renting clothing, avoiding the waste of this part of idle clothing resources and greatly facilitating people’s lives. It should be noted that this kind of clothing rental mode under the sharing mode is different from traditional clothing rental stores. Sharing enterprises like Rent the Runway adopt sharing economy platforms such as the Internet and mobile terminals, achieving low cost, high efficiency, almost no time-to-demand matching of supply and demand, improving the efficiency of idle product configuration. At the same time, the “idle fish” idle commodity trading platform that people are increasingly using nowadays is also a platform to share idle goods, allowing the goods to be utilized to the greatest extent and at the same time bring the additional income generated by the unused resources to the owners of idle resources. (3) The sharing of funds also belongs to the sharing of idle resources. Sharing finance is derived from people’s use of technology and products supported by big data to make full use of idle money on their rivals. By the sharing platform, investors who have idle funds can choose to invest their financial resources in projects that have a better prospect of development. In this way, on the one hand, they can obtain higher returns than ordinary storage; on the other hand, they can also use funds. Demands provide opportunities for development. Common fund sharing in P2P online lending and online crowdfunding. P2P online loan is a kind of point-to-point lending on the Internet platform. It uses the Internet platform to publish information for the borrowing parties and build a bridge for communication, thus facilitating the parties to reach a deal. Through this type of lending, the cost of using idle funds will be reduced, and the funding size and financing channels for fund demanders will be expanded. Network crowdfunding is also the exchange of unused funds resources through the Internet platform. Since then, the number of online crowdfunding platforms has grown to more than 100, and the number of participants has also increased. It can be seen that more and more people have recognized the advantages of network crowdfunding, and the use of idle funds in the context of the sharing economy is getting higher and higher.

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5.2.3 Sharing of Inefficient Resources The previous section described idle resources as the main objects of sharing economy, which is recognized by most scholars. In fact, all resources are shared under the sharing economy, including idle resources. Generally, our understanding of inefficient resources is assets that have poor profitability in the operation of the company and lack of strategic arrangements and cannot create value for the company. They mainly include long-term losses and equity investments that have failed to bring benefits, lack of control of equity investments, and physical assets such as houses, buildings, and equipment that are idle or have a low rental yield, which are invalid assets that the company deems necessary to clean up. But what we need to pay attention to is that inefficient resources are resources that are temporarily in an inefficient state, which makes inefficient resources being a form that is different from idle resources. In the state of idle resources, resources are not used, but in the state of inefficient resources, resources can be occupied, but this type of occupancy does not exert its maximum utility. Inefficient resources tend to be inefficient because they rely on inefficient platforms or no platforms at all. Idle resources can become an extreme type of inefficient resource. When inefficient resources cannot be distributed or used by a platform, resources are exposed and become idle resources. Therefore, we discuss the sharing of other inefficient resources after discussing the sharing of idle resources. From the perspective of the classification of the sharing economy above, the sharing of services, the sharing of knowledge and skills, and even the sharing of production capabilities can all be understood as the sharing of inefficient resources. Services, knowledge and skills exist as intangible assets and the value they can generate is immeasurable. The owner of this part of resources, while occupying resources, also plays a role in the use of resources through its own labor. Individuals or companies that possess knowledge and skills or special service skills can break the limits of their work areas and time, and pass their own skills to more demanders through the Internet platform, thereby increasing the use-value of the original resources, so that your own services, knowledge and skills can benefit more people. Take “Spring Rain Doctor” as an example to understand this example of inefficient use of inefficient resources. Today, the position of medical and health services in people’s lives is increasingly important. At the same time, the prevalence of medical care and expensive medical care in China are increasingly serious. Doctors with special skills can only provide services for patients with a limited number in a limited area during regular work hours, so the special skills they possess are actually inefficiently used. The establishment of the “Spring Rain Doctor” platform enables doctors to provide medical treatment solutions to patients in need through the Internet platform in their free time, thereby enabling their professional services to benefit more patients. Patients can obtain a doctor’s help more cost-effectively through this sharing platform, and doctors can also maximize the utilization of their professional skills. The sharing use of inefficient use of skills will create greater value for this part of the resource. In addition to the sharing of medical services, what we commonly call

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home-warehousing and courier sharing can achieve the reuse of professional service skills, so that inefficient use of resources can be turned into efficient resources. The sharing of knowledge and skills as a sharing of inefficient resources can be understood in conjunction with the industrial chain collaboration model of manufacturing. As mentioned above, “Tsingtao Brewery” obtained technical support from other companies by sharing its own formula. This kind of intangible assets can be used as “knowledge” owned by the company. Using it alone may lead to inefficient use of knowledge resources, that is, “occupy,” but the utilization rate is extremely low. The existence of sharing economy has enabled the re-use of such inefficient resources. The sharing of such inefficient resources has resulted in additional profits or other resources for the resource holders, resulting in mutually beneficial results. The sharing of knowledge resources by individuals can be achieved through “knowing”, “Baidu knows” and various types of applications. Individuals publish their knowledge of a problem on a sharing platform and share their ideas and opinions so that this inefficient resource can be learned by more people and promote the exchange of issues among people. The sharing of knowledge can, on the one hand, provide its own expertise to those who need it. On the other hand, the collision of this kind of knowledge realized through the sharing platform can easily inspire new ideas and thus develop numerous entrepreneurial groups and projects.

5.2.4 Sharing of Quality Resources Resources other than idle and inefficient resources can also be in the category of sharing economics research. The previous discussion discussed the sharing of idle and inefficient resources. Then the question arises. Is all the sharing concentrated on the “idle” and “inefficient” levels? In fact, the quality resources owned by the company can also be shared more efficiently by sharing with more subjects, thus becoming part of sharing economy. At present, the business collaboration and crowd-sourced production that the manufacturing industry achieves through the sharing platform can all be seen as the mutual benefit of the participants through the sharing use of quality resources. The manufacturing industry achieves integration in the industry chain through a sharing economy platform. This type of business collaboration is different from cooperative production under the traditional economic model. The root of the difference lies in the development and use of the sharing economy platform. The sharing economy platform reduces the production cost and time cost of traditional cooperative production. The use of the platform changes the one-to-one model of traditional production and adopts a multi-to-multi-mode implementation—the optimization of the production process and the improvement of production quality. Take Alibaba’s Amoy factory as an example to understand how to achieve efficient resource sharing under collaborative production mode and crowdsourced production mode. The Amoy Factory Sharing Platform provides production services for sellers on Taobao. Through this platform, different manufacturers can share their

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productive use of productivity in the entire industry chain, that is, realize the integration of production capabilities at different stages of production while sharing quality. Resource manufacturers have also obtained other resources that they lack. The quality resources owned by these manufacturers exert greater value through the integration of production in the industrial chain, achieving a synergy effect of “1 + 1 > 2”. Moreover, the advantage of the sharing platform is that the candidate for participating in production is not the only one. That is, sharing is a many-to-many model. In this mode, the optimal integration of production capacity can be achieved and the ideal industrial cooperation effect can be achieved. On the one hand, the sharing of quality resources can achieve more efficient use of resources; on the other hand, it can also help resource providers to obtain more other resources at low cost or even at zero cost, thereby better enriching the connotation of the sharing economy. It means that the sphere of influence of the sharing economy is not limited. All resources, including idle resources, inefficient resources, and even quality resources, can be shared on a sharing economy platform. In general, this book breaks through the limitations of the existing specific classification of the sharing economy and will continue to summarize the classification. Firstly, the idle resources that the academic community focuses on are shared as part of the sharing economy. Then, all resources, including idle resources, can be shared, which reflects the idea that all the resources highlighted in this book can be shared. The sharing economy can realize the sharing of all resources and all factors, which implies the goal and essence of the sharing economy to break resource constraints and improve resource allocation efficiency. Therefore, based on this, Chap. 6 begins to explain the goals and nature of the sharing economy.

Chapter 6

The Goal and Essence of Sharing Economy

Extensive and closed traditional economies are constrained by resources and the environment. There are a series of problems in the market configuration such as single entity, limited resources, asymmetric information, high costs, and low efficiency, all of these are no longer suitable for the requirements of diversification, individualization and differentiation of subjects. How to break the shackles of resources and environment, improve the efficiency of resource utilization, and realize the optimal allocation of social resources have become the focus of the whole society. With the rapid development of modern information and communication technologies and network technologies, sharing economy, as a new economic form, gradually presents alternative relationships, supplementary relationships, and even competitive relationships with traditional economies. From the perspective of macroeconomics, the sharing economy plays an important role in promoting the adaptability of participants, breaking through resource constraints, reducing information asymmetries and transaction costs, increasing resource allocation efficiency, and promoting efficient economic growth. In view of the rapid development of the sharing economy, the debates on its goals and nature are diverse, and the theoretical circle has not formed a consensus or reached a unified conclusion. What are the goals and essence of the sharing economy? This is a definite issue to be discussed. This chapter summarizes and summarizes it, further clarifying the goal and essence of the sharing economy, to provide sufficient theoretical support for the development of the sharing economy.

6.1 The Goal of Sharing Economy As a sharing economy that has a tremendous impact on traditional economic conditions, it is a new economy that is catalyzed by Internet technology and formed spontaneously by the people. It is a brand-new market exchange economy, and it is a way to make the best use of the economy and save social resources. It is born out but is essentially different from the traditional economic form and has its own unique goals. © Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_6

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Since the economic, social, and cultural environments in which a sharing economy is located are very different from traditional economies, their goals will also differ. It can be said that the goal of sharing economy is to continuously optimize, improve and develop on the basis of traditional economic objectives, which can be summed up into two categories: general objectives and core objectives.

6.1.1 The General Goal of Sharing Economy The general goal of the sharing economy is to increase the adaptability of participating entities, generate multiplier effects, and breakthrough resource constraints, to reduce the asymmetry of information and achieve cooperation surpluses and destructive innovation to ensure “sustainable” growth. Fundamentally, it made up for the inadequacies of the traditional economy. At the same time, it also supplemented its unique target characteristics and injected fresh vitality into the development of the sharing economy. Specifically, its general goals are mainly reflected in the following six aspects: 1.

Improve the adaptability of participants

The participant is the bearer of all activities, the most dynamic factor in the participation process, and the key to the success of the transaction. Different participants have different levels of information quality, thinking, knowledge, and intelligence, thus solving various problems from multiple perspectives and in multiple fields. The participants in the traditional economy are single, and the transactions are limited to the subjects that have interest relationships. The resources are limited to exchanges and transactions within a limited range of acquaintances, with features such as minority, personalization, duplication, and informality. It determines the limited nature of resources and inhibits the improvement of configuration efficiency. Under the sharing economy, the categories of participants have been continuously extended and expanded, which has improved their adaptability. Not only companies from different industries, types, and scales can participate in it, entrepreneurs, experts, teachers, military personnel, homemakers and other individuals from all walks of life can share or seek their resources in the sharing economy. In the sharing economy, all people can participate in sharing and are not bound by age, education, region, and background. They not only cover natural persons in the legal sense but also include minors and some people without legal capacity. As long as they can provide knowledge, intelligence or ideas for a shared activity, they can all be the participants in the sharing economy. Individuals are no longer just demanders of shared resources and production materials. They can also participate in them, share their resources and ideas, and become creators of new products and services. At the same time, the boundaries between traditional businesses and consumers are also weakening. This kind of centralized group wisdom and mass participation can quickly lock down the trading objects and achieve efficient matching of resources. As the main actors embedded in the social network, there are rich and diverse social relationships

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among the participating entities. This relationship is a broad and specific process of social interaction rather than a pure market transaction process. The majority of participants are brought together on the Internet-based sharing platform. There is no normative contract or binding ties, and strangers can easily and efficiently share resources. The flexibility of participation is large, and the matching of resources is high. Therefore, the sharing economy aims to improve the relationship between strangers, make non-personalized transactions into achievable transactions, leapfrogs the relationship between people, and truly promotes and realizes mutual trust and nonpersonal relationships among strangers. The interchange has greatly improved the adaptability of the participants. Due to the expansion of the participants’ adaptability, many participating entities are brought together on a shared platform. The supply and demand scale can be increased, thereby making resources more abundant and demands more diversified, thereby expanding the scale and more easily generating a multiplier effect. 2.

Breakthrough resource constraints

Social development, technological innovation, and enterprise growth cannot be separated from resources, but they all require massive and abundant resources as support. Similarly, it is difficult to conduct effective activities and transactions without sustained and adequate resource support. The traditional economy has focused its resources on the organization, has shortages of resources and talents, and has lagging knowledge and technology. It is unable to gather the massive information resources of the Internet, and it is increasingly challenging to meet the ever-increasing demands for diversification, individuation, and popularity. Only by acquiring richer and more involved information resources can participants gain more valuable opportunities, and the efficiency of transactions can be improved. Sharing is the socio-economic behavior that humanity will inevitably produce when it deals with resource constraints and strengthens social connections. For the economies of scale, the sharing economy, with the aid of highly developed Internet technologies, has effectively increased the efficiency of matching information and resources, supply and demand, formed the scale effect of people and resources and realized the doubling of resources. Judging from the attitude toward resources, the sharing economy pursues innovation by integrating and opening up resources, and adopts an attitude of accumulating competitive resources and controlling resources to maintain a competitive advantage in the traditional economy. It is different from the control of information acquisition and surplus resources. The acquisition of cooperation surplus is no longer subject to authority. Judging from the use of resources, the sharing economy pays more attention to the use rights of resources rather than ownership. Through the use of rent-buying, the resources are reused for many times or even indefinitely, thus relieving it to a certain extent and degree eased the scarcity and nonreplication of resources. Judging from the use of resources, the sharing economy can break the shackles of organizational boundaries to the maximum extent, fully exploit the borderless nature of the Internet, and overcome the constraints of physical space, limitations, and time in the traditional economy, so that the vast and abundant information resources and production materials enter the sharing platform for sharing and

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transactions. In short, the sharing economy makes full use of the advantages of the Internet and brings together omnidirectional, all-temporal, massive all-encompassing resources on the sharing platform, making it possible to obtain resources from the network or contribute to the sharing platform without limitations of space, time, and scope. It has facilitated the proliferation of information, knowledge, intelligence, thinking, technology, and production materials, and has broken through the constraints of resources. 3.

Reduce information asymmetry

Information economics believes that information asymmetry is one of the major factors that result in low efficiency of resource allocation. Information asymmetry leads to imbalances in the interests of both parties in the market transaction, increases market transaction costs, and then affects the efficiency of the allocation of market resources. Under the traditional economy, because of the uncertainty of the environment and the opportunism generated by self-interested behavior, both parties of the transaction hold different degrees of information, and there is a serious information asymmetry between them. The asymmetry of information between parties makes it difficult for the demanding party to comprehensively, deeply, objectively, and timely understand and obtain supply-side service quality, historical records, customer evaluations, and other information. Supply-side executives make the company stand out among many competitors and constantly introduce new ones. The risk of innovation faced by internal R&D personnel of the company also increases, resulting in asymmetrical information between internal R&D personnel and management. In addition, the risks of unacceptable innovation resources are relatively high. It is difficult for management to judge the market prospects and revenue cycles that innovation and R&D can bring to the company, including the difficulty of the R&D personnel to estimate future earnings and risks accurately. Finally, the demand sides do not know each other and cannot learn from others’ trading experiences and feelings. The asymmetry of information is further increased. The sharing economy has changed this situation, relying on modern information and communication technologies and network technologies, shortening the process of information screening and information transfer, and it is easy to form social groups. Its main manifestation is community-based. Through community discussion, internal information is fully tapped, which can significantly reduce asymmetric information among participating parties, promote smooth sharing of information resources and production materials, and greatly reduce transaction costs and agency costs in the sharing process. This will increase the efficiency of market allocation of resources. The supply and demand parties present the records and comments of past consumers and service providers to new market participants by actively expressing information and information transmission mechanisms, satisfying the specific needs of both parties, and providing information as far as possible for both parties. To a greater extent, the asymmetry problem avoids unequal transactions, improves the quality of transactions, and achieves both Pareto improvements. The supplier can also seek the help of technology, knowledge, and intelligence through the sharing platform. It also stimulates the internal R&D personnel while receiving external assistance to correctly

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analyze the future development trend of the organization, realize the strategic grasp of reality and the future, and reduce the dual information asymmetry of corporate executives’ R&D personnel, reality and future. Also, the sharing economy enables many strangers to meet each other, form communities, discuss common topics, and enhance mutual trust by sharing pleasure, meaning, experience, feelings, evaluation, etc., effectively reducing information asymmetries between demanders. 4.

Realize cooperation surplus

The so-called surplus of cooperation refers to the more utility value obtained by the participating parties under cooperation than in the closed traditional economy. In the traditional economy, people can only use limited resources to trade within a specific range, and the surplus of cooperation obtained is limited. In short, the cooperative transaction of the traditional economy is only the practical application of the “1 + 1 = 2” equation, and it does not create collective value. The emergence of the Internet provides a shared platform that can transcend time and space for the participants’ transactions. This shared platform can connect any participant in any access network, and the scope of sharing becomes even more significant. Through each sharing, participating parties have obtained cooperation surpluses from them. Therefore, the sharing economy can be described as a new type of economic organization mode in which the participating parties use the third-party sharing platform of the network to convert private resources into public resources and take full advantage of the cooperation mechanism to achieve cooperation surplus, as shown in Fig. 6.1.

Fig. 6.1 Cooperative surplus of sharing economy

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(1) The remaining cooperation comes from the cooperation mechanism that can fully accommodate the multiple value needs of all participants. In the closed traditional economy, the only value measurement between supply and demand is the economic benefit. The participants’ social value and environmental value demand are completely obliterated. On the contrary, under the sharing economy, the supplier only needs to publish its resources or production materials on the shared platform, use the Internet technology to match with its corresponding needs quickly, and complete the transaction with little or no cost. This process not only omits high sales costs but also reduces management costs for resources and production materials. It also creates a good brand image while reducing supply costs and gaining additional revenues. Correspondingly, the demand side can find the supply side that satisfies their own needs on the shared platform without any effort and deal directly with the supply side to meet the personalized demand, social experience, and enjoyment with lower costs. Also, the sharing platform can get service fees, improve the rankings and visibility, and the cooperation costs are compressed to a very low level by convenient Internet services. Different participants’ different needs for economic, social, and environmental values can be effectively met. Undoubtedly, the satisfaction of social values and the satisfaction of environmental values obtained by the participating parties have become an important part of the cooperation surplus. (2) The remaining cooperation from the cooperation mechanism can increase the cognitive ability to participate in parties and stimulate their value creation potential. In a closed traditional economy, participants often cannot make decisions from a longer and broader perspective, and often find it difficult to see better solutions under more symmetrical information, broader values and more comprehensive cooperation conditions. At the same time, closed traditional market transaction relationships also make it difficult for participating parties to realize their potential for creating multiple values fully, and there may be a large surplus of knowledge, information, and resources they possess. On the contrary, under the sharing economy, the decision-making rationality of participating parties has been effectively promoted, and program selection can be carried out from a broader perspective of value, thereby creating greater economic, social, and environmental values. Also, its potential to create a multi-valued environment for sharing has been fully exploited to maximize the use of the knowledge, information, and resources to create economic, social, and environmental values. The extra value created by better decisions and the potential of participating parties to play the multiple values created by them become an important source of surplus cooperation. (3) The surplus of cooperation comes from the complementary advantages of participating parties in the process of sharing transactions. Under the closed traditional economy, the advantages of both supply and demand sides in creating different values cannot complement each other at all. In particular, stakeholders who have the advantages of creating environmental value and the advantages of social value creation can hardly exert their specific advantages and value creation effects. On the contrary, under the sharing economy, the advantages of knowledge, information, and resources used by different parties to create different values can be complemented to create multiple values that cannot be created under the closed traditional

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economy, this means that the multi-value created by the complementary advantages of participating parties is an organic part of the remaining cooperation. (4) The remaining cooperation from the cooperation mechanism can stimulate more innovation. The open, all-around, full-time, and full-staff participation process is a process of learning among the participating entities. It is a process in which explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge continue to spread, and it also integrates different knowledge and promotes the knowledge creation process. Therefore, in a relatively closed traditional economy, participants in the process of cooperation are more likely to stimulate innovation potential and create greater diversity. Moreover, many innovative behaviors can only become a reality through the participating entities’ sharing and cooperation, and they cannot be realized under the “single-force” environment of the closed traditional economy. It can thus be seen that the multiple values created by more innovations are another important source of cooperation surplus. In summary, the surplus of cooperation brought about by the sharing economy increases with the increase of sharing frequency and the expansion of sharing scope. More and more cooperation surpluses undoubtedly motivate more and more principals to participate in the sharing economy, thereby inspiring more surpluses of cooperation, thereby forming a virtuous circle. It can be said that the purpose of cooperative participation by participating parties is to obtain surplus cooperation, and the fundamental driving force for people to participate in sharing is to obtain shared cooperation surplus. 5.

Realize destructive innovation

Participants in the traditional economy always adhere to the factors that made them profitable in the past, over-protect their resources, and kept their minds conservative. It is challenging to make breakthrough innovations and it becomes the biggest obstacle to their advancing with the times. The famous American economist Schumpeter (1934) proposed that only by continuous technological innovation and transformation, from the internal innovation of the economic structure that will continue to destroy the old, create a new economic organization structure, can we achieve “industry mutation” ultimately changes the temporal and spatial state of human survival. The development of the sharing economy has precisely achieved this lethal “breaking innovation”. Rifkin (2014) believes that the sharing economy model has endogenous advantages over traditional economic models. Participating parties spontaneously and autonomously interact with each other, moving from a single linear game to multiple dynamic games. Globally, manufacturers and distributors can collaborate at low cost or even free of charge in social sharing and provide resources directly to end customers. Or the means of production have played down the organizational boundaries in the traditional economy, breaking the original workers’ reliance on the organization, liberating them from the shackles of the boundary, and having the potential to destroy traditional economies on a large scale. Under the traditional economy, the business model of “laborer-enterprise-consumer” (as shown in Fig. 6.2) is gradually replaced by the shared model of “worker-shared platform-consumer” (as shown in Fig. 6.3). Eventually, “destructive innovation” was formed and the Nash

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Fig. 6.2 Trading patterns under the traditional economy

Fig. 6.3 Trading pattern under the sharing economy

equilibrium when the new economic formation was reached. Through destructive innovations in the model, the traditional economy, which is supervised by long-term protection and inefficient and under-supply, will be impacted to increase consumer welfare. Destructive innovation with “disintermediation” through the direct supply of end-users with shared resources or means of production can in many economic sectors reduce the already bleak profit margins. It is precisely because of the “disruptive innovation” of the sharing economy that the emergence of third-party innovation platforms such as analysis.net has attracted a large number of seekers (users who need to solve innovative problems) to issue challenges, even including strong internal R&D capabilities. The institutions are made up of global solvers (users who answer questions). Seekers publish innovative questions on analysis.net. Solvers solve it worldwide. Human resources are widely distributed, and qualitative changes are caused by quantitative changes to solve the solidification and conformity of the research methods and thinking patterns of researchers who have long been engaged in the industry. It can inject new ideas, new methods, and realize the diversification of utility. This use of group intelligence for “destructive” innovation is not only a useful complement to traditional internal R&D but also a new type of sharing innovation model. 6.

Achieve “sustainable” growth

Under the traditional economy, private ownership leads to idle resources, inefficient use, and constraints on resources and the environment. The proliferation of consumerism leads to over-consumption at the expense of the survival and development of future generations. The whole society is immersed in “irrational excitement”: excessive emphasis on exclusive rights and ownership, unrestrained access to resources from nature, unrestricted low levels consume and waste the limited social resources that humanity depends on. People pay a heavy price for the environment and resources for economic growth, and gradually exceed the positive income

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from economic growth. The benefits of economic growth are also increasingly being the accompanying negative effects that offset the so-called “unsustainable” growth, which causes the entire society to fall into the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” where selfdevelopment is hindered and society’s overall welfare is reduced. Under the background of “Internet+ ,” how to solve the dilemma faced by human society, change the old thinking of economic growth in the “only quantity theory,” change the economic paradigm, and achieve economic “sustainable” growth are major propositions that we must prudently consider. On the contrary, the spirit of sharing, cognitive surplus and social integrity of the sharing economy are quite different from the prevailing consumerism, excessive individual competition and weak sense of social trust in the traditional economy. Sharing economy is a new driving force and engine to promote economic growth towards green, ecological and sustainable development. By mobilizing idle resources, inefficient resources and even high-quality resources, the sharing economy enters the tradable scope, and makes use of its replicable characteristics to make the increasingly public massive resources for the repeated use of other members of society, “unsustainable” growth begins to become “sustainable”; with the help of Internet technology, the “series” of suppliers and demanders form a sharing network structure further to enhance the efficiency of the use of existing resources and to achieve the improvement of individual welfare and the sustainable development of society as a whole, to achieve intra-generational and inter-generational fairness of consumption (Kejiang, 2013). With the development of circular economy and economic economy, the sharing economy has changed people’s consumption concept, from a lifetime possession of consumption to the full use of goods. Based on not consuming resources, through the sharing of resources or means of production, we can change the excess capacity, reduce the waste of resources, increase effective demand and achieve more “sustainable” economic growth, thus improving the utilization of resources efficiency, which is undoubtedly in line with the requirements of “improving the quality and efficiency of development” under the background of the new normal economic development in China.

6.1.2 The Core Goal of Sharing Economy—Improve the Efficiency of Resource Allocation As mentioned above, the development of sharing economy can help improve the adaptability of innovative entities, breakthrough resource constraints, reduce information asymmetry, achieve surplus cooperation, breakthrough innovation, and form a “sustainable” growth. However, these are not the core goals of the sharing economy, but only serve as shallow targets. So what is the ultimate goal of the sharing economy? We believe that the core goal of the sharing economy is to increase the efficiency of resource allocation based on the above general goals. Based on improving the efficiency of allocation, the optimization of resource allocation can be achieved to

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maximize the creation of social wealth and welfare, thereby achieving “sustainable” growth. This is the ultimate goal and eternal theme of the sharing economy. 1.

Improve resource allocation efficiency

In the traditional economy, resources are limited, but the idle, wasteful and inefficient use of resources is widespread, resulting in low resource allocation efficiency. In the current situation of uneven production capacity in China, the development of a sharing economy is not only conducive to the digestion of excess production capacity, but also helps to make up for the lack of production capacity, optimize the production, distribution and consumption structure, in order to increase the efficiency of resource allocation and reduce the total supply and the gap between supply and demand. The sharing economy is the rapid integration, accurate deployment and full use of those mentioned above massive and decentralized resources and production materials. Through the sharing of resource use rights, the utilization rate of resources is increased, and the allocation rate of resources is optimized to maximize its utility. To meet the ever-increasing diversity, rationalization, and individualized needs and realize “rich” in scarcity, this is the core goal of the sharing economy. The uniqueness of resource allocation in the sharing economy lies in the fact that the supply and demand parties directly publish and match resources on the Internet in the form of transfer of use rights, and direct online contacts and transactions. From the sharing platform, the sharing economy platform combines precise matching and linking of resources and production data, such as location sharing and application of big data algorithms, and realizes transactions from “one to one” to “many to many”, improving the success rate of transactions. It satisfies mutual assistance and mutual benefit between the supply and demand sides, thereby improving the efficiency of resource allocation. Judging from the form of the sharing economy, the emphasis is on “use of ownership” and “useless, that is, waste”. Through the way of rent-buying and buying, resources are reused and reused for many times or even indefinitely, thus alleviating scarcity and irreproducibility of resources. In a certain extent and degree, it improves the efficiency of resource utilization. Compared to the traditional economy, the sharing economy is based on technological innovations such as the mobile Internet, cloud computing, and social networking. It focuses on the mobilization, decentralization, and sharing of resources. It breaks through the constraints of space, time, area, and can significantly increase resource allocation efficiency. The downward trend in production efficiency is an important approach to service-oriented and innovative economic development. 2.

Optimize resource configuration

When the right to use private resources or means of production no longer brings additional value to the owner, the owner can obtain additional value by sharing the right to use them. At this time, private resources can be transformed into public resources to a certain extent, which has the characteristics of public resources— non-competitiveness, that is, the marginal cost of adding an additional owner (the supplier of the sharing economy) is zero or tends to zero. Sharing economy is the use of resources or means of production with the characteristics of replication, through

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automated network technology, to achieve the public ownership of resources and means of production instead of privatization, the right to use is better than ownership, cooperation overwhelms competition. As a result, the near-zero marginal cost society has arrived. The marginal cost can be expressed as the total cost increase caused by each additional unit of resources or production data. This total cost includes fixed costs and variable costs. The fixed cost refers to the expenses that need to be paid for not sharing resources. It mainly includes machinery, equipment, network construction, and employee salaries. Since the marginal cost only refers to the increase in the total cost of the unit resources or the production materials, there is no need to consider the high fixed costs and only need to consider the variable costs. Variable costs vary due to differences in the provision of resources or production materials, including search costs, technology development costs, human resources costs, transaction costs, and production costs. With the increase in the number of resources, the unit variable cost has been significantly reduced, and the marginal cost has approached zero (as shown in Fig. 6.4), this allows massive resources to be pooled in a sharing platform, freed from resource constraints, and the acquisition of knowledge changes. It is more convenient and faster, and sufficient information resources can also provide guarantees for the high-speed and reasonable flow of capital. This “zero marginal cost” lays the foundation for the sharing of transactions. Besides, the zero marginal cost also helps to enhance innovation. On the one hand, under the impetus of “zero marginal cost”, organizational boundaries and industry boundaries are gradually blurred, and different participants can freely convert. On the other hand, in an age where information and energy are almost free, knowledge and information will flow without restrictions. Innovation will no longer be a minority patent. Collaborative innovation of all individuals will become a new driving force for development, and knowledge sharing will have group wisdom, and it will help integrate the massive resources for innovation. Under the support of Internet technology, more, cheaper and faster ways of acquiring knowledge and resources have greatly reduced the threshold of innovation, which has increased the efficiency of the allocation of social resources and created economic value. Fig. 6.4 Average cost curve of the sharing resources

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The best public welfare condition is that all products are sold at marginal cost. For any social system, resource extraction and configuration are the necessary conditions for its continued existence. The optimal allocation of social resources depends largely on the sharing platform. The role of bridges in the sharing platform can leverage the different characteristics of participants to actively mobilize the economic and social benefits of both supply and demand through the organization, integration, and matching of social resources, and give play to the advantages of the multisubjects of society to form a networked association and integration. The cooperation of resources creates the value of the platform, realizes the rational allocation of more social resources, and finally turns it into the greatest asset of the society. The sharing economy promotes the resources while also brings about the cooperation surplus by stimulating the participating entities to recognize that there are common interests (bases of cooperation) between them, such as mutual trust, complementary advantages, and joint creation (prerequisites for cooperation) and so on. The increase in social welfare and the increase in social benefits, maximization of the integrated economic and social, environmental value of the enterprises, and the maximization of resource utilization efficiency, so as to achieve the optimal allocation of social resources, maximize the creation of social welfare, and significantly increase the social wealth, this is the ultimate goal of the sharing economy. The effective combination of the new thinking of the sharing economy and the Internet technology can be used to allocate and optimize resources in a market-oriented manner, promote in-depth collaboration between people, and achieve an in-depth balance between supply and demand, thereby promoting social and economic “sustainable” growth. Compared with the traditional economy goals, the sharing economy goals are more inclusive and have the potential to turn all resources and production materials into sharable objects. Everyone can participate in them, make maximum use of social resources, and participate in exchanges. Consumption or production reduces the asymmetry of information, thus creates surplus cooperation, realizing destructive innovation and “sustainable” growth. As a result, resource allocation and the economic welfare of the entire society have been greatly improved. In practice, the sharing between participating parties is often based on a comprehensive consideration of the above goals, and the form, extent, and scope of sharing vary from different goals. However, despite its diverse goals, its core goal is only one: to achieve optimal allocation of social resources.

6.2 The Essence of Sharing Economy Corporate theory mainly includes transaction cost theory and principal-agent theory. Transaction cost theory is the core of the new institutional economics. It was proposed by the founder Coase (1937). The essence of the existence of the company lies in the reduction of transaction costs. The principal-agent theory is based on the existence of conflicts of interest and information asymmetry in modern enterprises, and studies how to reduce the agent’s agency costs effectively. As an economy sharing the same

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status as the traditional economy, the sharing economy weighs the interests of the participants and reduces the transaction costs and agency costs of the market. Under the sharing economy, through the self-matching of sharing platforms, the industry chain is compressed, and direct transactions between the two parties are realized, this can directly reduce the agency cost and further reduce the accumulative transfer of agency costs. As for the transaction forms of indirect transactions, due to the role of network supervision, the agent’s private profit-making behaviors infringing upon the directors are subject to supervision, and to a certain extent, it also effectively reduces the agency costs. The following focuses on the nature of reducing transaction costs.

6.2.1 The Essence is to Reduce Market Transaction Costs Institutional economics believes that when property rights are put into transactions or combined with property rights in other factors of production owned by others, in addition to exclusive costs, there will be coordination costs. When people use their respective property rights through contracting in the market, these costs are transaction costs. Once the contract is reached, transaction costs will be attributed to “precipitation costs”. The cost of sedimentation refers to the costs that have already occurred after the transaction could not be fully compensated through transfer or sales. Therefore, the cost of precipitation is often related to the initial transaction costs. Coase (1937), the representative of the new institutional economics, believes that transaction costs are the cost of obtaining accurate market information, as well as the costs of negotiation and recurring contracts. In other words, transaction costs consist of information search costs, negotiation costs, contracting costs, supervisory compliance costs, and possible costs of dealing with breaches. Williamson (1985), based on Coase’s understanding of transaction costs, further extends transaction costs to ex-ante and ex-post costs: ex-ante transaction costs include costs such as negotiations, contracts, and guarantee contracts; ex-post costs include adaptive costs (The contracting parties cannot cope with the costs caused by the contract), construction and operation costs, constraint costs, etc. In short, transaction costs refer to all the direct or indirect costs that participating parties need to pay for a transaction, including all the costs involved in information collection, negotiation, implementation, supervision, and even default. The key to the emergence and spread of any new economic pattern in history is whether or not the transaction costs can be minimized through institutional or organizational innovation. Such as Coase’s major discovery in the past: the existence of the company is to save transaction costs, thereby reducing the cost of configuration resources. Therefore, such organizations can replace the market because the transaction costs in the market are too high, and the company itself can precisely reduce the market’s excessive transaction costs. The sharing economy is a new type of economy that replaces the traditional economy with high transaction costs, which can effectively reduce market transaction costs. Therefore, the essence of the sharing economy is to reduce market transaction costs.

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6.2.2 The Mechanism of Reducing Market Transaction Costs The low transaction costs lead to the mining and utilization of the settlement costs, which are embodied in the information costs and implementation costs. The cost of information is mainly reflected in the collection and search costs of information. The traditional economy mainly uses the integrated price system, management-level reports, command flow to search and gather information to allocate resources, while the sharing economy is used to open up the participants. The purposes mentioned above are achieved by allocating social relations, massive resources, and the allocation of means of production, without specifying the specific uses of the resources and limiting the ways or means of the participants’ actions. Execution costs mainly include relevant costs incurred during negotiation, implementation, supervision, and breach of contract. The traditional economy relied more on (but not limited to) formal coercive measures, and the social relations on which the sharing economy relied depended mainly on the sharing of platforms to informally implement social norms and reciprocity mechanisms to solve the implementation cost issue. If we record the information cost as CI, the execution cost as CE, and the total transaction cost as CT, then the relationship between them is CT = CE + CI (as shown in Fig. 6.5). The information cost (CI) and the implementation cost (CE) are in a reverse relationship, that is to say, the execution cost decreases with the increase of information cost while the information technology keeps a certain level. This relationship is obvious. With the increase of information cost expenditure in the process of transaction, more information between supply and demand can be obtained. The less energy and time spent by both sides in negotiation, execution and supervision, the lower the execution cost. Sharing economy is to get the optimal combination of information cost and execution cost, that is, minimum precipitation cost, through the following five aspects under the condition of highly developed information technology. 1.

The utility of resources reduces the information cost of transactions

Under the traditional economic resources with privatization and specificity, privatization of resources is difficult to translate into public natural resources, and most Fig. 6.5 Relationship between information costs, execution costs, and total transaction costs

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resources are not replication, cannot be replicated on a large scale, this feature is one of the important conditions of precipitation cost. Once the specific resources or production materials are withdrawn from the trading activity, the opportunity cost of reproduction is very small, which will result in the precipitation cost. And just sharing economy overcomes this defect, realize the information resources and production shift from private to public, focus on swarm intelligence on the depth of its use-value to mining, make it can copy on a large scale, and finally it can form a huge innovation resource pool. Priceonomics gave specific data that compared with traditional hotel prices that Airbnb’s choices could help homeowners save 21.2– 49.5% of their costs. The growth of the real situation and influence are analyzed in the study of Zervas, the calculation results show that a market supply, every 1% increase in the same market hotel overall income will reduce about 0.05%. It can be seen that the greater the degree of public use of resources, the lower the difficulty of information search, the lower the cost of collecting information resources, and the less the information cost of transactions. Based on Logistics aggregation on the basis of information flow and using group wisdom, the full opening of resources and means of production is realized on the sharing platform, which reduces the cost of information search in transactions, and enables both suppliers and demanders to have unlimited two-way options. 2.

Lower transaction risk reduces the execution cost of the transaction

In the closed traditional economy, due to the limitation of limited human rationality, people cannot fully predict in the face of unknown transactions, and they are vulnerable to opportunism. In addition, the source of information obtained by the supply and demand parties during the transaction process is blocked and there is no effective information. Communication makes both parties transactional information, and then through the contract and other ways to protect their interests. Therefore, along with uncertain negotiation, prevention and remedy activities, bargaining costs, negotiation costs, supervision costs continue to rise, transaction risks continue to increase, resulting in a significant increase in transaction costs, these factors will accelerate the generation of precipitation costs. The sharing economy can significantly reduce transaction risks and use the precipitation cost, which is embodied in the following three aspects: First, the precondition for sharing economy transactions is to independently use idle resources, inefficient resources, or even quality resources or production materials, which can be large fixed equipment, etc. Assets may also be small fixed assets such as household appliances. They may also be intangible assets such as news, knowledge, and intelligence. The scope of trading objects may increase, the democracy of transactions may increase, and the risk of transaction failure may decrease. Moreover, the demand side experiences, feedbacks, and evaluations have reduced the risk of unacceptable resources and production materials, thereby significantly reducing transaction bargaining and negotiation costs. Second, the sharing economy quickly and accurately matches the supply and demand sides on a voluntary and equal basis, improves the pertinence of transactions, and greatly reduces the negotiation costs of transactions. Finally, the reputation feedback mechanism, rating system, and mutual trust mechanism that are built on the sharing platform can, to a

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certain extent, reduce the information asymmetry of the supply sides, truly reflect the supply side’s credit and the quality of the provided resources, and effectively reduce supervision risks, which in turn reduces the supervision costs of the transaction. 3.

The increase in transaction frequency reduces the execution cost of the transaction

In the traditional economy, the higher the frequency of transactions, the higher the relative management costs and bargaining costs, and thus the higher cost of precipitation. The increase in the frequency of transactions allows companies to internalize the economic activities of the transaction and reduce the opportunities for external transactions, thereby saving the company’s transaction costs. The innovation of the sharing economy lies in the instantaneous of the right to use transaction. The increase in transaction frequency will increase the transaction cost of the supplier and reduce the execution cost of the transaction, so that the third party sharing trading platform will use the frequency of the use of the unit product. The frequency of usage of a unit of product is measured primarily by sharing the platform’s traffic (i.e., the amount of traffic on the shared platform). The execution cost of a transaction is negatively related to the frequency of transaction of a unit of a commodity. The higher the frequency of transaction of a unit of a commodity, the lower the execution cost of a transaction, as shown in Fig. 6.6. This is one of the reasons why Uber can grow rapidly based on daily travel purposes. The popularity, carry-on, and LBS capabilities of smartphones enable resources and production materials to be shared and traded on time and on-demand, increasing the frequency of sharing transactions, thereby significantly reducing transaction execution costs. 4.

The construction of the shared platform reduces transaction costs

In a traditional economy, the scale of an organization is limited by high construction cost, operation cost and maintenance cost. Organizations need to invest a large amount of fixed assets (Zhilai, 2016c). Its market value will suffer tangible and intangible loss, which is also a typical sedimentation cost (Tang, 2015). However, with the help of modern information and communication technology and network technology, the Internet sharing platform constructed by the sharing economy does not need to invest in fixed assets, and can expand almost indefinitely. Any new access platform can share its existing functions almost at zero cost. The cost of Fig. 6.6 Relationship between transaction frequency and transaction costs

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platform expansion is very small compared with the organizational cost of enterprise expansion. The construction of various information processing platforms will improve the accuracy of information processing, speed up production, effectively control costs, and provide better services to customers. Sharing platform realizes from plane to three-dimensional, from point to point to network, from “one-to-one” to “many-to-many”, from reality to virtual and reality integration, from offline to offline integration, and so on. It provides the possibility to reduce transaction costs by a large margin: Internet and interconnected mobile reduce the cost of searching and acquiring information resources and production materials; Scale effect includes potential transactions which were considered impossible in the past into the tradable category. These potential transactions could not occur because of the high transaction cost before the sharing platform came into being. More importantly, credit records based on big data strengthened the credit constraints of participants, solved the problems from personalized exchange to impersonal exchange, and made long-distance exchange possible. Stranger trading is possible, which eases the constraints of information asymmetry and further reduces the transaction execution costs. It can be said that the existence of sharing platform has become the best catalyst for the compatibility of sharing economy and social transactions. Sharing economy is to reduce the information cost and execution cost of transactions through the construction of sharing platform. 5.

Acceleration of matching programs reduces transaction costs

The traditional economic and business model involves suppliers, manufacturers, channel operators and other transaction subjects, many transaction subjects bring huge transaction costs, precipitation costs also increase. The value of a sharing economy is to create a match between the supplier who owns a resource and the demander who needs it at an acceptable transaction cost at a given time (Dervojeda et al., 2013). Sharing economy uses mobile devices, Internet payment and other technical means to share information resources and production materials. Through the sharing platform, the demand side and the supply side can be matched directly and effectively. Both sides can make dynamic pricing directly. Through matching transactions, the information asymmetry between participants can be reduced, thus the cost of each link of the transaction can be reduced and mutual benefit can be achieved. Minimizing the cost and maximizing the profit have obvious cost and price advantages. The matching procedure of the sharing economy subdivides the suppliers with similar characteristics according to the groups of demanders of resources and means of production, and goes deep into the core requirements and humanistic characteristics of demanders, carries out adaptive function development and brand positioning, pushes the most suitable resources and means of production to the most convenient demanders, realizes the optimal matching between suppliers and demanders, and after the transaction is completed, meets the demand and collect the feedback perfectly. According to a Cisco report, the cost savings and revenue generated by the Internet of Things will reach $14.4 trillion by 2020. In most major cities in the United States, apartment prices on Airbnb are on average 21% lower than Hotel

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Fig. 6.7 Cost-price chart of the sharing economy

prices. Compared with the transaction in traditional economy, the sharing economy greatly reduces the transaction cost of both supply and demand because of the direct matching transaction between supply and demand sides on the shared platform. This is reflected not only in the cost of money, but also in other implicit costs such as time cost, opportunity cost, sunk cost and so on. The principle and operation logic of the sharing economy can make the marginal cost very low or even infinitely close to zero, so the equilibrium price of resources and means of production in the sharing economy will be relatively low, which is determined by the structure of supply and demand, the cost of resources and means of production. The economies of scale and scope effects of the sharing platform greatly reduce the sharing cost, thereby reducing the sharing price, as shown in Fig. 6.7.

Chapter 7

Research Hypothesis of Sharing Economy

Any theoretical economics has its own basic premise and assumptions, as well as its own deductive process and reasoning logic (Zhang & Yan, 2009). Nowadays, scholars are paying more and more attention to the research theme of the sharing economy. Although there are more and more relevant research results, most of them still focus on case analysis and phenomenon summary, to systematically share the economy from the perspective of theory. It is necessary to explore the research hypothesis of sharing economy. As an inheritance and development of Marxist political economy and Western economies, sharing economy has its own research hypothesis and inheritance. By combing relevant literature and linking economic practices of the sharing economy, the book attempts to propose the following six hypotheses: human social hypothesis, human super rationality hypothesis, information non-equilibrium hypothesis, incomplete contract hypothesis, property separable hypothesis, and massive resources assumptions. By explaining relevant hypotheses, this chapter paves the way for the analysis of sharing economy in the following chapters.

7.1 Social Assumptions Traditional economics treats people as isolated individuals, and the decisions made by each are not affected by the decisions of others. Different from this, sharing economy believes that the relationship between people constitutes a huge network and regards people as individuals in social networks. In fact, this assumption can be seen from the early development of the Internet. For example, Baidu knows, post bars and Tianya and other website forums, users only need to register to post-life experiences or opinions on the corresponding platforms. On these network platforms, the formation of a huge social network between strangers makes it possible for participants to benefit. The innovation of this hypothesis is to incorporate the social

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network formed between people into the analysis of economics. It is a breakthrough in the traditional hypothesis. It is foreseeable that the social person hypothesis will continue with the continuous development of society.

7.1.1 “Economic Man” Hypothesis in Traditional Economics The economic man hypothesis is one of the basic assumptions of Western economics, and its connotation has also undergone a process of continuous development and improvement. The concept of an economic man can be traced back to Adam Smith, who wrote in the book “The Wealth of Nations”, published in 1776, that self-interest is the motivation for everyone to engage in economic activities. He believes that the self-interested nature of human beings does not necessarily conflict with social interests. On the contrary, through the invisible guidance of market competition, this self-interested nature can effectively promote the increase of social interests. Pareto sums up the behavioral characteristics of the economic man, that is, each economic unit acts to maximize their own interests and regards this as one of the premise assumptions for economic analysis (Zhu Fuqiang, 2009). John Stuart Mill, a famous British classicist economist, is a supporter of Bentham’s utilitarianism. His meaning about the hypothesis of economic man is elaborated in “Several Issues in Political Economy”. He believes that economic people are people who can calculate, be creative and get the most benefit (Xu & Zhang, 2004). Classical economists such as Ricardo, Malthus, and Say believe that self-interested behavior is the fundamental motivation for economic units to participate in economic activities. Thus, it uses the economic man hypothesis in the process of argumentation analysis of economic phenomena. Generally speaking, the characteristics of economic economics in classical economics can be summarized as the following three points: First, economic people are self-interested, and people engage in economic activities for their own interests. Second, the economic man is rational. People will make decisions through cost–benefit analysis to maximize their economic benefits. Third, in the good social order, the “invisible hand” can guarantee that the public interest of the society can still increase while everyone pursues their own interests. The assumption of the economic man has been controversial since the beginning of the proposal. The reason is that there is a difference between the behavior of the highly abstracted real life and the real people in economic activities. The economic man is always in economic activities. Assume that the behavior of maximizing economic benefits is selected, and real people will make differentiated decisions by various factors such as individual characteristics, family background and cultural environment. First, institutional economics criticizes this abstract hypothesis. In the view of institutionalist economists, economic interests are only one aspect of people’s pursuit of social life. Besides, security needs, social needs, respect for needs and self-fulfillment needs are also the needs that people need to meet. They believe that social and cultural environments have an impact on people’s behavioral choices. Individuals’ past social experiences, continuous learning abilities and outcomes,

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and interactions between individuals will make different individuals face even the same choices. Different decisions are made, and this does not depend solely on the intrinsic utility function of the individual. Therefore, institutional economists believe that people must be understood from the institutional environment, cultural environment and social norms related to individuals. New institutionalist economists, such as Gabriel Reis, believe that people should be “social people” and “organizers” rather than “economical people” through abstract assumptions. Therefore, economic life should be studied as a whole. Secondly, on the methodological level, the German historical school has questioned the individualist methodology. Bruno Hildebrand believes that the abstract “economic man” does not reflect all the characteristics of man. In fact, “people as a member of society are the products of civilized babies and history. The needs of human beings, the outlook on human life, the relationship between humans and material objects, and the relationship between him and others are not always the same. Geography affects them, history changes them, and advances in education can completely transform them.” In the new historical school, Jevons, Menger and others have further criticized the economic man, thinking that the abstracted economic man is a lonely and primitive individual. Of course, these criticisms did not shake the assumptions of the economic man—instead, the economists who followed this assumption enriched and perfected this hypothesis. The economic man of classical economics is assumed to be criticized and questioned because it is too abstract. Neoclassical economics introduces concepts such as “preference”. After economists’ efforts, “economic man” has also developed into a “rational person”. The development of “rational people” will be explained in the next section.

7.1.2 Connotation of Social Person Hypothesis Western economists have made assumptions about the people in economic activities from the “economic man” to the “rational person”, while the first to regard people as “social people” is the management scientist. Professor Mayo of Harvard University, published in the book “Human Problems in Industrial Civilization” published in 1933, states that workers are “social people” and members of complex social systems, not economic people. This conclusion comes from the experiment that the team began in 1924 at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric Company. This test has far-reaching implications for later generations and is known as the Hawthorne test. Before this management, people were assumed to be economic agents, and money was the only motivation to stimulate workers’ enthusiasm. The Hawthorne test proves that people are first and foremost social members and members of complex social relationships. Later, a similar test was conducted at the Tavistock Institute Coal Mine Institute in the UK, and the results of this test also supported the Hawthorne test’s view on human nature. The common conclusion of these two studies is that in addition to material, people also have social needs, and people must find fun from social relationships. Through the above research, this book summarizes the characteristics of social people

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as follows: First, social people show the characteristics of altruistic behavior; second, social people need to consider their own non-material interests; third, social people need to consider other social influences; fourth, social people are willing to shoulder the corresponding responsibilities of society. If the management scientist frees the independent individual from the shackles of economic interests, then the sociologists are from point to point. They put forward the idea of social network analysis, paying attention to how people’s connections affect their actions, possibilities and limitations. Since the 1960s, the concept of social network analysis has gradually been accepted by the field of sociology. By the 1990s, social network analysis had been applied to the field of management, and many studies integrated it with the promotion of resources or improved technology—the combination of innovation capabilities, etc. (Wang & Yu, 2013). At the same time, with the rapid rise of social capital, network theory, and new economic sociology, with the continuous penetration of new institutional economics, social relations and informal institutions have begun to enter the central stage of economics (Xu, 2013). Subsequently, with the development of information technology and the investment of a large number of human resources, the analysis of economics is becoming more and more mature. Nowadays, from the perspective of the sharing economy, social network analysis can be further expanded. Everyone has their own social network as a social person. Everyone’s social network can be connected to form a larger social network and share. The economy reduces transaction costs through the network, promotes optimal allocation of resources, and achieves economic growth.

7.1.3 Social People in Sharing Economy In analyzing the sharing economy, the human social hypothesis proposed in this book is a breakthrough in the atomic theory of the mechanical assumption that each individual is independent of each other in traditional economics. Examples of social people’s assumptions in the sharing economy abound, and one of the more typical examples is the gradual rise of sharing medical care. In the United States, many sites that share patient illnesses have emerged, such as PatientsLikeMe, ACOR (Cancer Online Resources Association), Cure Together, The Life Raft Group, Autism Research Organization, Chordoma Foundation, and LMSarcoma Direct Research, etc. Patients can describe their symptoms on these sites, and people who are suspected of illness can judge whether they are sick according to the corresponding description. Not only that, but patients with similar conditions can also share information gained from each other to facilitate access to more programs that can treat the disease. They can also share their feelings, find someone to talk to and encourage each other. Through such a network platform, patients who are not familiar with each other enter the same social network. They share relevant information about medical care in this network, thereby saving medical treatment time, reducing medical costs, and obtaining each other. Spiritual support between the two. Sharing medical care is not just about sharing medical information between

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patients, but also about sharing information between doctors and patients. Beijing Pre-Health Technology Co., Ltd. is the first company in China to provide Internetsharing medical services. It needs to combine medical resource sharing with health information sharing. Medical resource sharing allows doctors in hospitals to cross the wall. Free time is used to help more patients, and health information sharing enables individual and family health management with professional doctors to intervene and intervene in advance. In this way, the network platform connects doctors and patients to the same social network, improving the doctor-patient relationship and improving the efficiency of doctors.

7.2 Human Rationality Hypothesis The book explored whether people are “economical people” or “social people” in the sharing economy in the previous section. In this section, the book will face the assumption of deepening the “economic man” in Western economies, namely the rational person hypothesis. At the same time, this book will present another hypothesis about human nature in the sharing economy, namely the human super rationality assumption. Suppose it is to be explained in economic terms. In that case, this hypothesis implies that when people make economic decision-making, they will not only consider their own marginal cost and marginal benefit curve but also try to follow social marginal cost and marginal income curve. The ascendant MOOC education inspires the hypothesis of human super-rationality. On the platform of the MOOC, famous scholars from world-renowned universities share their own classrooms, enabling students from all over the world to receive a high-quality education at a lower cost. It can be foreseen that the shared education model of MOOC will bring shocks and challenges to the current education, and the assumption of human super-rationality will be perfect with the development of the sharing economy.

7.2.1 Rational Human Hypothesis in Traditional Economics As stated in the previous section, the rational man hypothesis was developed based on the assumption of economic man in classical economics. During neoclassical economics, economists used the concept of “preference” to replace the self-interest pursued by the original economic man. The rational person hypothesis of maximizing utility is thus proposed. It is the introduction of the concept of “utility” that makes material interests no longer the only pursuit of rational people. When rational people make decisions, they also consider some subjective feelings, such as honor and self-esteem. In the book, Zhang Weiying believes that “rational people mean having a well-defined preference and maximizing their preferences in the face of given constraints” (Zhang, 2004). In this way, rational people are transformed from economic people who are originally profitable to those who may be self-interested and

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likely to benefit them. During this period, economists applied mathematical methods to rational human hypotheses, which were described as having fully ordered preferences, complete information, and impeccable computing power. After careful consideration, he would choose those behaviors other than others (Reform and Strategy, 2009). Neoclassical economists’ research on rational human hypothesis has not only been influenced by Bentham’s utilitarian moral philosophy, but also influenced by positivism. Neoclassical economists focus economic research on the private sector, analyzing individual market behaviors under the conditions of customization, that is, maximizing the value of economics under given conditions, and finally completing human behavior is seen as the process of seeking to maximize benefits. This is mainly reflected in the consumer’s choice of the consumer mix that maximizes its utility, and the manufacturer chooses the product mix that maximizes its own profit. It can be said that economics has since become a science of choice. Mainstream economics retains the rationality of the original “economic man” in the process of developing and perfecting the concept of “rational man”, that is, economists believe that whether it is a “rational person” or “economic person”, it is making. When making economic decisions, we will pursue the maximization of utility. But the utility pursued by rational people is no longer just economic utility, but contains all kinds of preferences that may exist. With regard to preferences, economists assumed “inherent consistency,” a process that dates back to Robbins. According to Robbins, the economic man should not be a measure of pain and happiness in the image of utilitarianism, but a person with certain preferences. Since then, the economic man has changed from a rational economic man to an economic man with a choice of internal consistency. According to the basic assumption of this preference order, the economic man is given three basic characteristics: transitivity, maximizing behavior, and separation of purpose and means. Moreover, the logical consistency is inherited and developed by many scholars, and gradually became the analytical basis of modern economics.

7.2.2 The Connotation of the Hypothetical Hypothesis Recently, more and more economists have not only considered material needs as their utility function, but also considered spiritual factors. North considers the system that has a great influence on the behavior of economic people as an exogenous variable. Based on some unique behaviors of human beings, it explores the history of institutional formation and change, and thus won the Nobel Prize in Economics. Buchanan J. is also an economic analysis of people in public decision-making using the pursuit of maximization of the economic hypothesis analysis model, making up for the shortcomings of the analysis of traditional economic theory lacking independent political decision-making, and winning the Nobel Prize in Economics. Gary Becker also won the Nobel Prize for extending the scope of microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behaviors and interactions involving non-market economy behavior.

7.2 Human Rationality Hypothesis

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The results are worthy of recognition. They recognize that traditional economic theory ignores the impact of human indirect economic behavior on the economy and analyzes the behavior of the economic man hypothesis model (rational choice). It fills the gaps in traditional economic theory, making the theory more adaptable and closer to reality. Although, according to the traditional economic theory standards, their research field has exceeded the boundaries of economics, it is also a reasonable breakthrough in the field of economic research. However, it is difficult to tell whether they are consolidating the economic man’s assumptions or expanding them. On the one hand, the economic man hypothesis model is used to analyze human behavior and fully affirm the assumption that people are self-interested because they have used it to explain various existing behaviors, phenomena, and even as a tool for decision-making. The difference is that the individual’s utility function changes. Their utility concept is limited to economic interests and money income, but benefits include dignity, reputation, social status, and other measures that a pure economic scale cannot measure. It can be seen that existing economists have included spiritual factors into the utility function in traditional economics, which can be said to broaden the research aspect of economics. The hyper-rational hypothesis proposed in this book for the sharing economy is a summary of the traditional economics hypothesis of rational people and a summary of the actual economic situation. It can be summarized that the connotation of people’s utility function includes material interests or spiritual incentives, or both.

7.2.3 Super-Rational People in the Sharing Economy From the above analysis, traditional economics regards people as self-interested, and people take action when the marginal benefit of the action exceeds its marginal cost. Of course, traditional western economics enriches the connotation of personal preferences, including material interests and spiritual pleasures. Welfare economics tells us that due to the externality of economic activities, there is a difference between the marginal benefit and the marginal cost curve of the individual’s decision-making and the marginal cost curves of the whole society. In the phenomenon of sharing economy, the super-rational person assumed in this book refers to the ability to transcend its marginal revenue and marginal cost curve when making decisions and make the best choice according to the social marginal benefit and social marginal cost curve. For example, MOOC education is becoming more and more popular at home and abroad, and MOOC education is a new model of higher education under the Internet. Different from the traditional teaching methods, MOOC education breaks the limitation of time and space. Teachers from all famous universities in the world can teach classes to students from all over the world through the online platform. At the same time, the class time is free and flexible, and students can flexibly arrange according to their own time. The famous foreign MOOC learning platforms include Coursera, edx and udacity. The well-known domestic websites include Chinese University MOOC

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and Wanmen University. These well-known professors carry out almost free teaching on the commercial platform of MOOC. Individuals can get the benefits of class time and reputation. However, the mass transfer of knowledge through the platform of the MOOC is undoubtedly the social benefit. From this point of view, the model of sharing economy can indeed see the clues of super-rational people.

7.3 Unbalanced Assumptions of Information In this section, the book will review another hypothesis of traditional economics—the complete information hypothesis, and propose a new hypothesis about the sharing economy—the unbalanced hypothesis of information. The complete information hypothesis is a hypothesis implied by traditional economics as a hypothetical “economic man” or “rational person”. Because in the process of pursuing maximization, they must know all the information related to economic activities to make the best decision. Of course, some Western economists have also recognized the difference between the complete information hypothesis and real economic life, thus developing the sub-discipline of information economics. The unbalanced hypothesis of the information presented in this book draws on the idea of information economics and believes that the information obtained between economic units in real economic life is not equal. However, the development of the Internet of Things, the rise of big data and the transformation of communication media and other advances in science and technology have made it possible to form a network platform that contains all the information on which everyone can access information on equal footing. It is thus possible to realize the simple idea of complete information in economics.

7.3.1 Complete Information Hypothesis in Traditional Economics In neoclassical economics, the ability of economic units to obtain complete information becomes a basic assumption. This is because neoclassical economists imply that they can obtain all the information related to making economic decisions when making assumptions about “economic man” or “rational person”. The so-called complete information is the market participants’ full knowledge of the state of a certain economic environment (Xie Kang, 1994). In the previous section, when reviewing the “rational people” in traditional economics, it summed up the characteristics of “rational people” pursuing their own utility maximization. Consumers choose the consumption combination that maximizes their utility manufacturers choose their own profits. Maximize production mix. To rationalize the utility of “rational people”, it is necessary to know the information about the economic environment. For consumers in the market, not only do they assume that they know all

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the information about the quality and price of goods or services, but also that they clearly know their own utility and preferences, so they can calculate the most to achieve maximum utility. For producers in the market, it is not only assumed that the manufacturer knows its own production function and cost function, but also that they know the supply curve and the demand curve, and thus can calculate the number of products that should be produced to maximize their profits. Moreover, the two fundamental theorems of welfare economics—the proposition of the relationship between competitive equilibrium and Pareto optimality—can be established. Hayek realized the importance of information in economics. He believes that economic decision-making needs to rely on economic information and related mechanisms to make it. The fundamental problem of economics should be how to make the best use of the information of the whole society, rather than solve the problem of optimal allocation of resources. This is because in the process of participating in economic activities, economic units need to make decisions related to resource allocation based on relevant information. Therefore, he believes that the role of information in the economy cannot be ignored. Some economists offer a possible approach to the acquisition of complete information. They believe that market prices can reflect all information in the context of complete competition. In fact, the market mechanism cannot concentrate the market information required by all, and the price system cannot guarantee the effective allocation of scarce resources in society for a long time. More importantly, different information structures will lead to different economic functions of the economic system.

7.3.2 Information Asymmetry and Information Economics From the previous section on the complete information, we can see that there is a gap between the economic environment under the full information hypothesis and the real economic environment. This gap leads to the insurmountable defects of the complete information economy theory. George Akerlof (1970), Kenneth Arrow (1971), Michael Rothschild (1976), and Joseph Stiglitz (1976, 1985) have all done this before. In-depth analysis, by combing the research of predecessors and combining real economic activities, in general, a more realistic transaction is that one party often has information that the other party does not possess, which is called information asymmetry in information economics. Information economics is the theory of trading relations and contractual arrangements under asymmetric information conditions (Hu et al., 2003). Many theories of information economics, such as adverse selection, moral hazard, principal-agent theory, information screening, signal transmission theory, etc., have become widely used in the classical theory of modern economics. These theories are enlightened by economists in the academic world and tested by the practice community and have become a reference for people to carry out economic activities.

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The emergence and development of western micro-information economics are closely related to the negation of the complete information hypothesis. It is one of the theoretical starting points of this emerging economic discipline to replace the complete information hypothesis with incomplete information model analysis. Of course, the content and display meaning implied by complete information and incomplete information itself are much richer than the content and meaning of the analysis itself. As far as the development of Western economic history is concerned, the difference between the concept of complete information and the incomplete information hypothesis can be considered as a microcosm of the difference between an economic idea of the era and economic thought of another era.

7.3.3 Re-Discussion on Complete Information and Information Asymmetry—The Perspective of Sharing Economy The non-equilibrium assumptions made in this book are based on the absorption of information economics. The emphasis is on the fact that it is impossible for market participants to obtain exactly the same information, but the emergence of shared platforms such as communication technologies will gradually reduce the blind spots of information among market participants, thereby reducing the problem of principalagent caused by lack of information, reducing the cost of signing a complete contract, and improving the efficiency of market allocation of resources. With the continuous development of the social economy, especially the rapid advancement of science and technology in the new century, the changes in the communication media have also shown a new situation. The Internet of Things technology has connected people and things in the world and formed a new network. The information generated by people in economic life can be shared in real-time through the sensors of the Internet of Things, which provides favorable conditions for big data analysis. Through big data analysis, people can further explore economic activities. At the same time, through the Internet platform, people can obtain relevant information almost free of charge, thus making the world of unbalanced information into a complete information world. Due to these advantages of the Internet of Things, it has been applied to many fields. The Internet of Things integrates the man-made environment and the natural environment into an orderly network. All people and things communicate with each other in a way that optimizes the thermodynamic efficiency of the environment while maintaining the global environment.

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7.4 Incomplete Contract Assumption In this section, we first make a general review of the complete contract theory and the incomplete contract theory in traditional economics. According to the perspective of contract theory in traditional economics, signing a contract is costly and time-consuming and causes inefficiency in resource allocation due to problems such as the unclear definition of property rights. The incomplete contract theory avoids the problem that the contract is unverifiable due to information asymmetry, and its proposed residual control becomes the biggest contribution to economic theory. It can be seen that economic theory is getting closer to economic practice. The reality of the current sharing economy has emerged, which can provide new practical support for the further development of the incomplete contract theory. The incomplete contract hypothesis proposed in this book does not copy the incomplete contract theory in traditional economics, but according to the sharing economy in real life, the economic participation subject pays more attention to the right to use than ownership. Based on this feature, participating parties in economic activities do not need to sign a comprehensive treaty on all aspects, and even do not need incomplete contracts that traditional economics considers. As for the signing of the part that needs to be used, this greatly improves the efficiency of economic operations.

7.4.1 From Full Contract to Incomplete Contract To understand the incomplete contract theory in traditional economics, let us review the complete contract theory. In the early 1970s, economists made substantial progress in the study of complete contract theory, and since then it has become one of the indispensable theories of economics. The complete contract theory is also called agency theory. There are two core issues to consider: one to study the transfer of income under the condition of information asymmetry; the other is how to share the risk among the parties with different risk attitudes. One of the main contents of a complete contract is the principal-agent theory. The principal-agent theory aims to study how to resolve the conflicts between the principals and agents with a cooperative relationship under unequal status (Su Qilin, Shen Minghao, 2005). The third section of this chapter reviews the main content of information economics. From the content of the previous chapter, there is also information asymmetry between the principal and the agent. The moral hazard and adverse selection are also complete contract theory. But scholars who study agency theory can’t solve the following core problem: how the principal designs or chooses the optimal contract (including explicit and implicit contracts) to solve the problem of conflict between the principal and the agent. Incomplete contract theory finds that the concept of information asymmetry is difficult to grasp in actual research, so it turns to research information that can be observed but difficult to be confirmed by a third party.

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Tiro le (1999) analyzes the essential difference between incomplete contract theory and complete contract theory. He believes that a complete contract will cause the principal to lose more benefits than an incomplete contract. Tiro le (2001) pointed out in his comments on the complete contract theory that the contracting parties cannot know in advance the actions they will choose, and when designing the contract, it is difficult to exhaustively describe the actions that may be taken in the future. Therefore, the contracting parties can only design the optimal contract if the information selection and action plan are determined in the future (Tiro le. J, 2001). Grubb (2000) more intuitively reveals the difference between incomplete contract theory and full contract theory. He pointed out that the “product” of incomplete contract theory research is a complete contract, the “input” of its production process is habit, market, contract design, standard cost limitation and law, the incomplete contract theory is to study the cost of these input factors. It combines the minimization process when the contract is “complete” (Grubb, 2002). What is the incomplete contract theory? We can understand this: First of all, real economic activities are always full of uncertainty. People can not accurately predict what will happen in the future; secondly, even if economic activity participants can predict the future, we can anticipate what will happen in the future. However, due to language problems, it is difficult to write all economic activities into the contract; in the end, even if the economic activity participants reach a written contract with the same meaning, it is difficult to deliver the contract to a third party. The core point of the incomplete contract theory is to distinguish between specific control rights and residual control rights. The specific control rights refer to the rights that the economic activity participants have already specified in advance when signing the contract, while the residual control rights are a large right. It gives the party participating in the contract the right to determine the matters not specified in the contract arbitrarily. This means that the residual control owner can obtain property that is not clearly defined in the contract without paying compensation in the future. Hart believes that the ownership of the residual claim rights should depend on the negotiating power of both parties to the contract. Assuming that a dedicated investment depends on the asset, the asset owner undoubtedly has a huge advantage in the negotiation, so the asset owner owns the residual claim. Not only that, but he also believes that human capital needs to be attached to physical assets, so companies can be seen as a collection of material assets they own, which in turn unite human capital. With the help of Internet technology, the sharing economy has solved the disadvantages of high cost and long cycle required to sign a complete contract, and replaced it with a low-cost and high-efficiency incomplete contract. The problem is to focus on the issue of the right to use.

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7.4.2 Incomplete Contracts in Sharing Economy One of the benefits of the “fragmentation” of property rights in the sharing economy is “not asking for everything, but asking for it”. In the past economic model, manufacturers advertised products or services to consumers through advertisements and other forms. Consumers purchased large quantities of goods under the persuasion of advertisements. This irrational behavior of consumers led to inefficient allocation of resources, resulting in inefficient resource allocation and a lot of waste of economic resources. In the sharing economy model, the acquisition of products or services can be made through short-term leasing. In this case, because of the high cost and long cycle of signing a complete contract, it may only be necessary to sign something on certain important aspects, or design a standardized contract to ensure efficient economic activity. Drip taxis are a typical example of the sharing economy in the transportation industry. The express driver who becomes a drip taxi only needs to register on the company’s website, and after completing the relevant information, submit the drip review. The contract between Didi and the driver is a standardization contract. The contract between each drip driver and Didi is the same. It can be said that the important clauses have signed an agreement with the driver, which simplifies the review process and improves passing efficiency. This is a sharing of the Didi Platform, the driver and the passenger. Didi taxi company does not possess ownership of the production materials, and obtains the right to use the production materials through the contract signed with the driver; the customer does not possess the right to use the private car, but can enjoy the convenience brought by the private car; the driver has the ownership of the car. However, through the sharing model, the consumer goods are transformed into production materials, and the use income is obtained. It can be seen from this case that under the sharing economy model, the right to use can be valued and ownership is neglected. Therefore, this book proposes an incomplete contract hypothesis.

7.5 The Separability Hypothesis of Property Rights In this section, the book attempts to present a hypothesis about sharing economic property rights, namely the property shareability hypothesis. Traditional economists, such as Ronald Coase, Demsetz, Alchin, etc., have defined property rights from different angles. Economists led by institutional schools have also incorporated property rights theory into the discussion of economics. However, when traditional economics discusses property rights, the focus of the discussion is whether property rights are internalized or publicized. When considering the new economic practice of sharing economy, this book will look at the issue of property rights from another perspective, that is, whether it is private property rights or public property rights, it can be divided. For the property rights of a property, under the condition of sharing economy, because the participants in the economic activities sign an incomplete

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contract, we can divide it into a series of rights such as ownership, use rights and rent rights. These property rights can be traded separately and become an important phenomenon in the sharing economy.

7.5.1 Definition of Property Rights in Traditional Economics Since Ronald Coase published the paper “The Nature of Business” in 1937, property rights theory has become one of the important theories of Western economies. Coase believes that “property right is the distribution of the right to choose incompatible usufruct which inevitably occurs. They are not artificial or compulsory restrictions imposed on possible uses, but exclusive rights allocation in the selection of such uses.” (Xu Ying, 2004). Coase began to study the theory of property rights from the outside, and the entry point of his research is the inconsistency between private income and social income. He said that the right of use is not simply the right of use that the current society simply points out, but includes all the derived rights related to the right of use. His focus is on the different effects of the distribution of related rights among different participants in economic activities. Demsetz and Alchin defined property rights from the meaning that property rights bring to economic activity. Demsetz pointed out: “Property is a social tool, and its importance lies in the fact that they can help a person to form a reasonable expectation of his dealings with others. These expectations are expressed through social laws, customs and ethics. The owner of the property has the right to agree with his colleague that he acts in a particular way”. Archin believes that “property rights are a society’s right to choose an economical product to use”. Bell and Nicholson define property rights from the perspective of the nature of rights. They think that property rights are a collection of rights and the division and combination of property rights. The definition of property rights of the Philippines is closer to the essence of property rights. He believes that: “property right is not the relationship between people and things, but the recognized behavior relationship between people caused by the existence and use of things. The prevailing property rights system in society can be described as an economic relationship that defines everyone’s position in the utilization of scarce resources. “

7.5.2 Theory of Property Rights in Traditional Economics The two economists, Knight and Commons, once again introduced property rights theory into the field of economics. In 1921, Knight of the Institutional School published the paper “Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit”. He pointed out that the task of economics is neither an optimization problem for resource allocation nor a problem of optimal use of social information. It is necessary to establish a sound economic system in which market participants can participate in economic activities more

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rationally. This is because the participants of real economic activities have opportunistic behaviors, and they do not always act according to rational behaviors, so the economic system has moral arbitrariness. In his book Institutional Economics, he pointed out that the more exclusive private property rights can be supported by law, the better the order of property rights transactions and the higher the efficiency, and the more the conflicts between participants in economic activities can be solved, so as to improve the efficiency of economic operation. Ronald Coase published his paper Social Cost in 1960. He believed that private property rights, rather than government regulation, could help solve the problem of external market failure, and thus formed the famous Coase’s First Theorem and Coase’s Second Theorem. The main meaning of Coase’s first theorem is to make externalities no longer a reason for market failure. According to Coase’s First Theorem, as long as property rights can be clearly defined without considering transaction costs, property rights transactions can internalize externalities without cost, and the government does not need to take any measures to solve externalities. If we consider the transaction cost, it is Coase’s second theorem. Its main idea is that under the condition of transaction cost and the scope of transaction stipulated by law, the property right transaction can not reach Pareto optimum, so the economic participants have to make limited adjustments. Without adjustment, both parties have to endure the status quo or lobby the legislature to change the law. The importance of legal provisions to the allocation of resources has significantly reduced the role of the private property market in Coase’s First Theorem. Since the advent of two famous papers by Coase, the theory of property rights has been continuously improved under the efforts of traditional economists, and Demsetz is one of them. He believes that the reason for an externality is that the boundaries of public property rights are unclear. These non-exclusive property rights are bound to lead Harding’s “tragedy of the commons”. Private property rights can promote the internalization of externalities, which can motivate individuals to consider the future cost–benefit level, thereby promoting resource allocation efficiency. Of course, privatization can reduce externalities. It does not mean that there is no externality under the conditions of private property rights. For this reason, Demsetz further pointed out that the cost of internalization of private property rights will be greatly reduced compared with public property rights. This is because under the condition of public property rights, with the increase of the main body of property rights, an externality will erode many people, and the resulting free-riding behavior will increase the negotiation and contracting costs.

7.5.3 The Separability of Property Rights in Sharing Economy The hypothesis of property right separability can be derived from the hypothesis of incomplete contract. It is precise because the incomplete contract is signed between

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the participants in the sharing economy, so the participants attach importance to the benefits of using a means of production and do not care who owns the means of production. Although we can see from the above analysis that western economists have conducted in-depth research on property rights and property rights theory, property rights can be more and more divided in today’s real life. Bill Gates once advocated that people should charge as much for using the software as for buying hardware. But almost all software in today’s society is free: free 360 antivirus software is still a necessary software for many computers, while rising antivirus software, which used to be expensive, has almost disappeared; the Map Show is not only popular in China, but also popular once it landed in the U.S. market; Nux system can be developed by thousands of people because of its characteristics of open source software, thus becoming one of the safest operating systems and so on. From the above cases, we can see that under the general economic model, people are more concerned about whether the use of the product or service can bring convenience to life and obtain benefits, while less attention is paid to the property rights of the product or service, which separates the property rights of the product or service, thus reducing the cost needed to solve the property rights problem and improving economic efficiency.

7.6 The Massiveness of Resources The last hypothesis of this chapter on sharing economy is the massive assumption of resources. Traditional economics always assumes that resources are scarce. The contradiction between the infinity of human desires and the finiteness of economic resources leads to the scarcity of resources. Traditional economists carried out economic analysis on this basis and achieved fruitful research results. However, in the sharing economy, with the continuous development of network technology and the continuous advancement of technology and knowledge, people can gradually expand the use of economic resources, improve the efficiency of the use of economic resources, and make a limited economy by sharing all resources. Resources are no longer scarce and become massive resources. The massive resources generated through sharing are conducive to breaking through the resource constraints on sustainable economic development and innovation and entrepreneurship, thus providing a new model for China’s economic development.

7.6.1 Resource Scarcity Hypothesis in Traditional Economics Since the 1970s, Neoclassical Economics has regarded resource allocation as the research object of economics. Western economists believe that “Jeans… Put the train of Economics on the track of resource allocation. The term “scarcity” officially appeared in economics in 1932. That year, Robbins, in his book The Nature and Significance of Economic Science, focused on human behavior under the constraints

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of scarce resources. He believes that the relationship between human activities’ goals and means has the following four aspects: the diversity of goals or needs; the scarcity of means; the possibility of the transformation of means among purposes; and the difference in the importance of different purposes. Economists generally explain the scarcity of resources as follows: compared with human desire, resources (human, land, commodities, technology, services) are insufficient, and there are always fewer cases of free or free access to these things (Chen, 1999). The hypothesis of resource scarcity can be understood as the contradiction between the infinity of human desires and the limitation of resources. Traditional economics holds that economic problems arise from the scarcity of resources, and scarcity law is the starting point for studying economic problems. Economists who hold this view believe that economics’ purpose is to allocate scarce resources rationally and produce, distribute, exchange and consume them to meet human needs to the greatest extent. Economists describe the scarcity of economic resources as the following three situations: (1) From the perspective of resource structure, individual resources are always limited and scarce. (2) Even from the overall stock of resources, it is scarce and limited. (3) From the point of view that natural resources can be used directly and freely, natural resources are always less than people’s direct free access to these things. Classical economists believe that under the assumption of resource scarcity, the division of labor in specialized production can improve the efficiency of resource utilization, thereby expanding the boundaries of production possibilities and changing the scarcity of resources. Thus, in classical economics, specialized production and division of labor can change the assumption of resource scarcity. In neoclassical economics, economists turned their research focus to resource allocation in the process of using the scarcity of resources, and adopted more assumptions to establish the theoretical system of neoclassical economics.

7.6.2 Resource Mass Hypothesis In the concept of sharing economy, due to the rapid growth of knowledge, the assumption of “the massiveness of resources” is more appropriate than “resource scarcity”. This is because the human understanding of infinity can transform the real world. In general, as knowledge and information continue to grow, the more resources people can use, the more “resource scarcity” becomes “massive amount of resources”. First, knowledge, the latter information, can be reused after it is produced, so there is no question of scarcity. The scarcity of resources refers to the scarcity of material resources because the limited resources on the earth are in line with the real-world situation. Secondly, the development of new technologies, new knowledge and new information can improve the utilization efficiency of material resources, so that the supply level of resources can be changed. The resources that could not be used can now be used. The resources that can be used can now be higher. Efficiency is utilized, which provides favorable conditions for better meeting people’s needs. Under the

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conditions of the rapid development of modern science and technology, knowledge technology can emerge quickly, and it can also provide conditions for breaking the scarcity of resources and creating massive resources. The resource scarcity hypothesis considers the limited total resources of the earth as a closed system, but neglects the infinite resources of the open system. Since the birth of mankind, from the hunting economy to the natural economy, from the manufacturing economy to the information economy, the chain of natural resources has been expanding. Solar energy, nuclear energy and space resources are becoming a new round of human economic growth and will be used for a long time. What human beings can face is natural resources with infinite potential. This has also become an aspect of the massive hypothesis of resources.

7.6.3 Massiveness of Resources in Sharing Economy After the above analysis, this book believes that with the continuous development of the social economy, the massive assumption of resources can solve the resource constraints of the resource scarcity hypothesis on economic green sustainable development and innovation and entrepreneurship. In China, on November 10, 2015, the central government proposed a supply-side structural reform strategy to adjust the economic structure and realize the optimal allocation of factors to achieve the quality and quantity of economic growth. This strategy is based on the situation of overcapacity in some industries in China’s economic structure. It can be seen from China’s economic practice that the main problems faced by some industries in China and the future are overcapacity and scarcity of resources. A hypothesis is no longer applicable. Through the new sharing economy model, China can optimize the allocation of massive production factor resources more efficiently. Sharing is no longer limited to sharing idle resources, and all production factors can be shared. Under this assumption, social productivity will be further improved. Innovation and entrepreneurship are one of the forces that promote the sustainable and sustainable development of the social economy. The massive resources under the sharing model can also drive the development of entrepreneurship. The Qingdao Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security issued the “Notice on Doing a Good Job in Entrepreneurial Training and the Shipbuilding Industry under the New Situation”. From 2017 onwards, it is possible to participate in online and offline free entrepreneurship training for the seven categories of people who meet the requirements. Online training is based on learning entrepreneurial knowledge, and you can also get corresponding entrepreneurial guidance. Students can participate in the website by downloading the website, downloading the app or subscribing to the WeChat public account. The offline training is based on entrepreneurship training. Apply for registration in the district to the municipal public employment service agency. The government provides free training for innovative entrepreneurs by integrating social resources, indicating that the sharing model is also suitable for entrepreneurship.

Chapter 8

The Ideas of Sharing Economy

The sharing economy’s ideas refer to the concept of economic development that is developed in the new business model of the sharing economy, which are quite different from the traditional business model and have their own typical characteristics. This concept is embodied in all aspects of the sharing economy. The concept of “sharing” refers to the sharing and use of idle resources between supply and demand. It is the sharing of usage rights on the premise of retaining the ownership of resources; the “altruism” concept is a pioneering and innovative concept that most significantly distinguishes itself from traditional economic assumptions, which inject new vitality into the development of the sharing economy and take a new perspective on economic phenomena; The concept of “coordination” is the most effective way of urging innovation in the production industry and technological changes on the basis of sharing, and only the further use of shared resources to achieve collaborative innovation, will the sharing economy provide more powerful technical support for the rapid economic development in the new environment; The “public” is the most significant scope expansion and extension for the participation of the sharing economy through the use of the Internet platform to breakthrough information asymmetry and difficult access to information resources. The “Human, flat, freedom, democracy” and other concepts explain the various rights enjoyed by various participants in the sharing platform in the new economic model from the perspective of humanities. People can realize their own value needs, participate in the market competition on an equal footing, and freely enter the market platform. In the platform, people have full right to speak, make an independent decision, and have the right to independent pricing. These are all new concepts that can embody the typical characteristics of the sharing economy model and are significantly different from the traditional economic development methods. They reveal the new vitality and vigor brought about by the sharing economy for the latest development of the economy and society from various perspectives.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_8

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8.1 The “Sharing” Concept of Sharing Economy “Sharing” is undoubtedly the most obvious concept of the sharing economy, and it is also the basis for the existence of other ideas. Only if all participants in the sharing platform, especially the supply side, are willing and able to provide their own resources for the sharing platform, will the “altru” and “coordination” are realized through massive resources, and the richness of resources depends on personal sharing and group sharing.

8.1.1 Connotation of “Sharing” The word “sharing” has a long history. Feng’s concept of sharing was mentioned in the “Eastern Zhou Dynasty” in the Ming dynasty, but the concept of sharing mentioned in Chinese classical culture is only a simple non-economic behavior and has not been deepened to the core conceptual level of economics. The concept of “sharing” in the sharing economy means that every participant in the sharing economy actively shares the use rights and operating rights of the physical assets owned by themselves for the platform, achieving the exchange and collision of virtual assets, and realizing an innovation revolution with the colliding of group wisdom.

8.1.2 Concept of “Sharing” in Traditional Economic Activities The traditional economic field is dominated by Western economies. Its “economic man” theoretical premise pays more attention to property rights and economic man’s self-interested behavior. When refers to sharing, traditional economic fields often associate the sharing with the political characteristics of communist society. In the market economy that advocates free competition and free trade, it has abandoned the rational component of the sharing concept, and has largely ignored the discussion of sharing behavior in the economic field. Using basic theories of traditional economics, it is difficult to provide a reasonable explanation for the concept of sharing. The concept put forward a reasonable explanation, and today, with the booming development of the sharing economy and the rapid development of social collaboration activities, sharing, win–win, and common development are the only ways for economic development. The concept of sharing has increasingly attracted people’s attention.

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8.1.3 The Concept of “Sharing” in the Sharing Economy Model The connotation of the sharing concept mentioned in the sharing economy refers to the sharing and using of all resources on the sharing economy platform. The emphasis is on the use of resources rather than ownership, which is recognized in all sharing economy claims. The BT, Open Source, Wikipedia, and the Creative Commons GNU Agreement are typical examples of the “sharing” concept. It should be noted here that the “sharing” concept does not deny property rights. Sharing is also within the market economy. Xie Zhigang believes that although the sharing economy has posed challenges and deepening requirements on the concept of property rights, it does not deny property rights and the separation of ownership and use rights are not new. The sharing economy is still based on market-based voluntary transactions with clear property rights. It does not give up property rights or the market itself. Just as institutional economists pointed out in studies such as “tragedy of the commons” and “public pool”, even in sharing resource allocation areas, property rights constraints are still important for economic efficiency (Xie, 2015). The concept of “sharing” is the driving force for the vigorous development of the sharing economy. It is based on “sharing” that mass participation has taken place. The sharing economy platform under the participation of the masses makes resources more and more abundant because everyone is willing to share. Large-scale public individuals are happy to share the physical resources such as idle cars, houses, etc., and the business units are willing to share their advanced production skills and achieve collaborative innovation. Those with rich knowledge are willing to realize group wisdom innovation with their surplus wisdom, and the concept of “sharing” is fully mobilized the idle resources of the entire society and the richness of resources are important prerequisites for the sharing economy platform to realize the matching of supply and demand effectively. “Sharing” effectively realizes the recycling and conservation of resources at the overall level of society, while the sharing and collaboration further promote the flow of social resources to more efficient places. It is an effective restraint of overcapacity and a new expansion of advanced productive forces.

8.2 The “Altruism” Concept of Sharing Economy The “altruism” concept is one of the most salient features of the sharing economy model. It is distinctly different from the self-interested economist hypothesis of neoclassical economics. Therefore, the sharing economy is considered as a subversive challenge to the traditional economic theory. In fact, the assumption of self-interest in classical economics is a rational assumption that simplifies the complex social conditions of production and living under extremely harsh conditions. It evades the

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exploration of altruism, but does not deny the existence of altruistic behavior in social-economic life.

8.2.1 The Meaning of “Altruism” The question of whether human nature is “selfish” or “altruism” is a problem that has plagued the sages for centuries. The biologist first explored the evolution of altruism from the perspective of species evolution, and social scientists have more to do with feelings and human nature. An analysis of altruistic behavior from the perspective of human nature believes that people are more selfish, but there is no lack of sympathy. They are impressed by others’ misfortune; these two instincts coexist in individuals (Zheng, 2009). Modern economists have also actively explored altruistic behavior. Ye Hang explores altruistic behavior in economic society from the perspective of game theory. In the economic explanation of altruism, he divides Altruistic Acts into Kindreds, Altruistic Altruisms and Pure Altruisms (Ye, 2005). He points out that pure altruism is also an inevitable product of human evolution. A more meticulous, refined, and more effective cooperation norm is established to maintain and expand the cooperative order. This is the most significant advantage of human beings in the survival competition. After the advent of the Internet era, some researchers explored altruistic behavior in the network environment. Xiaolu Wang and Xiaotian Feng believed that Internet altruism refers to self-conscious voluntary behavior in the network environment that will benefit others and cause material loss, but there is no apparent selfish motive (Wang & Feng, 2004). Although the above definition is limited to the network environment, it has a wide range of applicability, especially the emphasis on “no apparent selfish motive”, and it highlights the inner psychological reward for human behavior from the perspective of psychological satisfaction, self-realization, etc. The incentive effect means that altruism fulfills people’s higher-level needs such as self-realization needs, etc. In fact, “Altruism” is not only a requirement for cooperation and win–win between all production organizations and consumer individuals in the era of large-scale social production to achieve maximum utility of both parties, but also a manifestation of the spiritual pursuit of self-recognition and value realization as human civilization continues to improve.

8.2.2 “Egoism” in Traditional Economics The concept of “altruism” is a point in the core concept of sharing economy that is distinctly different from the “egoism” economic man hypothesis in traditional economics. Here, “altruism” and “egoism” do not conflict and are not contradictory.

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Egoism has a long history. In the field of economics, the self-serving assumption of “economic man” was proposed by Adam Smith in the late eighteenth century. He believes that self-love or self-interest is human nature. The so-called “economic man” is a person who pursues the maximization of his own interests and embodies the nature of egoism. In the following period, after the development of Ricardo, Mill, and the Austrian school, western economists constantly gave new meaning to “economic man”, but in the definition of “economic man”, self-interested is the most basic rule, and it has become the “hardcore” of the Western economic theory system. “Economic person” is the main body of market economic activity, and the law of market economy determines that the purpose of its behavior is necessarily self-interest (Lin & Deng, 2005). However, based on intuition and experience, people can know that the neoclassical economics hypothesis strongly ignores the complexity of social issues and that economics remains silent on non-market and non-economic categories (He et al., 2016). For Adam Smith’s thought, the posterity only praised the “Wealth of Nations”, which embodies the self-interested assumption, to the point where there is no further increase. However, Smith’s own opinion of “moral sentiment” which embodies the altruism humanity view is ignored. This shows that Smith himself has a tendency not to deny the hypothesis of these two economic people.

8.2.3 The Concept of “Altruism” in the Sharing Economy Model Although traditional economics emphasizes the rational behavior of economic people in economic life, it does not mean that “economic man” pursues only economic interests. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, man’s highest needs are respect needs and self-realization needs, but not just the physiological needs that the economy can satisfy. Modern people often more respect people’s higher-level needs, and it is difficult to satisfy them with economic benefits. The construction of a sharing economy platform is based on humanism, freedom, and equality, and it is precisely to meet people’s needs for self-realization and respect. The fulfillment of higherlevel needs cannot be separated from the infiltration of altruism. Individuals need to satisfy their own higher-level needs to obtain other people’s recognition, or the recognition of their surpluses will, to a large extent, behave altruistically. Therefore, altruism may be the behavior choice of “economic man” (Lin & Deng, 2005). From this perspective, the “altruism” in the idea of sharing economy is not in contradiction with the “egoism” in economics. Based on the above analysis of “altruism” and “egoism”, it can be argued that the “altruism” concept of the sharing economy is not a negation of the assumption of “economic self-interest” in the traditional economics, but rather the expansion and development of the connotation of “selfishness” in the era of sharing economy. The social environment in which the sharing economy exists is a new technology era with

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rapid development, emphasizing cooperation, innovation, and win–win cooperation. In the era of sharing economy, it is difficult for individuals to pursue narrow-minded “selfishness” behavior to achieve individual success and increase the overall welfare of society. Only if individuals participating in the sharing economy platform actively share their tangible assets and resources such as ideas and knowledge for others to use, based on the concepts of freedom, voluntariness, and sharing, meet the needs of the demanding parties and receive material rewards or spiritual satisfaction, will we promote the more effective use of social resources and the further expansion of production capacity in the mutual benefit and win–win situation eventually.

8.3 The “Synergy” Concept of Sharing Economy Based on the concept of “sharing” to achieve the enrichment of the sharing platform resources and the quantification of the sea, the scope of the sharing economy based on the “altruism” concept has been continuously expanding. Mutual benefits have ultimately led to everyone’s profit and win–win. However, relying solely on resource swapping does not ultimately result in a smart collision. Only if platform participants cooperate and collaborate on innovations will we focus on group wisdom, and make resources fully utilize their respective values in integration and optimization. And then, the spark of innovation was launched to achieve social reform and progress.

8.3.1 The Meaning of “Synergy” Based on the concepts of “sharing” and “altruism”, the “synergy” concept of the sharing economy emphasizes that all participating individuals of the platform share all the tangible assets and intangible assets that they possess to benefit others, and at the same time further promote social innovation through collaboration and cooperation and give birth to a new generation of the industrial revolution. “Synergy” is the further optimization and reintegration of all resources on the shared economic platform. Only by using collaborative cooperation can we promote the improvement of the enterprise’s innovation capacity while making full use of various resources, and achieve further improvements in all aspects of society with the saving and progress of production capacity. Therefore, the concept of “synergy” is based on the concept of “sharing” and “altruism” and above both, it is an indispensable way to really promote the outbreak of total productive capacity in the society and achieve a reasonable and effective balance between supply and demand.

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8.3.2 The Concept of “Synergy” in the Sharing Economy Model The sharing economy is not just simple re-use of idle resources. While emphasizing sharing and altruism, the deeper value concept is synergy. Collaboration is mutually beneficial and win–win. The open-source economy (i.e., sharing/sharing economy) is a new economic paradigm that is transformed from a market economy. Its core mechanism is collaborative sharing (Rifkin, 2014). In the era of knowledge economy characterized by popular entrepreneurship and innovation, collaborative innovation is the core driving force for the survival and development of enterprises. Innovation 2.0 is the democratization of innovation in the knowledge society, with user innovation, open innovation, collaborative innovation, and mass innovation. It promoted a new form of economic and social development in the era of innovation 2.0 (Song, 2016). Sharing of knowledge and skills is a typical example of the “synergy” concept. It is a higher form of sharing economy model higher than that of simple car-sharing and housing sharing. The resource owner seeks synergies between various related collaborators and professional social talents in open source knowledge and skills. The sharing of knowledge and skills, which acquired the follow-up innovation collaboration with the initial knowledge sharing, eventually achieved technological advancement and innovation, achieved a very low marginal cost under this emerging business model, and achieved a great profit at a low cost. Open-source sharing is a typical embodiment of the collaborative innovation concept. The most successful practice of open source collaborative innovation is the development of a Linux software system. Linux exposes source code to the public, builds an open-source community. Individuals involved in the open-source community have both volunteers and software users. Users direct feedback on the project construction through their own experience. This kind of proactive user participation makes the programmer’s project innovation more targeted and practical. It can be said that this kind of full transparency, sharing and collaborative value-oriented open source communities eventually created the Apache webserver. In the Internet age, the scope of collaborative cooperation is not only the outsourcing of traditional industries, vertical industrial chain cooperation, production capacity sharing, but also the wisdom of community intelligence in the era of the Internet knowledge economy. In 2015, with the SMART Resort Real Estate Committee’s attention on the integration of the vertical industry chain, the international competition for the joint office space initiated by it was a typical manifestation of group wisdom. Its collaborative and collaborative innovation model is the successful practice of the collaborative concept. The joint office space has brought about the integration effect of the entire industry chain. Upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain can provide each other with necessary services, thereby reducing the cost of business growth and bringing about mutual benefit (Xu, 2016). The sharing economy has brought about the colliding of group wisdom with resource sharing. It results in sharing, which has enabled all parties involved in the

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sharing platform to reduce individual transaction costs in collaborative cooperation further and brought new sharing wisdom results to the entire sharing platform. Then achieve revolutionary progress in the Internet era.

8.4 The “Public” Concept of Sharing Economy The “public” describes the characteristics of its participating parties from the perspective of the participating entities of the sharing economy. In the sharing economy, it breaks through the definition of the main body of the seller and the consumer in the traditional economic model, obscures the identities of the subjects that can participate in market competition. Because of the simplification of the public nature of the Internet platform and the simplification of access methods, the majority of platform people have the opportunity to enter the sharing economic platform. At the same time, due to the requirement of the massive resources of the sharing economy, the construction of the platform itself requires a lot of public participation.

8.4.1 The Connotation of the “Public” The most typical embodiment of the sharing economy is mass participation. A sufficient number of suppliers and enough demanding parties to participate together are the preconditions for the sharing economy to develop. Only a sufficient number of suppliers and demand parties can achieve a reasonable and effective match between the resources of the supply and demand sides. The more participants, the greater the degree of supply and demand matching, and the better the construction of a sharing economic platform. “Public”, namely, “popular” and “many,” the premise of the existence of a sharing economy is that the resources available for sharing are sufficient to enable both suppliers and buyers to effectively and reasonably match the needs of both parties. Because of the participation of many people, any eligible individuals can participate, resources are extremely rich, and sustainable growth can be achieved. On the other hand, it is the construction of the sharing platform that makes the resources that were originally difficult to be used to further their functions, and more and more individuals have access to the market economy. Under the conditions of the participation of many people, the potential of society has been explored to the maximum extent, and new areas of the economy have been pioneered.

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8.4.2 The Concept of “Public” in the Sharing Economy Model The material basis for the realization of the “public” concept is the construction of the Internet platform. First, the rapid development of the Internet platform, its openness allows ordinary individuals to easily participate in the sharing economy as long as they have certain resources or skills. The more participants on the supply side, the more effective resources they provide. The distribution of quotes provided to demanders will be more decentralized. The more participants on the demand side, the more demanding the resources on the supply side will be, thereby the more likely it is to achieve a reasonable match between supply and demand. And the greater the return the two parties receive in the end, the greater the network effect will be. (Sharing Economic Development Report Task Force et al., 2016). Secondly, the Internet platform solves the problem of information obstruction to the most significant degree with its publicity and openness. With its increasingly sophisticated evaluation mechanism, it has greatly reduced the existence of information asymmetry. Information is the most basic prerequisite for the completion of various transactions in the new economic era. Taking Airbnb as an example, its service-oriented website can provide visitors with a wide range of accommodation information. It is based on the Internet platform that Airbnb can provide perfect information for both suppliers and buyers wishing to participate in the platform. Compared to the mutual contact between tourists and homeowners, Airbnb’s presence has effectively reduced the transaction costs of the supply and demand sides. The more public participation, the more the “public” concept goes deeper into people’s hearts, the better the construction of the sharing economic platform will be, and the lower the cost will be. The benefits of all parties involved in the platform are obvious. The “public” concept is more prominent in the knowledge economy area of the sharing economy model. The sharing public economic platform shared by everyone has accelerated the coming of a pioneering era, and the sharing economy has brought new opportunities for personal innovation. Maker became a new personal identity tag and gradually became the main driving force for economic development. With the development of the sharing economy, the ability of individuals to use shared resources can even rival those of enterprises, making it easier for individuals to innovate and start businesses. Sharing knowledge brings about a source of innovation. The sharing economy provides the basic guarantee for the arrival of the maker era, and the era of making people free to develop has also brought a wave of innovation and promoted the progress of the times (Song & Wang, 2016). Even in the field of animal husbandry where sharing characteristics are not so significant, the “public” concept has benefited the civilian population as a whole. Taking Amprey as an example, it collaborated with farmers to spread the scale of chicken farms that the company could not provide, and shared a large number of chicken farms for chicken farmers, thus saving the company’s infrastructure construction costs to a minimum. The scale has been reduced to a large scale, and a significant reduction in production costs has been achieved. This has undoubtedly brought huge

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profit margins to the company. At the same time, farmers have also benefited greatly from small-scale breeding of individual chicken farms to large-scale centralized farming. There is also greater protection, so this collaborative, sharing model based on public ideas is beneficial to the owner of the platform.

8.5 The “Humanism” Concept of Sharing Economy The “humanism” concept of the sharing economy further reveals the place where the commercial operation is different from the traditional economic paradigm in the sharing economy mode from the perspective of respect for the people. The satisfaction of human inner needs and the consideration of human nature are places that are ignored by the traditional economic model. This is precisely the unique characteristic of the sharing economy in an era of modernized economic and cultural development. This type of business paradigm, which is based on human freedom and human liberation, is an excellent fit for modern people’s multi-level needs for value and their own recognition.

8.5.1 The Connotation of “Humanism” In general, people-oriented concepts are usually applied in social welfare, policy and institutional areas, and in the field of traditional economics, human-oriented thinking is seldom involved. The “people-oriented” concept of the sharing economy refers to emphasizing respect for individuals in the economic activities of the market, relying on the sharing and exchange of all individuals, fully exploiting human potential, and respecting the legitimate rights and interests of individuals participating in the sharing economy platform. Respect the party’s inner will, give multiple individual autonomies, and ultimately fully mobilize each individual to participate in the sharing platform initiative while achieving “human freedom” and “liberation of people”.

8.5.2 Traditional Economic Activities Ignore “Humanism” Under the assumption of the economic man, traditional economic activities believe that people’s behavioral motives are rooted in economic incentives. People always strive for the greatest economic benefits. The job is to obtain economic rewards. People use it as a profit tool. The “economic man” hypothesis is managed by the money-based mechanical management model that denies people’s ownership and denies people’s consciousness, initiative, creativity, and sense of responsibility. They believe that because people are inherently lazy, they must use such measures as coercion, control, reward, and punishment to promote them to achieve their organizational

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goals. In traditional economic activities, companies ignore personal feelings, values, and sense of accomplishment. Most of them rely on material rewards to meet the needs of economic people. They also bind individual freedoms in the form of contracts and contracts. The Foxconn jump-off event that shocked the nation from time ago was undoubtedly the typical embodiment of neglecting the “people-oriented” concept under the traditional economic mode, reflecting the fracture between the company and its employees. Ignoring the concept of “humanism” will inevitably bring disrespect to individuals. Individuals who participate in economic activities to survive becoming passive and helpless will be unable to exert initiative and creativity, and they will lack dedication, sharing and win–win ideas.

8.5.3 The Concept of “Humanism” in the Mode of Sharing Economy The sharing economy optimizes the allocation of resources to the maximum extent based on the satisfaction of the relevant needs of all participants in the shared platform. It not only meets the economic interests of the economic entity, but also focuses on the non-quantification of non-economic benefits. The “people-oriented” concept of the sharing economy refers to the people-oriented concept. Individuals can fully display their own values. Individual values are promoted and respected. Individualized needs are recognized as emphasizing human freedom and human liberation and ultimately achieving human self-worth. The typical embodiment of the people-oriented concept in the sharing economy model is the cloud innovation model in the field of science and technology innovation, as well as an innovative research and development model that has emerged over the years: Open Innovation. In this model, companies no longer rely on internal personnel, instead, they expose scientific research issues to the general public or a part of the general public, brainstorming, and expecting the best answers. This innovative model can be a useful complement to internal R&D of traditional enterprises and become the only business model for some new types of companies. A typical example of open innovation is InnoCentive.com. InnoCentive.com is an open innovation platform. On this platform, users who need to solve innovative problems are called Seeker; and those who solve problems are called Solver. From 2000 to the end of 2007, Innocentive.com has issued more than 600 challenges from more than 80 institutions, with a total bonus of $22.5 million. However, for Solver, only the scheme was adopted, can they obtain the bonus, but there is still a steady stream of options provided to Seeker, and Solver, who won the prize, chose not to disclose his private information. He/she solved a total of 13 questions that were ranked high in 2012, 2014, and 2015. Whether or not you choose to disclose personal information not only shows an attitude, but also reflects the diversity of utility Solver has achieved on this website: they have obtained more than just money. There is also a sense of honor and accomplishment.

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The sharing economy’s satisfaction with people’s values and the full freedom of the participating participants in the platform are typical manifestations of the humanistic concept in the modern economic and social environment. There is no contractual constraint, no performance pressure, and the participants of the platform can achieve free advance and retreat. Everyone can realize their own values in the platform, gain a sense of participation, honor, and sense of accomplishment. The sharing economy is a new economic model that adapts to the modern concept of harmony and people-oriented thinking. It is the key to the viable vitality of the sharing economy.

8.6 The “Equality” Concept of Sharing Economy Based on the inclusiveness and openness of the Internet platform, the diversity of resource forms under the sharing economy model and the blurring of resource boundaries, the simplification of the sharing economy platform with its access model and the autonomy of the exit mechanism make it possible for all owners to have idle use. The simplification of the access economic model and the autonomy of the exit mechanism provide an “equal” participation opportunity for all participants who have idle resources available, eliminates the existence of monopoly barriers in the industry, and truly achieves equal participation, equal competition, and equal status of suppliers and demanders.

8.6.1 The Connotation of “Equality” The concept of “equality” in the sharing economy refers to the equality of identities of all subjects participating in the sharing economy, and equal opportunities for participation, competition, trade, decision-making, provision of resources, and access to resources, from the equal participation of suppliers, equal competition, to the equality of the market position of supply and demand sides. The sharing economy adopts a free access mechanism and a complete evaluation system to achieve equality in all aspects of market transactions. The concept of “equality” and the follow-up concepts of “freedom” and “democracy” have provided a good foundation and great attraction for further attracting a large number of participants to participate in the sharing economic platform.

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8.6.2 The Concept of “Equality” in the Sharing Economy Model Equality under the sharing economy model can be divided into the following three levels: 1.

Equal participation

With the gradual improvement of the social credit mechanism, the access of the participating parties to the sharing economic platform is regulated and restricted by laws. Both the personal safety of the supply and demand sides and the safety of the goods can be legally guaranteed, and a well-developed shared economic platform provides opportunities for equal participation for many related entities who are challenging to implement transactions and participate in market platforms in the traditional economic model. In particular, relatively weak individuals, relative to professional talents within enterprise groups, can also actively participate in the sharing economy, gaining access to platform transactions such as sharing rides, sharing idle homes, sharing skills, and even benefit from the platform trading that participates in technology research and development. The open-source software innovation based on the sharing concept is a typical case of individual users participating in equal business activities. The open-source software project is a software project where a group of Internet-based software developers spontaneously collaborate on their own interests or needs (Gu, 2009). This group of developers and users of the software constitutes an open-source community. Based on the concept of equal sharing, software developers open source code, and all software users have the right to modify and design the source code according to their own customer experience and new product needs. It breaks down the barriers to the industry in the R&D process, confidential competition among enterprises, and barriers between companies and individuals. And the volunteers who have the knowledge and passion for scientific research at all levels of the society who have had difficulty accessing business results can participate in software development. 2.

Equal competition

Among the traditional business models, on the one hand, monopolies, with their strong market power, block the immersions of competitors with higher industry barriers, and at the same time obtain excess monopoly profits. On the other hand, the socialist market economy in China has its own special sexuality and imperfections, the government allocates resources directly, and non-natural monopolies restrict competition, limit and constrain the allocation of market resources, and impede fair competition (Li, 2013). In the sharing economy business model, due to the active participation of many parties in the society, the supply and demand sides have jointly formed a huge “product and service supply pool and demand pool”, and the market capacity is huge. There is no monopolistic market force in the sharing economy. Each individual or company can become a supplier of products and services as long as they

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have idle resources and are willing to temporarily transfer product use rights (Zheng, 2016). The emergence of shared finance is a typical case in which large, medium and small enterprises can achieve equal financing and equal competition: SME financing is a major bottleneck hindering the private economy from becoming bigger and stronger. Because of the low risk, stable income, high credit rating, and government intervention and other factors in state-owned enterprises, large amounts of financial resources flow to state-owned enterprises. The lack of collateral, high risk, and low credit rating of small and micro enterprises have resulted in a serious shortage of financial resources (Zhao, 2015). Sharing finance is driven by the concept of “general-popularity and service-to-people”, providing convenient financing channels for the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises. With the continuous improvement of the social credit system, the private economy with good credit conditions and excellent operating performance can equal access to a shared financial platform. This is a typical manifestation of the “equality” concept of the sharing economy. 3.

Equal status of supply and demand-side

The traditional business model is dominated by operators and consumers. Although the Consumer Protection Act narrows the gap between economic power and social status between consumers and operators, it focuses on giving special protection to consumers. It is precisely embodying that consumers are in a weak position relative to operators in the consumer sector and belong to vulnerable groups (Jin, 2012). Under the sharing economy model, there is no strict boundary between the operator and the consumer. The supply-side satisfies the needs of the demand side with its idle resources, and the demand side has participation rights, choice rights, and evaluation rights. Unlike the standardized production of traditional economic supply chains, the demand side of the sharing economy participates in the sharing economy, and directly influences supply-side decision-making through choice and review rights, and can require the supply side to provide more personalized and customized products and services (Zheng, 2016). The demand side’s right to discourse in the sharing economy platform is a powerful promotion and protection of its market position. At the same time, the construction of an internet-based sharing economic platform has enabled demand parties to communicate directly with the supply side. Largescale channels and distributors are gradually being squeezed out of the market, and buyers and sellers are directly bargaining and interacting on shared platforms. In the sharing mode, participating users voluntarily participate in and share items directly with others based on trust. The parties to the transaction are in a fair and equal relationship. This is also the difference between the sharing economy and the existing rental service (Yang, 2016). The intermediary of the consumer stratum and further expansion of consumer surplus is a powerful improvement of the weak position of consumers in the traditional economic model. Sharing economic platforms have a huge market capacity and open and transparent information dissemination model. The demand side can make more rational choices. There are more choices, and there is room for independent choice and free advance

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and retreat in trading activities. The perfect consumer evaluation mechanism also provides consumers with a powerful weapon that directly safeguards their legitimate rights and interests, and truly realizes the equality of both suppliers and demanders.

8.7 The “Freedom” Concept of Sharing Economy The sharing economy has truly realized the advancement and retreat of participants’ participation, the blurring of resource boundaries, the enrichment of information resources, and the liberalization of time and space with its well-established business model. These all provide great freedom of choice and convenience for the transaction process for all market players. The powerful Mobike bicycles and OFO bicycles that are popular nowadays have given the general public great convenience because they do not need to buy cars, care for bikes, and abandon them anytime and anywhere. This is a simple and typical expression of the concept of a “freedom” sharing economy.

8.7.1 The Connotation of “Freedom” The free concept of the sharing economy refers to the right of each trading entity of the platform to autonomously enter and exit the sharing economy platform. All subjects that meet the economic and legal norms are not subject to industry barriers, individual scales, and individual attributes. In the broad sharing economy platform, it is possible to freely trade the resources they possess and obtain the products they need. It is not limited by time, space, and location. In particular, it breaks through the limitations of information asymmetry and everyone has access to business information that cannot be obtained under the traditional economic model. It said that the construction of the sharing economy platform provided more trading opportunities for the entire market entity and further realized its free optimization of resources.

8.7.2 The Concept of “Freedom” in the Sharing Economy Model The access mode of the sharing economy is the initial expression of its free concept. The mode of participation of all participating parties under the sharing economy model is characterized by voluntary advancement and retreat and voluntary participation has given both suppliers and buyers great freedom rights. In the internet plus + era, the sharing economic platform forms a huge supply pool and demand pool based on the large-scale participation of both parties. And many participating parties are equal, voluntary and free to enter the sharing economy platform.

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The emergence of the sharing economy platform has greatly changed the structure of social employment, resulting in the emergence of a large number of freelancers. At the same time, it also provides a variety of part-time opportunities for talents from all walks of life, allowing individuals to advance and retreat on a sharing economic platform freely and to make flexible adjustments of their working hours, work plans, and work methods. Under the traditional model, individual capabilities are limited. Individuals must obtain effective resources within the organization to achieve their own value, but in the era of the industrial Internet, individuals have strong initiative and enthusiasm, individual values have been greatly improved (Fu, 2016), and the sharing economy can allow practitioners more freedom to enter or exit the social production process, reducing individual dependence on society. The online question answering community born out of cognitive surplus as its driving force bred with its extensive knowledge capacity, huge information demanders, providers, editors, such as Zhiyi and Baidu. Knowing surplus is common, and with the improvement of the social and cultural level and the progress of science and technology, the individual’s understanding of surplus will become more and more abundant. The construction of a shared economic platform provides an intermediary for the sharing of cognitive surpluses. On the platform of the public, such as Zhihu, the individual’s entry and exit are free. This is one of the most significant influences that the Internet age has brought to people, and it is also the concept of the sharing economy that has always been implemented.

8.8 The “Democratic” Concept of Sharing Economy It is precisely because of the “humanism”, “equality”, and “freedom” of the sharing economy that all parties involved in the platform have the right to speak on an equal footing, and on the premise of coordinating the interests of all parties, they have achieved an effective model of free advance and retreat. And on the premise of coordinating the interests of all parties, it has achieved effective checks and balances and coordination of forces, avoiding information asymmetry and strong monopoly forces. Based on this, the various operating mechanisms, pricing models, decisionmaking methods, and evaluation criteria of the sharing economy can be run and designated in a democratic manner. This, in turn, further promotes the freedom, health, and harmonious development of the platform.

8.8.1 The Connotation of “Democratic” The “democratic” concept of the sharing economy refers to a series of principles and behaviors that protect the freedom rights of all participants of the platform in business transactions. The core idea is to protect the free rights of all participants, respect the opinions of the subject, determine pricing rules by means of equal consultation and

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provide sufficient information for all parties involved in the platform to protect the legitimate rights and interests of all participants. The participants of the sharing economy platform, with their equal market position, have full right to speak, making the formation of market decisions and pricing mechanisms can more reflect the opinions of all parties and embody the concept of democracy.

8.8.2 Traditional Economic Activities Are not “Democratic” In traditional economic activities, due to suppliers’ monopoly and the limited resources, the formation process of their prices is often unilaterally determined by the supplier, lack of consultation, discussion, voluntary formation, and the number of parties involved relatively small. Failed to launch collective participation of the masses in the sharing economy platform. In an environment where the seller is in a strong position, it is difficult for the buyer to evaluate the product’s follow-up service effectiveness and authenticity fully. Therefore, it is not possible to form restrictions on the seller. There is a situation where the after-sales service quality is poor and the buyer is not able to recover or voluntarily give up. Such a pre-pricing monopoly of sellers and lack of post-assessment are drawbacks existing in traditional economic activities. There is no room for the demand side to provide sufficient democratic rights and resources.

8.8.3 The Concept of “Democratic” in the Sharing Economy Model The concept of democracy in the sharing economy model is typically reflected in the following two aspects: (1) The transaction pricing method is formed by the supply and demand sides, who are independent in their choice. (2) An open and transparent “crowdsourcing” feedback evaluation mechanism provides all individuals with reasonable and accurate information feedback. 1.

Pricing model

Based on the concept of democracy and a large platform of trading entities, the transaction price under the sharing economy model is formed by buyers and sellers quoting each other, coordinating each other, two-way, and even multiple-choice. On a sharing economic platform, there are multiple suppliers and demanders. Even for the same goods A and B, there are multiple different quotations on the supply side and the demand side. This is similar to the active stock exchange market. For both supply and demand sides, the price formation process gives both parties great freedom and democracy space.

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The traditional business model is seller-oriented, and the buyer is in a severe position of information asymmetry. Its pricing model is a static pricing model. It is set by the seller and shows seller-centered transactions. The buyer is in a relatively passive and weak position. This makes the transaction pricing between buyers and sellers arbitrary and non-fair. It is seldom traded between buyers and sellers to create a mutually acceptable price. In the sharing economy model, a dynamic pricing mechanism is adopted. In different trading hours, the buyer and the seller determine different prices during the transaction. In the dynamic pricing mechanism, real-time price fluctuations reflect supply, demand, and consumer behavior (Botimer & Belobaba, 1999). Taking drop-off trips, rides, etc., as an example, drivers and passengers on the platform offer prices at the same time. With the two-way selection, drivers can have “dynamic markup” based on road conditions, mainly in the morning and evening peak periods and in remote areas, and if passengers want to reduce “calls” time, you can also choose to take the initiative to increase prices to attract more and more drivers to take orders. Sharing economy platform to achieve democratic pricing and freedom of choice is based on the enormous resource capacity of the platform and the supply and demand sides. 2.

Evaluation mechanism

After self-advancing and withdrawal, democratic pricing and other mechanisms, the follow-up auto-evaluation mechanism have also given more democratic rights to the supply and demand sides. In the traditional business model, once the transaction is completed, the after-sales service, transaction satisfaction, etc. are often ignored by the seller, and the buyer due to the consideration of time cost, opportunity cost, and lack of rights protection platform, they often not pursued, which makes the buyer further disadvantaged in the transaction process after being faced with mandatory pricing. The sharing economy, through an open and transparent Internet platform, effectively restricts sellers through feedback and evaluation by users. On the other hand, most of the sharing economy operating modes are rent-based purchases and rent-only sales. The supplier has the right to require the buyer to maintain the original status of the goods and to cherish the used articles based on the ownership of the goods. Therefore, the supplier should have a good feedback mechanism and evaluation mechanism to safeguard the interests of both parties. The most common sharing platforms, such as Taobao and eBay, have established their own evaluation mechanisms and rely on a wide range of sharing participants to provide evaluation and reputation scores. Such a trust mechanism solves the problem of information asymmetry and largely eliminates the trust barriers for the realization of consumer sharing among strangers. This kind of “crowdsourcing” feedback is the defense of the supplier’s and demander’s democratic rights. The lack of sharing on the supply and demand sides is great damage to the consumer and the shareholder’s rights. Although Airbnb has been a leader in the new model since its inception, it has also been criticized by tenants for the wanton destruction of their homes. Therefore, a sound credit evaluation mechanism is an essential guarantee for the sharing economy platform’s healthy operation.

Chapter 9

Property Rights of Sharing Economy

The first eight chapters of the book grasp the core of the sharing economy from the theoretical perspectives, connotation, essence, and philosophy. That is, it improves the efficiency of resource use, reduces the cost of resource use, and achieves an efficient allocation of resources within the entire society. However, under the traditional private ownership system, the ownership of resources often fails to achieve the rational use of resources within the whole society. This involves the issue of the property rights nature of resources under the sharing economy environment. In fact, the sharing economy development process is also a process of a property rights revolution. This chapter starts from the ownership property of the sharing economy and discusses how to achieve the transition from the traditional privatization system to the public system under the sharing economy. The property right is a form of legal expression of economic ownership, which mainly includes property ownership, possession, use, control, income, and disposal. Combining the connotation and essence of the sharing economy, this book summarizes the property rights of the sharing economy into eight aspects: use first, duality, fragmentation, instantaneously, commonality, lending, networking, and personalization.

9.1 Use First This book briefly mentions the view of Jeremy Rifkin in the section on sharing economy’s connotation. Sharing economy is a process of changing from the concept of property rights to the concept of sharing (Lu Xianxiang, 2016). This point of view illustrates that sharing economy has begun to emphasize sharing the right to use resources and has placed the right to use on the most important position in the property rights of resources. This reflects that sharing economy emphasizes use right.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_9

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9.1.1 Consistency of Use First This section will interpret the so-called reusability as the concept that using is more important than ownership. In the industrial age, people value the ownership of resources and pursue possessing one thing exactly. Under the industrial structure in which industrial production is the main force, the large-scale production of commodities has made people’s desire to possess more and more products. This kind of rich production has become the external environmental driving force for people to pursue the privatization of resources. Therefore, the privatization of resources has become the main feature of capitalism. However, this kind of concept has certain limitations, and it is difficult to achieve an efficient allocation of resources. In other words, the owner of a resource is not necessarily the resource’s demander, and this often leads to excessive idle or inefficient use of resources. In fact, most of the things we have will be idle. For example, if a private car only uses 5% of the time, so it is idle for 95% of the time, office workers can only enjoy their living space after work or home for a weekend. In addition to the inefficient use of idle resources, inefficient economic resources or high-quality resources other than idle resources under the traditional economic model cannot waste resources because of the sharing of use rights. Those who own resources are wasteful in disguised form, and those who need it are still struggling to seek the opportunity to use resources. As a result, the unreasonable allocation of resource ownership also leads to the inefficient use of resources within the community. With the development of the economy, this limited view of resource rights gradually exposed many drawbacks, among which the economic crisis in 2008 was the most serious. In the context of the economic crisis, people realized that the “property” they used was swallowed up instantly. They had nothing at all, but they had to bear huge debts to own resources. What’s more serious is that the economic crisis has led people to have no extra money to purchase the resources they need, and their living standards have dropped dramatically. In this context, people have to find new outlets by sorting out what they own. People began to question the true value of the constant accumulation of assets before, and people began to wonder how they can use resources to meet the needs of life at a low cost. To sum up, the previous consumption patterns led people to buy too many “useless” things. The abuse of this consumption concept and consumption model under the economic crisis is undoubtedly obvious. Therefore, overnight, a vast economic revolution began. People began to use the highly developed Internet technologies and mobile platforms to continue to share their own resources, and at the same time, obtain what they need from others at low even zero cost. In this revolution, the sharing concept became the theoretical guarantee that guided the revolution to proceed smoothly. Thousands of people solved life problems through this sharing, and at the same time, they realized the efficient use of resources in society through sharing mechanisms. In response to the crisis, a property rights revolution, the sharing economy began.

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Since then, people have placed the right to use resources first. They are no longer constrained by the concept of ownership of resources. They realize that similar collaborative consumption can not only achieve the benefits of mutual benefit through sharing ownership of products and services, but also can make contact with others through the Internet and enjoy your life at a lower cost and better quality. What is transferred in the sharing economy environment is “use rights”, emphasizing that “use is more important than having.” However, the transfer of this right to use is only temporary, that is, the so-called “use and not account”. The right to use the resources transferred through the sharing platform is only a temporary transfer. The right to use the demander is short-lived, and when the use is over, the resource needs to be immediately returned to the owner of the resource (Lu Xianxiang, 2016) in order to realize that the resource is used more fully by others. This shows that despite the use right is more important than ownership under the sharing economy model, the actual ownership of resources is not negligible, but the emphasis on resource use is increased based on all resources. The property rights under the sharing economy model are based on the retention of private property rights and allow more people to share the new property rights of the use of resources. This reflects the importance of use among property rights under the sharing economy model.

9.1.2 Performance of Use First in Sharing Economy Under the sharing economy model, the emphasis on the use of resources is more important than ownership, and the efficient allocation of resources is achieved through the sharing of the use rights of resources. This property right characteristic is fully reflected in the sharing economy phenomenon. Take the example of online rental car sharing that means the sharing economy is starting to rise. Under the capitalist system, people are pursuing private ownership of private cars. Private cars are an important symbol of people’s living level. With the popularity of the sharing economy, young people are now trying to change the relationship between themselves and cars. They are more inclined to use a car than to own a car (Rifkin, 2014). In the background of the sharing economy, allowing them to pay for only a part of the cost, they can easily use the car at any time. This lowcost, high-satisfaction model to use a car has been sought after by people. Besides, whether it is ordinary car rental, renting or the sharing of high-quality resources under industrial cooperation, the traditional concept of property rights is subverted from the perspective of shared use rights. In sharing economy, participants no longer use ownership as an indicator of the value of resources. Resource owners can obtain additional benefits by granting access, and for resource users, they have the right to use resources other than rights of control, dominance, and income. Therefore, trading the use rights has become the essence of the sharing economy (Shen Qiu, 2016). The above discussion shows that the sharing economy model has spawned a two-tiered industrial structure. Traditional ownership is no longer in the position of the most valued property rights. Instead, it is the right to use the resources. The

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ownership, control, income, and disposal rights of the resource ownership structure are in the lower level, while the use rights are in the uppermost position (Shen Qiutian, 2016). Under this ownership structure, products are privately owned from a product perspective, but product value is shared from a value point of view. From this point of development, people’s understanding of property rights has gradually shifted from ownership to the right to use. People share the use right of resources. What is transferred on the sharing platform is also the use right of resources. All of the core elements of the sharing economics claim are “use but not possess” (Jiang Qiping, 2016). The pursuit of resource property rights in the sharing economy is not to have ownership, but to use it (Ding Yuanzhu, 2016). Gansky (2010) also mentioned that the importance of resource ownership has begun to decrease. In past economic systems, privately owned properties such as houses, cars, or clothes were often used to measure personal wealth. However, maintaining these private assets requires high costs, including capital expenditures, maintenance costs, preservation costs and processing costs. With the development of Internet technologies and modern communication technologies, individuals realize that the attractiveness of the original owner is reduced when they realize they can get immediate and convenient access to the desired products or services in the virtual world (Wu Guangju, 2016).

9.2 Duality As mentioned above, under the sharing economy phenomenon, the use of resources is more important than ownership. The division of use rights and ownership of resource property rights involves the duality of property rights mentioned in this section. That is to say, and the dualistic attribute feature provides a theoretical basis for reuse.

9.2.1 Duality of Sharing Economy The definition of duality in this book is the separation of use rights and ownership. The above-mentioned “use first” property of sharing economic property rights is based on the separation of ownership and use rights under duality. Separating the use rights from ownership and paying more attention to the use right of resources in the Internet era has become one of the sharing economy features. We distinguish ownership and use of resources. According to law, resource ownership refers to the owner’s right to possess, use, profit, and dispose of his own property. The right to use resources refers to the right of people to use resources in accordance with the law. Traditionally, property rights have a certain degree of “excludability”. This “exclusivity” means that when we understand resources, we should understand who owns the resources and who they use, that is, the main body of the owners. Own means use, and the privatization of resources means that the right to use is a right that

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excludes other than the owner of the resource. In other words, the ownership and use of resources are the two rights that are simultaneously possessed. Under the economic system of capitalist private ownership, the general idea is to equate the ownership of resources with the right to use the resources, ie, to use them. Under the capitalist system, people see the possession of resources as a right to pursue freedom, which is actually a right to exclude others (Rifkin, 2014). In this background of ownership, everyone is eager to dominate everything by owning private property. However, after entering the Internet era, the virtual network world has closely linked people, and concepts of ownership which mean “exclusivity”, fade away from people’s ideas. The people’s pursuit of freedom no longer depends on the attribution of resource ownership but can be achieved through increased contact with other people in society (Rifkin, 2014). Therefore, the development of Internet technology and the existence of a virtual world have led to a trend of separation of ownership and use rights. The online life developed under the Internet platform gradually changed people’s concept of property rights and guided the ownership revolution and ownership to the right to use. Under this background, people’s understanding of property rights is no longer limited to clear the main body of the resource owner and needs to be clear about who is occupied, used, and dominated by the resource, that is, the clear user’s main body. Under the sharing economy, the transformation from private property rights to public property rights is realized, which means that the separation of resource ownership and use rights reflects the dual nature of property rights.

9.2.2 Duality Performance in Sharing Economy The sharing economy model divides property rights of resources into ownership and use rights, placing the right to use in the most important position. In essence, the sharing economy can be seen as a revolution of property rights. In this revolution, the market separates property rights. There will be great commercial value for ownership and use rights (Shen Qiu, 2016). The core idea of sharing economics is that there is “own change to rent”, that is, the transition from ownership to renting. This change is closely related to the law of economic development. Philosophically speaking, economic law refers to the inevitable link between the internal nature of human beings that is not in the process of social and economic development. The sharing economy developed at the beginning of the twenty-first century, by virtue of its advantages in the Internet platform, broke the revolution of the old economic system and realized the transformation of the ownership of production materials into the lease system, thus triggering a revolution in the property rights system (Wang Yingdong, 2016). This kind of revolution symbolizes the dualization of resource property rights under the sharing economy while realizing the change of the concept of property rights. The implementation of the sharing economy is based on a shared platform. The owners of the resources can publish resource information through the platform, to balance the supply and demand of resources. As we mentioned in the previous chapters, the sharing economy shares

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the right to use the resources. For the supply side, the right to use all of its resources can be remunerated, and for the users, it can be passed. The temporary use right of the goods, such as renting or exchanging goods, can satisfy the user’s demand for resources. In other words, what is achieved under the sharing economy is the free provision of products (i.e., no sales) and the charging of services (i.e., usage rights charges). The maintenance of the ownership of resources for the products that are not sold still belongs to the owners, and the sharing of the right to use is achieved through such means as renting. Internet transactions conducted under the premise of separation of ownership and use rights can often achieve more convenient and rapid resource sharing (Jiang Qiping, 2016). As we have mentioned, the core claim of sharing economy is “use but not possess”. Under such a trading mechanism, the ownership of resources needs to be managed separately from the use of resources. When the resource owner owns the resource but does not need to use it, he will transfer the right to use the resource to others so as to achieve a more reasonable use of the resource in society.

9.3 Fragmentation The separation of the right to use and the ownership of property rights makes it possible to transfer the right to use under conditions of sharing economy. This reflects a major feature of fragmenting resource property.

9.3.1 Fragmentation of Sharing Economy Fragmentation originated from the related research of “post-modernism” and intended to divide the complete thing into different components. The realization of fragmentation can satisfy the public’s pursuit of self and personality. Therefore, the fragmentation of sharing economy property rights lays the foundation for meeting the individual needs of the participants of the sharing economy. This book considers that fragmentation of property rights in the sharing economy can be explained in the following aspects. First, it can be explained in the fragmentation of the integrity of resources. The time cost and material cost required to sign a complete property rights contract under the traditional economic system and cumbersome formalities system are relatively high. If the resources are fragmented, ownership, use rights, dominance, and disposal rights are divided. So it can be targeted to achieve efficient and rapid transactions. In the above section, the basis for realizing the use first and the duality of the sharing economy is the fragmentation of the resource integrity property. The realization of fragmentation divides the resource property right into the right of use and ownership, and the resource use rights are simply realized through the sharing platform. Trading,

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on the premise of satisfying consumer demand for resources, saves the time and material needed to sign a complete property rights contract. Second, the fragmentation of a single property right, using resource use rights as an example. Fragmentation of single property rights means that separate ownership or use rights can be divided, and usage rights or ownership can be dispersedly used. The use of resources that can be shared by multiple parties, such as the fragmentation of housing use rights, can improve the efficiency of the transfer of resource use rights. For resources such as knowledge and technology, its right to use can be used by many people at the same time. The use of such resources that can meet the needs of different users at the same time is fragmented, and the property rights after fragmentation are matched to each demander, so that the resources can be optimally allocated in the entire demand group. Finally, the process of realizing the transaction under the sharing economy is also characterized by fragmentation. The fragmentation of property rights has enabled the sharing of property rights of the same resource to different people at the same time, which has improved the efficiency of resource use. This demonstrates the fragmentation of property rights from the perspective of resource users. At the same time, the participation of resource providers on the sharing platform to the sharing economy also reflects the fragmentation of property rights. The information disseminated on the sharing platform can also be obtained by Internet users in different regions, thus providing a convenient platform for decentralized Internet users and resource demanders to provide resources. The fragmentation of this participating entity reflects the fragmentation of the transaction realization process. Fragmentation of the process saves the use of resources and improves the efficiency of resource use.

9.3.2 Debris Performance in Sharing Economy At present, short-term online rentals, such as the daily rent for rent, the world for travel, short-term ants and short-lease for young pigs, can all be regarded as a practice of fragmenting property rights. Fragmentation of property rights on the short-rent platform means dividing the property rights of the house into ownership, use rights, and disposal rights. Under this business model, the landlord owns the ownership, income, and disposal rights of the house, sharing the right to use the house. This sharing of use rights alone is based on the division of the total property rights of the home. This separate transaction can reduce the time and material costs incurred in signing a complete home purchase agreement, while also satisfying the needs of users who have short-term housing needs housing, achieving the matching of fragmented supply and fragmentation requirements. In addition to short-term leases, the business models of the online car rental industry such as Linux open-source software, Dribbling, Uber, etc., can also be used as a manifestation of fragmentation of resource integrity property. The business model of Linux-like open source software is the process of fragmenting complete property rights. The open-source code provided by open-source software can provide

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programmers with the opportunity to divide or integrate and modify the source code for innovation. In this way, by sharing the right to use the code, programmers can create databases or browsers and other software with certain characteristics, to jointly participate in various software development projects provided on the open-source platform. The open-source software platform uses shared code usage rights to fragment the complete property rights of new software development activities and provide software development work to different programmers on the network. A number of programmers participate in the software development process to obtain the ideal software product’s results at a low cost and with high efficiency. Therefore, on the one hand, open-source software provides people with the right to use the source code. On the other hand, it also fragments the property rights of the software development process. This fragmentation makes it possible for high-level individuals on the network to participate in the research and development process. Besides, Didi and other vehicles divide the right to use, control and ownership of automobiles, broaden the service scope of the automotive industry, and at the same time achieve the goal of corporate profits through sharing. In addition, we use the example of space sharing WeShare enjoy vacations to illustrate the utility of the fragmentation feature of individual property rights. WeShare enjoys the vacation platform is to use the sharing economy to develop the typical representative of the tourism industry, this business model to establish a share of the country’s decentralized holiday housing exchange platform. On this platform, the developer will fragment the ownership of the use of each vacation home and the ownership of the property, sell the homes in the form of 12 equal shares of public property, and each share of the holiday homes will enjoy 28 days of residence each year. Therefore, customers can choose to buy the shares of public property rights according to their own travel preferences. At the same time, customers can also use their own unusable or temporarily idle right to use the platform for rental. The division of property rights in the WeShare platform ensures that customers can meet the demand by purchasing a certain share of the right to use. At the same time, it also reduces travel costs, stimulates more customers to participate, and reduces the high inventory situation in the tourism industry, thereby stimulating tourism development. The core of this model lies in the sharing of powers. Consumers purchase public property on a sharing platform for public ownership and have possession, use, and income rights for the corresponding share period. The ownership of such properties can be transferred and inherited. The vacant holiday time each year can also commission the platform to rent. The fragmentation of typical property rights has made WeShare present a distinctive effect. On the one hand, it solves the problem of high family holiday spending in China, and on the other hand, it also promotes the development of China’s tourism real estate industry. The fragmentation of sharing economic property rights is also reflected in the fragmentation of the transaction process. The transaction process of sharing finance can explain the fragmentation of this transaction process well. Sharing finance is a new type of means for realizing the balance of economic and social lending through network platforms. In this type of financial resource sharing transaction, funds required by fund demanders come from a large number of different fund providers.

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In fact, fragmented fund use rights are centralized, and the project returns are fragmented to share. This fragmented transaction process enhances the availability of fundraising, reduces the time cost of fundraising and manpower and material costs, making transactions more convenient and faster. Through the above explanations, we have concluded that whether the fragmentation of the entire property rights or the fragmentation of the single-use rights is being promoted by the user’s individual needs, at the same time, fragmented transactions have contributed to low cost and high efficiency. The possibility of realizing transactions has become a significant feature of the sharing economy.

9.4 Transient In the previous section, the book describes the characteristics of the fragmentation of the sharing economy. In this section, we consider transiently to be another important attribute of the sharing economy. This section mainly introduces the connotation and performance of the sharing economy’s transient nature. It aims to show that the sharing economy transaction has a short time, high efficiency and low cost. It is an economic model that can improve the efficiency of economic operation.

9.4.1 The Instantaneous Connotation of Sharing Economy The instantaneous nature of the sharing economy means that economic activities can be completed in a very short period of time, which greatly promotes the efficiency of economic activities. Different from the traditional economic model, the transaction period is long and the transaction process is complicated. The transient in the sharing economy is reflected in three aspects: one is the instantaneousness of the right to use, such as short-term rent; the second is the transient nature of the transaction process. For example, using instant transactions in the Internet environment; the third refers to the transient nature of the use process. Under the traditional economic model, private property rights become the guarantee to promote the effective operation of economic activities, which is in line with the social and economic development level at that time and the communication and energy science and technology. Whether it is Ronald Coase’s theory of property rights or Garrett Hardin’s theory in his article The Tragedy of the Commons, both believe that the existence of private property rights is a way to promote economic efficiency. The previous economic practice also requires that property rights must be clearly defined. According to Coase’s first theorem, only when the transaction cost is zero can the property right with a clear boundary be able to improve economic efficiency. Coase’s second theorem holds that the existence of transaction cost makes the property right transaction unable to achieve Pareto optimum. At the same time, information asymmetry exists among participants in real economic activities, which leads to

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a long time, high cost, and low efficiency of property rights definition in many cases. However, with the development of a series of technologies, such as communication, energy and logistics, the sharing economy mode can solve the above problems. With the vigorous development of mobile Internet technology, people have more and more channels of communication. People can communicate on the free sharing platform, which greatly improves the efficiency of negotiation among participants in economic activities. Internet of Things (IOT) technology can provide necessary data for large data analysis, which can make the demand of suppliers and demanders match instantly in the shared platform and save transaction time. It can be seen that the sharing economy is eliminating the transaction costs existing in the original economic activities, so that transactions can be concluded instantaneously.

9.4.2 Transient Performance in Sharing Economy This book believes that the transient performance in the sharing economy is as follows: First, under the mode of shared economy, the right of use can be said to be instantaneous. In the process of the development of the sharing economy, not only the barter behavior of exchanging ownership, but also the temporary and short-term leasing behavior of the right to use. At this stage of social and economic development, the phenomenon of excess resources has appeared in some industries, such as iron and steel and coal industries. With the continuous enrichment of material resources, consumers are more willing to use the goods they need at any time by means of low-cost leasing. Such temporary leasing makes the right to use products or services instantaneous. Shared Travel software such as Shenzhou Rental Vehicle enables the demander to obtain the right to use private cars for a short time when he needs them. Shared accommodation software such as Airbnb provides accommodation services for consumers. Second, the development of technology and technology enables the transaction process of sharing economic power to be completed instantaneously. In the case of hotel accommodation, if you book a hotel in a traditional business model, it is a common way to book accommodation by phone before the Internet appears or to find a local acquaintance to book a reservation, in which case book a room. It may take several hours, and due to the double-blind information, the hotel can hardly provide consumers with personalized personal services, and consumers can hardly get the right hotel according to their own preferences, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive—economic efficiency. Before the popular sharing method, although the emergence of the Internet can alleviate information asymmetry, consumers can choose hotels based on information on the Internet, but the transaction process is still complicated. With the popularity of rental software such as Airbnb, consumers can choose the right homestay on the mobile APP according to their preferences. This process not only makes the personalized needs of consumers satisfied, but also

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reduces the consumption of the transaction process. Time reflects the instantaneous nature of property rights in the process of sharing economic transactions. Third, the instantaneous nature of the sharing economy is also reflected in the transient nature of the use process. The transient nature of the sharing economy use process can be said to be the extension of the use right transient. Take the automobile as an example. The depreciation period of a typical car is about ten years. In the United States, the average cost of retaining a car and using a car can reach hundreds of dollars, accounting for 20% of the income of each household, and becomes the biggest expense except for housing expenses. At the same time, the average time limit for cars is 92%, and the utilization efficiency is very low. It can be said that the purchase of car ownership is equivalent to the purchase of the car for ten years of use, but in this decade of use, there is still a huge waste. However, in the model of sharing economy, the problem of the right to use can be solved by renting. Consumers only need to rent a car when they need to use it. When the demand for car rental disappears, the use of car rental will end. The instantaneous nature of shared economic property rights has increased the efficiency of resource use, reduced transaction costs, increased consumption power, and led economic growth. Not only that, but this efficient economic method can also expand the total supply, and even meet the individual needs of consumers to a great extent. According to the law of multiplier in economics, the increase in transaction speed can pull down economic growth when the total amount of resources is constant, thus promoting income growth. From this point of view, the instantaneous nature of property rights makes the sharing economy a new way of sustainable green economy development.

9.5 Commonness From the previous section, we can see that the instantaneous nature of the sharing economy makes economic transactions more convenient. In this section, we will discuss the common attributes of the sharing economy, that is, the concept that everyone can use resources, to illustrate this high efficiency. The economic model can be extended to a wider range of transactions, thus broadening the scope of the sharing economy.

9.5.1 The Commonality of Sharing Economy Another major feature of the sharing economy is the commonality of property rights. Publicity can be understood as that everyone can use shared resources for free, that is, sharing resources for public enjoyment. This feature of the sharing economy is similar to the non-exclusive and non-competitive nature of public goods. With the separation of the right to use and ownership in the common economy model, all

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shared resources can become resources of a common nature. Everyone can use it and become the best interpretation of the concept of sharing economy. Commonality mainly refers to the commonality of the shared platform, the commonality of the use rights caused by the separation of ownership and use rights, the commonality of the transaction objects, and the commonality of use. Since the two enclosures in the UK, the population of the city has increased rapidly due to the influx of migrants, and at the same time, the demand for daily necessities in the city has increased. The rapid rise in prices has caused more land to be occupied by feudal landlords. This has prompted Europe has transformed from a self-sufficient feudal economy to a model of the agricultural economy characterized by a market economy. These changes have fundamentally changed property relations and made people aware of the property of asset exclusivity. Moreover, the enclosure movement has also promoted the emergence of a corresponding legal supervision system, the purpose of which is natural to protect private property rights, which also promotes the development of the market economy. Under the traditional market economy model, we generally accept the concept of private property rights. The owners of the property enjoy exclusive rights to the use, exchange and disposal of property. However, in all aspects of human life, the idea of overthrowing isolation and restoring sharing has gradually become accepted by the public. People began to demand open public square sharing, land sharing, knowledge sharing, virtual sharing, energy sharing, electromagnetic spectrum sharing, communication sharing, ocean sharing, freshwater sharing, atmospheric sharing, non-profit sharing, and biosphere sharing. Through the sharing of various resources, people are fighting for the right to use shared resources publicly.

9.5.2 Common Performance in Sharing Economy In the first section of the chapter, we propose the concept of using weights to ownership. The issue of ownership is not a major issue in the sharing economy. The commonality of “everyone can use” is increasingly manifested. The specific realization of publicity is the following three aspects: First, the sharing economy shows the commonality of the shared platform. Everyone can use the shared platform. The platform is a kind of trading space or place that can exist in the real world or virtual network space. This space guides or facilitates transactions between two or more customers, and strives to attract all parties to use the space or place by charging appropriate fees, and ultimately pursues the maximization of profits (Ali Research Institute, 2016). The commonality of the platform makes sharing a reality. Resource owners either divide resources on the platform, or integrate resources, or open resources, share resources on the platform, and resource demanders find the resources they need on the platform. For both supply and demand, the platform is common territory for everyone. Similar to the replacement of a website such as a free fish, anyone who sells the item can meet the registration requirements of the website. Similarly, anyone who registers can purchase items sold

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by others on the platform. Second, in the sharing economy, ownership has been separated from the right to use through leasing, which makes it possible for everyone to obtain access to products or services. For example, in the mode of sharing bicycles, users only need to register through the platform and pay rent, so that they can ride any Mobike bicycle. The commonality of such usage rights has greatly increased the number of consumers. It is understood that the number of users in the shared bicycle market has grown tremendously from 2015 to 2016 alone, from 2.45 million to 18.86 million. Bida Consulting predicts that the number of users in the shared bicycle market will continue to grow substantially in 2017, reaching 50 million users at the end of the year. Finally, the commonality of the transaction object and the commonality of the use. Knowledge sharing has become a way of sharing economy. Linux open source allows programmers all over the world to program continuously; users in Zhihu can share their expertise on the platform; Harvard Medical School places data from the Human Genome Project in the public domain, allowing scientists to connect free access to the Internet and free use of their research results. The commonality of property rights in the sharing economy has made many innovative entrepreneurial projects cheaper, more convenient, and more open. Sharing bicycles focus on the “last mile” of significant city traffic and may be good medicine to solve urban congestion; The rise of knowledge-sharing platforms such as live, knowledge in Zhihu can be quickly spread on a large scale; The emergence of express service stations has impacted traditional logistics and distribution services. According to statistics, in 2015, more than 500 million people in China have participated in the sharing economy, generating a nearly 2 trillion yuan market scale. It is foreseeable that the pace of sharing economy development will not stop there.

9.6 Renting Through the discussion in the previous sections, we can see that the sharing economy is not only efficient but also applicable. In this section, this book will discuss the leasehold properties of shared economic property rights. By studying the connotation and performance of renting, we find that it is the property of renting property rights that makes privately owned resources become shared resources.

9.6.1 The Connotation of the Lease Economy In the sharing economy, leasing refers to short-term rent, short-term lending, longterm leasing, and leasing of the right to use goods or services. Under this model, leasing is generally paid, and borrowing can be paid or unpaid. As mentioned above, the sharing economy is quietly changing the original property rights system, from the ownership of the original product or service to the rental system to maximize economic utility. It is exactly what Robin Chase said: “Give up I own’ and pursue

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‘I create’, and sharing economy will become a new model for future business.” The leased approach provides a new concept for resolving excess capacity, conserving resources and increasing the value of resource use. Under the traditional business model, leasing can be divided into operating leases and financial leasing. China’s Enterprise Accounting Standards No. 21 clearly defines operating leases and financing: financial leases refer to leases that substantially transfer all risks and rewards related to ownership of assets. Ownership may or may not be transferred. If one or more of the following criteria are met, it shall be deemed as a finance lease: (1) At the expiration of the lease term, the ownership of the leased assets shall be transferred to the lessee. (2) The lessee has the option to purchase the leased assets, and the purchase price is expected to be much lower than the fair value of the leased assets when exercising the option. Therefore, it can be reasonably determined on the lease start date that the lessee will exercise this option. (3) Even if the ownership of the assets is not transferred, the lease term accounts for the majority of the life of the leased assets. (4) The present value of the lessee’s minimum rental payment on the lease start date is almost equal to the fair value of the leased assets on the lease start date; the present value of the lessor’s minimum rental receipt on the lease start date is almost equal to the fair value of the leased assets on the lease start date. (5) The nature of the leased assets is special. If there is no major transformation, only the lessee can use them.

9.6.2 Lease Performance in Sharing Economy In the development of the sharing economy, the way of paid and borrowed is the fastest growing and most common way. The rental model of the sharing economy is also different from the leasing method of the traditional economic model. The realization process of the leasing model is very simple. The supplier shares its own resources, such as real estate, automobiles, high-tech equipment, and transfers the resource use rights to others by collecting rent. The demand side leases at low cost on time, on price, and on-demand. The leased business model can also be divided into a heavy asset model and a light asset model. For example, in the field of travel, Shenzhou special car leases vehicles by “short-term rent + long-term rent”, and there is a unified operation of Shenzhou special car company. This way can be seen as the service provider has relevant assets and is a heavy asset model. For example, Uber, Didi only provides a shared platform, while running a vehicle is owned by the driver, which can be seen as a light asset model. Nowadays, Mobai and Hellobike are the representatives of shared economic leasing. After trying to underestimate the asset model, the shared bicycle enterprises still decide to use the heavy asset model, that is, they own the ownership of bicycles

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and use the leasing method to realize their development. Youbai is also a bicyclesharing service provider. Its main idea is to share economic leasing. With this idea, it has obtained tens of millions of levels of angel financing. Youbai bicycles cooperate with permanent bicycles, and give the research and development and production of bicycles to permanent bicycles with specialized technology. At the same time, the maintenance of bicycles is also handled by permanent companies. Youbai bicycles focus on the upgrading of APP products and the optimization of Internet operation and maintenance. Chapter 8 of this book has put forward the massive hypothesis of resources, pointing out that there has been a situation of excessive resources, all of which have a particularity of high value. For many demanders, it is undoubtedly necessary to pay a very high cost to solve the problem of demand through “internalization”. Especially in the view of most demanders, such demand is not sustainable. They may be here for tourism, need temporary accommodation, or cope with the sudden increase in orders and temporary need to work in professional offices. In the past, in order to meet such temporary needs, the demanders had to pay high costs, while the lease-sharing model released social resources, and the demanders met their own needs at a lower cost. At the same time, the supplier improved the efficiency of the use of its own resources, and even achieved considerable revenue benefits, thereby improving the economic efficiency of the whole society.

9.7 Networking In the previous section, we talked about the instantaneous nature of the sharing economy, the commonness of the shared platform, and the leasing under the shared platform. We emphasized that the sharing economy can achieve low-cost, high-efficiency resource allocation. Such transactions reduce intermediate costs by eliminating the intermediary of traditional forms of business organization, effectively increasing the timeliness of information dissemination. Therefore, the sharing economy can be viewed as a process of disintermediation, which illustrates the “networking” feature of the property rights of sharing economy.

9.7.1 Networking Connotation of Sharing Economy As highlighted in Chap. 5, one of the characteristics of the sharing economy is the use of web platforms to enable transactions. The sharing platform developed under this highly developed Internet technology and mobile communication technology reflects the networking of property rights transactions in the sharing economy. The explanation of this book’s network of property rights is the property rights transaction realized through the network. This kind of networking is reflected in the development of the sharing economy originating from the network. On the other hand, it is reflected in the fact that the implementation of the sharing economic activity depends on the realization of the network platform.

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The origin of sharing economy benefits from the development of network technology. In the traditional economy society, people can also realize the “sharing” of resource use rights, such as renting in the traditional sense, but such sharing of information is achieved through verbal communication or other entities. The propagation of carriers is easily limited by factors such as time and space, which often results in an inefficient match between supply and demand. The development of Internet technology and mobile information technology has enabled the dissemination of information in the economy society to get rid of the limitations of objective factors such as time and space, concentrating the users of the Internet in a large virtual social group, and realizing the immediate dissemination of information, thereby providing opportunities for efficient matching of resources in a wider range. Therefore, it is said that the rise of the sharing economy that realizes “everyone shares” depends on the development of Internet technology under the third technological revolution. The platform on which the smooth development of the sharing economy depends is no longer a traditional entity intermediary, but a virtual Internet platform. The application of Internet technology penetrates into all aspects of the sharing economy, enabling property rights transactions (mainly use rights trading) conducted by the sharing economy to be based on the Internet platform. The networking of this kind of platform is reflected in the aspect of networkization of the participants. On the other hand, it is reflected in the network of the implementation path. The main participants of the sharing economic activities are network users. People who can skillfully use the network can voluntarily participate in network sharing. They can publish information that they can share through the Internet and obtain the information they need through the Internet. Besides, the platform for sharing economic activities is a networked platform. Whether sharing trips, sharing housing, or sharing knowledge requires the use of mobile internet clients. This mobile internet client can be understood as a platform on which the sharing economy depends. The networking of this platform allows users to conduct transactions on the platform autonomously, allowing traders to accurately control the time, location, and number of transactions, increasing transaction satisfaction. The networking of the platform symbolizes the low threshold and the unboundedness of the sharing economy. This allows people to voluntarily participate in the sharing transaction, thereby realizing the transition from closedness to the openness of the trading platform. An open network platform can expand the scope of transactions on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is easy to maximize the potential of participants, and the innovations and economic outputs that are carried out on them can also be easily maximized (Chase, 2015).

9.7.2 Network Performance in Sharing Economy The use of the Internet platform means that the sharing economy model can achieve high-efficiency and low-cost resource exchange. At present, the practice mode of sharing economy in the economic field is realized through the Internet sharing platform.

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We started to understand networking with an online car rental. Imagine if we were planning to take a taxi in the era before the Internet era, the only option was to wave at the side of the road, and with the support of mobile internet technology, we have no need to leave the house. We only need to contact the taxi around the mobile service, which greatly reduces transaction costs and taxi time. The traditional taxi industry is facing a serious imbalance between supply and demand. This unbalanced supply and demand, on the one hand, reduce people’s travel satisfaction, and on the other hand, it also causes large-scale waste of power resources. Subsequently, with the development of Internet technology, the network began to enter people’s lives. Under this model, the Internet platform becomes a bridge between the drivers with transportation capabilities and passengers with travel needs. Due to the open, unbounded, and timeliness of information transmission provided by the Internet, this bridge can achieve instant communication between both parties of the transaction, improve people’s travel satisfaction, and effectively achieve a rational allocation of taxi resources. The key to the Internet platform is to transform traditional businesses through Internet information technology, improve efficiency, and better match supply and demand. The online booking taxi service built on the Internet can effectively match the supply and demand for taxis and reduce transaction costs. It is an innovative form that is more conducive to consumers. Of course, online booking of taxis not only requires the support of the booking platform, but also the support of network platforms such as online payment platforms and network navigation platforms. In other words, the realization of the transaction in the sharing economy needs the support of the network leasing platform on the one hand, and the development of the network payment tools, etc. on the other hand to achieve the networking of this transaction process. In addition, the sharing economy that we are exposed to in our daily lives, such as online shopping, online housing, and internet finance, is dependent on the third scientific and technological revolution and has been able to develop with the support of network technology. Through the above examples, we can see that the development of the Internet is the basic condition for the rise of the sharing economy. The open and unbounded platform built under the Internet environment can facilitate more people to receive the transaction information transmitted on the platform almost without time lag. Compared with traditional businesses, this new type of business model breaks the geographical limits of the transaction, expands the scope of the transaction, and improves transaction efficiency. It is the Internet that provides traders with the possibility of real-time collaboration, making free-to-use Internet communications the main means of facilitating transactions; it is the energy-sharing space provided by the Internet for socialized production that enables free use of the Internet as an important platform for resource configuration. Based on these advantages of Internet technology, property rights trading under the sharing economy can break through the limitations of traditional transactions and meet the needs of social development. The use of the Internet sharing platform enables the sharing of economic property rights transactions to be networked.

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9.8 Depersonalization In the fourth chapter of this book, we have proposed the concept of impersonal exchange. In this section, we focus on the impersonalization of property rights in the sharing economy model. The transaction cost of the traditional economic model forces the transaction to be carried out under the premise of sufficient information. And the sharing model makes it possible for economic activities to be carried out on a large scale among strangers.

9.8.1 The Impersonal Connotation of Sharing Economy The impersonalization of the sharing economy refers to the transaction subject, the scope of the transaction, and the impersonalization of the transaction process. In the theoretical basis of Chap. 4 of this book, we point out that “impersonal exchange” means that we have no personal knowledge of the other side of the transaction, and we cannot distinguish the counterparty in any personal form. In this section, we emphasize the impersonalization of the nature of property rights. In feudal society, most of the economic activities were carried out among acquaintances. This is because the private property rights system has not yet been established, which has led to many factors hindering the development of economic activities. Because of the lack of institutional protection of private property, people lack the motivation to trade property with people outside the social circle. In a society where transactions are basically dependent on acquaintances, the contract for people to trade is a verbal commitment. The reputation of their own integrity guarantees the development of such trading activities. It is generally believed that the private property system makes modern markets possible, and such systems need to rely on strict legal rules as support. Because of the lack of a formal private property agreement, the feudal society can only confine economic activities to the acquaintance circle. The establishment of the property rights system under the modern market economy has promoted the economic activities to get out of the acquaintance circle, so that the trading activities between strangers can proceed smoothly. Under the sharing economy model, the ownership attribute of products or services becomes blurred, and the right to use rights is valued. People can sign contracts with the right to use. In this way, the efficiency of economic activities can be greatly improved, and the scope of economic activities can be made. Significant expansion, product or service transactions between strangers becomes possible. In the traditional economic model, to reduce the degree of information asymmetry between the two parties, the trading entity often establishes a long-term cooperative partnership or establishes a strategic alliance to reduce transaction costs such as information search through such an internalization.

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9.8.2 Impersonal Performance in Sharing Economy The impersonalization of the sharing economy is the following three aspects: The first is the impersonalization of the transaction subject. The development of Internet technology has driven the transformation of communication media and promoted social software such as Facebook, Weibo and Aliwangwang. The popularity of these social software goes communication between people, especially making it quick to understand strangers. Using this social software, people have gradually formed a behavioral norm for socializing in this virtual network community, which laid the foundation for the subject’s impersonalization in the sharing economy. Whether it is from Didi or Airbnb, from ant small loan to Shenyang Machine Tool Plant, the two parties involved in the sharing economy did not know each other before. They have already jumped out of the original acquaintance circle, but because the counterparty is here before incomplete contracts have been signed on the main terms of the transaction, coupled with the behavioral norms that people have formed on virtual social networks, and the incentives that the reputation mechanism brings to both parties, which ensures that economic activities can be achieved in the case of unpersonalized trading entities. The second is the impersonalization of the trading range. Under the conditions of sharing the economy, the trading range of economic activities is expanding, covering almost every aspect of economic life, and proposing that the transaction’s characteristics are not personal. As mentioned in the previous section, in the feudal era, due to the times’ constraints, most of the transactions in economic activities were carried out in the circle of acquaintances, and it was rare to reach a deal between strangers the trading range was small. In the era of capitalism, the existence of private property rights made transactions between strangers possible. Although the scope of transactions was expanded, before the transaction, participants in economic activities need to spend a higher cost to understand each other’s situation, so as to decide whether to proceed. Trading, a process that makes economic activity inefficient. Under the shared economy model, as the transaction subject is depersonalized, the scope of the transaction expands, and the first-incoming depersonalization situation is presented. Everyone can participate in sharing activities in almost all fields. The third is the depersonalization of the transaction process. This feature is determined by the above two characteristics, because the transaction process is nothing more than an organic combination of the transaction subject and the scope of the transaction. In the sharing economy, the non-personalized trading entity trades in the non-personalized trading range, which inevitably leads to the impersonalization of the trading process. For example, the model of knowledge sharing is Live, and the knowledge sharers and knowledge demanders do not know each other, that is, the transaction subject is impersonal. At the same time, knowing that Live also reflects the depersonalization of the transaction scope, because this platform provides a lot of topics. If the knowledge demander finds that the topic of the sharer can meet his

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needs, he can participate in the knowledge sharing meeting by paying a very low fee. When Live is over, the knowledge demander gains the knowledge he needs, and the knowledge sharer gains the economic benefits, and this impersonal transaction process ends.

Chapter 10

Characteristics of Sharing Economy

The sharing economy is the product of the development of Internet technology and human culture. This economic model aims at reducing costs and improving resource allocation. Because of its arrival, the traditional industries are facing the crisis that the economic model has been subverted, and people’s lifestyles are gradually being rewritten. As we have recently felt, the sharing economy has unique charms that are different from traditional economic activities, such as convenience, high efficiency, etc., all of which are reflected in travel, accommodation, and catering. Why can the sharing economy develop rapidly on a large scale? Answering this question requires unveiling the veil of the sharing economy and tapping into the general laws and manifestations of the sharing economy model that distinguish it from traditional economic models, from the unique characteristics of the sharing economy (e.g., full factor, full time, full openness, low input and high output, low cost and high yield, etc.) to explore the mysteries of its vigorous development.

10.1 Full Factor The existing research on the definition of shared resources mainly considers that the sharing economy means that organizations or individuals with idle resources transfer the right to utilize the resources to others, the transferor obtains returns, and the sharer uses the idle resources of others to create value (Jun, 2016). However, the sharing economy not only focuses on idle resources, but on its shareable resources with broader ideological implications.

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10.1.1 The Supply Factors in a Traditional Economy In traditional economic activities, the growth of financial income depends on new inputs such as resources, labor, new land, and the environment, resulting in many idle resources that are subject to conditions that are not put into production and reused; At the same time, products are often inefficient use and not exhaustive. From the microscopic level, the fact that the factors of production cannot free transfer among industries leads to “supply barriers”, and the failure of production factors to enter the production state from idleness leads to “supply shackles”, and the lack of supply innovation creates “supply aging” (Jiandong, 2016). “Supply barriers”, “supply shackles” and “supply aging” have caused micro-economic entities to be at the low end of the industry chain, have overcapacity at low and medium-end products, and lack dynamism (Zhilai, 2016a). Also, because the resources produced are hindered by the concept of consumption and the utilization ways, everyone may have resource elements that are inefficient or surplus, but other resource requirements cannot be met with convenience, resulting in an apparent lack of resources and the resources are seriously unevenly distributed and wasteful.

10.1.2 The Full Factor Connotation of Sharing Economy The existing research defines and describes the sharing economy as mostly defining the sharing of idle resources. The sharing in the sharing economy that we emphasize is more than idle resources. All resources can be shared, including unique resources and inefficient resources, as shown in Fig. 10.1.

Fig. 10.1 The full factor connotation of the sharing economy

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Idle resources focus on the “occupy but not use” feature, while the full-fledged characteristics of the sharing economy emphasize that people can share all production materials or elements on a shared platform. These elements are generally unique or inefficient. Endemic resources can be shared on a shared platform by their scarceness and difficulty in replicating by other people. This is usually an intangible asset attached to a specific person because its use-value is unlimited and not limited to use. Resources with inefficiency have a common characteristic—temporarily inefficient. Inefficient resources are different from idle resources, and inefficient resources can be in the “occupied” or “not-occupied” state, that is, there is a particular gap between it and the maximum utility it can exert. This difference can be large or small. Inefficient resources tend to rely on inefficient platforms or no platforms at all. They appear to be inefficient. For example, books printed by manufacturers but not sold, there is no platform for circulation, and resources are bare, which is the extreme of inefficient resources— idle resources; if these books are sold in physical bookstores, sales are slow due to lack of publicity and other backlogs, which is to put resources on an inefficient platform. Although there are circulations, they do not exert their maximum utility.

10.1.3 The Full Factor Performance of Sharing Economy Under the traditional economic model, many resources are idled. The sharing economy model broadens the use of resources and allows idle resources to be reused. At the same time, the analysis mentioned above broadens the scope of sharable resources in the sharing economy—breaking through the traditional sense. Shared elements, all production materials or components can be shared on a shared platform, as long as it can increase the usage rate through a sharing economic platform. Here, in order to clarify the uniqueness of the sharing economy, the sharable elements are divided into the following five major categories. (1) Material resources. Such elements mainly include funds, housing, land, equipment, transportation, toys, and clothing. These physical elements are the most commonly used elements in people’s daily lives. As the times progress, people’s convenience and efficiency requirements for their use increase faster than other resources, which makes the sharing economy begin with these substantive elements. Development seems natural. At present, sharing areas where such elements have been developed include the sharing of funds (such as P2P lending), accommodation sharing (such as Short-term Ant Rents), and office sharing (such as York Factory). (2) Manpower. Such elements include catering services, housekeeping services, and logistics services. Since the human element describes the general service concept and does not require proprietary technology, it is easy to share on a large scale. The sharing of such elements currently includes “city courier” and “city-wide freight”. (3) Knowledge and skills. Such elements include knowledge, information, intelligence, professional capabilities in all walks of life, creativity, design, and experience. Some of the knowledge and skills are obtained through learning, and some are

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talent-created. However, both require long-term operations. Therefore, the degree of exclusiveness is high. In the shared mode, the value continues to rise. (4) Production capacity. The element of production capacity is an element that is implemented in the production of the real economy, and its importance is self-evident. Such elements mainly include energy, factories, human capital, and information infrastructure. The sharing of production capacity elements is the integration of the production capacities of different companies so that the supplier of production and the demand side of products can be effectively connected. The sharing of such elements already has relevant practices, such as the innovation system of Alibaba’s Amoy Factory and Shenyang Machine Tool Plant, but the enterprise spontaneously organizes most of them. The scope is small and fragmented, and there is no systematic system. (5) Natural resources. Natural resources are the resources that the universe and earth provide to humans, such as wind, water, and land. In fact, human beings have been sharing these resources, but only after the sharing economy was proposed, people realized that we did not own the ownership of these natural resources, but only had the right to use them. Based on the concept of sharing economy, “everything is sharable”, in addition to the five major types of elements as mentioned above, such as time, human relationships, and other abstract resources can also be shared, and its sharing model is also being explored.

10.2 Full Space-Time The time–space characteristics of the sharing economy restructured the time and space under the traditional economic model, first breaking through the originally fixed space-time constraints, and then cutting off the original bondage and reconnecting the time and space, thereby freeing time and space. Cracks docking, creating a new economic model.

10.2.1 The Time and Space Limitation of the Traditional Economy The industrialization of the traditional economic model advocates large-scale, standardized, and process-oriented. In a sense, the existence of each enterprise’s boundary imposes constraints on all resources, including those with intangible resources. Under the traditional economic model, enterprises emphasize the protection of the interests of the owners of physical capital, and all resources can only be in their exclusive positions in the entire production and circulation, and they cannot arbitrarily change the position of their operation and the running time. Assuming a scenario, the circulation

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of a laptop computer, when selling to consumers, it is necessary to have a formally decorated store and a sales employee who works on time to sell it to the customer. In the post-sale maintenance, it needs to be in the post. Technicians receive calls from customers to rush to their destinations for repairs; for consumers, consumers may need to circle around the city to compare the brand, price, and quality to get the ideal laptop. Throughout the distribution process, it can be seen that the time, place, and human behavior of this complete system are all fixed. Assume that during this process, the salesperson did not sell a laptop in the store one day. The technicians did not receive a maintenance task in the office of the company one day. Consumers did not find the desired brand model in a circle around the company. The material and manpower were wasted. So, what is the difference in the sharing economy model?

10.2.2 Space-Time Breakthrough of Sharing Economy The sharing economy emphasizes decentralization and personalization. One can become a “company”, such as transforming housing into a small hotel. In the past, for most companies, there was a huge potential for each resource in stock, but it did not spill over and flow across the boundaries of the company. The expansion of decentralized thinking means that everyone can become the owner of the resources they share. The tangible and intangible resources make people no longer confined to one company. Returning to the laptop circulation scenario, the sharing economy model subverts the original circulation process: Under the consumption concept of pursuing usage rights rather than ownership, there is no longer a need for specialized distribution channels, or corporate or personal supply for the supply side. The party quickly and accurately locates the target demand group through the sharing platform. On the demand side, he can quickly match the demand through the platform. Therefore, under the sharing economy model, a flexible sharing platform replaces a fixed store location, and precise platform matching functions replace fixed-time sales and technical maintenance personnel (they can share their own labor services by sharing platform time). The platform’s supply options from across the country and even around the world have solved the limitation that demanders can only choose in the vicinity. It can be seen that the sharing economy model breaks through the limitations of time and space on the original economic model. Under the traditional economic model, time, space, and other resources are coordinated. At a fixed time and place, other resources except time and space produce the same economic benefits. Each resource has high input but low utilization. The shared space-time feature of the sharing economy breaks the original collaborative connection between time and space, fragmenting time and space separately, to create new spatiotemporal relationships.

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10.2.3 Space-Time Connection of Sharing Economy After fragmenting all the time and all the space, it can be imagined that the fragmented time and space include the time and space used before and the time and space that were originally wasted. The reason for the wasted time and space is that the time and space of other resources are not matched and, no economic benefit can be produced. For example, computer technology maintenance personnel have the skill element of repairing a computer. He did not receive a technical problem one day. However, he must be in the office and cannot leave this space because it is a companydefined working time, and he still receives it today. Salary. This is actually connecting time and space without requirements, resulting in a waste of time elements, space elements, skill elements, and capital elements. After the sharing economy fragmented the time and space, it used the sharing platform to match transactions and reconnected time and space, laying the foundation for the flow and sharing of other resources. By sharing the platform, resources that initially belonged to a company within a specified period and external space demanders establish more interest relationships, which substantially expands the role of various resource elements and forms a spacetime and other resource sharing pattern. Resources are shared between individuals and individuals, individuals and organizations, or between organizations and organizations. Traditional models of interest relationships only refer to the interesting relationship between “single enterprise time-space” and “single resource”, while space-time and other resource sharing can make the relationship of interest show a more complex form of “interest of interest” or “interest relationship network”, that is, there are two situations: First, the “single enterprise space” and the “multiple spaces of different companies “Resources” form a network of interest relations, that is, the sharing of the right to use the various resource elements of a company’s organizational space paired into different organizational space; Second, from the perspective of resource elements, “single resources” and “multiple A network of interest relationships formed between enterprise spaces means that a specific resource can be shared with different enterprise organization spaces. It is not difficult to see that after a new space-time connection is created, other resource elements attached to the time and space elements can be efficiently shared using time differences and spatial transformation. Of course, the two elements of time and space are fragmented and reconnected. Without sharing other resources, they already share time and space resources, which improves the efficiency of time and space utilization. After the new space-time connection is established, the person who has the skills to maintain computer skills may be an employee who does not belong to a certain enterprise. He will fragment his working hours and workspace, and use the sharing platform to fragment his skills and resource elements in one day. Time is allocated to different workspaces, that is, jumping out of the space boundaries of the original enterprise’s work, and repairing computers to demand parties in different locations during the day. The existing sharing economy model, such as the Pig, has helped people to break the limitations of the original working time and space, and has copied and utilized elements such as creativity, wisdom, and skills through the

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new space-time connection; Airbnb has connected cross-national and inter-regional accommodation space, different time segments join different demand-side space requirements. In a nutshell, the sharing economy fragmented the entire segment with a fixed amount of time and space. Using the time difference and the transformed space to form a new resource allocation method saves the useless time for each resource element and saved each time. The uneven distribution of resources for the items will help improve resource allocation efficiency.

10.3 Fully Openness The realization of the sharing economy is based on the coordinated operation of the shared network. The resources and the participating entities are nodes, and they independently join the sharing economy. As the participation threshold of all parties is reduced, the participants and the participants are open. Each time they are shared, all parties can learn from each other and gradually achieve full openness and obtain the remaining cooperation from them. In all-factor characteristics, it is mentioned that all the means of production or elements that can be shared by sharing economy embody universal values, and this value is further reflected in the characteristics of full openness. The full opening includes both the full openness of the participants and the full openness of the participants, and the full openness of the two mutually affects each other.

10.3.1 The Organization Model of Traditional Economy According to Western economic theory, the relationship between people includes two forms: one is the market exchange relationship, and the other is the bureaucratic organizational relationship. In modern economics, enterprise organizations and market transactions are equal, and the most representative is that contract economics treats them as contracts. This view eliminates the difference between the two, but it generalizes and formats people. Traditional bureaucratic organizations form a top-down hierarchy and tend to have a stable internal environment. At the same time, the scale of traditional bureaucratic organizations is limited by organizational costs (Yiqun & Yuhai, 2016). Personally, traditional bureaucratic organizations oblige individuals to obey management, attach themselves to the enterprise, and fix it. Besides, companies focus on accumulating competitive resources and strictly controlling the opening up of competitive resources. It is precisely because of the strict paradigm of traditional organizational models that people and things cannot flow freely and cannot communicate freely. Therefore, each participant is subject to conditions and is in a relatively closed-loop process.

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10.3.2 The Full Openness Connotation of Sharing Economy Compared with traditional bureaucratic organizations, the organizational boundaries of the sharing economy are vaguely and infinitely flexible and more capable of changing. As a primary platform for sharing, the Internet gives individuals the ability to compete with the company. The long-tail effect of the Internet age has become more prominent. Personalized needs have grown as important as general requirements. With the accelerated expansion of the shared platform, individuals or organizations of any new access platform can share the existing functions of the platform at nearly zero cost. The cost of platform expansion is minimal compared to the organizational cost of the expansion of the enterprise. In terms of changes in personal status, individuals in a sharing economy can easily join a shared organization to provide and obtain products or services. At the same time, people can freely choose split or integrated resources on the shared platform, use open resources to innovate again, and flexibly choose their own lifestyle and work style (Yiqun & Yuhai, 2016). In other words, each resource and everyone can participate in the sharing economy mode at a low threshold.

10.3.3 The Full Openness Performance of Sharing Economy The full openness of the participants of the sharing economy is embodied in the opening of the resource-use rights, and the full scope of participation of the participants is broader. Apart from the openness of resource providers and resource demanders, the sharing platform is open, and third-party institutions are open, and so on. (1) The opening of resource use rights. The opening of resource use rights, that is, the opening up of resources is an advantage for resource providers to open up. Contrasting the attitude of enterprises towards resources, sharing economic organizations pursue innovation by integrating and opening up resources, and they are different from traditional organizations in accumulating competitive resources and controlling resources to maintain a competitive advantage. Access to information and control over surplus resources are achieved. The remaining cooperation is no longer subject to authority. The openness and sharing of resources are even more touching on the nature of sharing economic value: from small to large enterprises and from big to small countries, the openness of resource use rights means that rare resources can be shared with demanders all over the world in the first place. Or individuals can use this basis to save unnecessary searches or experimental research costs. For example, open-source databases and related open-source software expose the resources such as code on the platform, which in the long run will bring innovation and development momentum to many companies. (2) The opening of resource providers. For resource providers, they can no longer be constrained by the status of hiring. Everyone can provide “goods,” so everyone can

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become a “business.” Compared with the market’s resource allocation methods, the emergence of enterprises had reduced costs and improved the efficiency of resource allocation. However, sharing economy has liberated the existence of corporate boundaries, because, under this economic model, it can further reduce costs and improve resource allocation efficiency based on traditional economic models. After decommissioning, each who can provide resource elements can become the supplier of resources. It does not require the intermediary of an enterprise to consolidate all tangible and intangible resources to form a company-personal employment relationship before becoming a supplier. In this way, the scope of the resource element provider can be extended from the narrow “corporate” to the “resource holder”. The owner of the resource develops from a minority (enterprise) to a mass group, and the mass community extends from the supply and demand sides with clear boundaries between supply and demand (Ying & Weiru, 2016). The scope of the resource provider tends to be borderless. (3) The opening of resource demanders. For resource demanders, the characteristics of their full openness are relative to the full opening of required resources. Since individuals and organizations can become resource demanders and can meet resource requirements from multiple channels or ways, the cost-effectiveness of supply-side products or services brings the relative benefits of demand-side access to the same services, creating a huge “service demand for the sharing economy” (Zhilai, 2016c). Furthermore, participants in the sharing economy no longer uphold the notion of ownership in the traditional economy, unlocking the barriers to purchase for resource demanders and liberating buying desires. In the past, many resource elements that could not be open to resource demanders due to constraints of ideas and space-time were implemented under the sharing economy model. When all resource elements can be opened, as long as there are resource requirements, they can become shared through the sharing platform. (4) Open the sharing platform. For a sharing platform that connects resource holders and resource demanders, those with a willingness can use lower funds and build a sharing platform with the support of resources such as Internet technologies. The sharing economy platform establishes a supply-side and demand-side connection. Due to the scalability and superposition of supply and demand sides, the potential of a shared economy platform is enormous, and the expansion of platform resources and platform size, in turn, enhances the stickiness of both supply and demand users (Zhilai, 2016c). Among them, some of the core technologies of the sharing platform can be shared and resolved through other shared platforms. It is no longer an insurmountable gap. (5) The opening of third-party institutions. Third-party agencies are parties that assist in the effective completion of transactions in the sharing economy model, including third-party payment, assessment, credit reporting, and regulatory agencies. In terms of credit and supervision, the relevant departments of the government mainly control, evaluate and open third-party payment. Taking the third-party payment as an example: in 2016, the scale of China’s third-party Internet payment transactions reached RMB 19 trillion, an increase of 62.2% year-on-year; third-party mobile payment transactions are expected to reach RMB 38 trillion, an increase of 215.4%

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year-on-year. The safe and stable development of the sharing economy depends on the gradual opening of the types and quantities of third-party institutions, and the opening of types can improve the auxiliary network of the sharing economy, thereby contributing to the integrity of the transaction. The opening of the number can increase the transparency of competition and make the satisfaction of trading steady.

10.4 Low Input and High Output The relationship between the input and output of the sharing economy subverts the “proportional” benefits pursued by the traditional economy. “Non-matching” is instead the input–output relationship that the sharing economy can achieve. Relying on the sharing economy platform, the input of production-oriented or shared-platform enterprises can be significantly reduced in many aspects; at the same time, the output of resources will detonate energy to achieve high output due to the concept of progress and expansion of the scope. Therefore, by combing the operating mode of sharing economy and analyzing its input–output individuality, we can understand how the sharing economy achieves low input and high output.

10.4.1 The Input–Output Feature of the Traditional Economy There is a predicament in the efficiency of the input–output ratio of traditional economic activities. From the macro level, we measure input in terms of capital, technology, labor, and measure output in terms of GDP, industrial output, and consumption. Some scholars pointed out that in 2008–2012, when investigating the input– output efficiency of economic development, the provincial input–output efficiency is not optimistic, and the overall efficiency value is low. About two-thirds of the province’s economic growth is in an inefficient state (Zhaozhou & Min, 2015). On the micro-level, traditional economic activities aim to provide new products or services to customers, driven by high output and high sales desires, often falling into a fixed mode of high investment. The investment is the repeated investment in factories, hardware and other facilities, the large-scale investment in technological development and innovation, the bombarded advertising investment in media forms (TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, etc.), and the massive investment in human resources management. There are also many companies that adopt vertical and horizontal integration strategies for enterprise expansion and resource integration. The new integration will require a significant investment cost. However, the practice has proved that high investment may not be high yield. On the contrary, due to the affluence and the inability to be cautious about the attitude of use, companies are more inclined to invest on a large scale, the more serious the waste of inputs, and the inability to effectively

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convert input elements into output; at the same time, blindly integrating monopolies in their respective industries. It limits the potential enthusiasm of the potential competitors to compete effectively and cannot lead to efficient competition, which in turn leads to incomparable inputs and outputs.

10.4.2 The Low Input Feature of Sharing Economy Contrary to the generally high input characteristics of the traditional economic model, enterprises or individuals in the sharing economy model can acquire various services, products, and technology innovations on-demand through the shared platform, which can significantly reduce the organization’s production, sales, and transportation at all stages. In order to get rid of the constraints of the lack of funds, the investment, flexible turnover of capital investment in all aspects, strongly reflects the characteristics of relatively low investment. (1) Low investment in hardware facilities. As far as production enterprises are concerned, in the production process, companies or individuals can be participants in resource allocation. Their equipment, plant, and other fixed assets “do not seek everything, but use it”, i.e., they no longer pursue the ownership of the company or individual ownership, but only considering whether its use-value meets the current production needs of the company. They can choose the most suitable assets for the company or individual from the resources shared by other sharing platforms in sales, and it can reduce a large number of stores by build a shared platform. As far as companies sharing platform properties are concerned, they do not produce products or provide services and focus on matching supply and demand. Therefore, they do not invest heavily in assets and use light asset models. Thus, a low-cost and short-term optimal resource allocation method can replace the original high investment method and use the economies of scale of the sharing economy to complete efficiently and shared sales. (2) Low investment in technology development. The open nature of the right to use resources in the entire openness has lifted the shackles of imprisonment for massive amounts of technical resources. Enterprises can obtain the best solutions by sharing technical issues on the platform or get relevant inspiration from related technology solutions that have been shared. InnoCentive.com is an open innovation platform where anyone can see what problems Seeker currently issues and provide their solutions. For example, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) put forward a question about the Mars plan in September 2014: NASA’s Mars Rover plans to eject 300 kg of material during the landing of Mars. For keeping the balance of gravity in the landing process, how to arrange the content of the 300 kg of material for recycling (Talk, 2016)? This problem was solved successfully by netizens and contributed to scientific research and exploration. In this way, unnecessary investment in experimental research equipment and R&D personnel’s research expenses can be saved, and the investment in technology development can be greatly reduced.

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(3) Low investment in advertising marketing. The consumer market that the advertising industry can help open up is continually shrinking. When people consider whether to buy or not, the impact of corporate advertising has become less and less. At the same time, survey data from abroad shows that when making a purchase decision, consumers are more willing to believe the messages and ratings of other consumers on the network than the recommendations of family members and friends. Advertisements without advertising are the best advertisements. People in the community provided by the sharing platform and the rating system conduct “post-sales” exchanges on the shared resources used or enjoyed. Comments, suggestions, wordof-mouth, personal preferences in the communication will directly influence the communication. The sharing efficiency of shared resources in the future helps the establishment of a brand, replacing the effects of some of the original advertising marketing, thus saving investment in advertising marketing. (4) Low investment in human resources. The future company is a platform where many companies form a large platform. On the platform, the corporate departments set and disbanded on demand, and the teams were flexibly organized according to the project. The internal personnel was streamlined, but there was no lack of creativity and vitality. At the same time, production-oriented companies can also hold the ownership of resources and sell the right to use, thereby eliminating the need for large departments such as sales. For example, Mobike cyclists hold their bicycles in public areas and directly use the right to sell. The company operates a platform, so it requires only a small number of dedicated employees to ensure daily operation and maintenance. As a result, the manpower required in the original complex enterprise architecture is reduced.

10.4.3 The High Output Feature of Sharing Economy The characteristics of the high output of the sharing economy are not only relative to low input, but also because the shared economy model creates an optimal output environment, liberates the vitality of product creation, and improves output efficiency. 1.

More Efficient Research and Development

In biology, to preserve the diversity of living creatures, conservation should focus on the habitats of animals, plants and microorganisms. Biologists establish natural reserves to construct the most primitive and natural habitats for humans, artificially restore the fragmented natural ecosystem, and restore all kinds of inter-racial relationships in the ecosystem. If biologists simply keep their precious species in their care regardless of their ecosystem, they will eventually destroy the coordination of the ecosystem, causing the species diversity to disappear and rare animals to become extinct gradually. In the same way, if we look at human economic activity and only blindly “coverage” R&D technology, the output will lose its vitality. In fact, we are in such a dilemma.

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Researchers believe that copyright protection laws (especially patented technologies) prevent the timely sharing of information, delay the progress of research, hinder the cooperation between scientists, and hinder innovation. Worse still, intellectual property protection provides giant companies (such as life science companies, pesticides, and pharmaceutical companies) with a means to block creativity and suppress competition (Rifkin, 2014). However, people should realize that patent awareness and copyright awareness will flourish when there are many types and quantities of resources that are lacking in life; patent awareness and copyright awareness will become more apparent when the types and amount of resources available in life are abundant. The sharing economy model transposes the causality of this economic law, that is, the traditional patent copyright protection is ignored, and technological R&D can accelerate innovation and produce more valuable resources. Under the sharing economy model, open-source licenses have continued to grow and develop. An R&D result is no longer a single signature. Instead, it is the common signature of multiple individuals. The R&D results are disclosed to the public through the sharing platform. After signing the agreement, each person who is interested in improving an initial R&D technology can modify the technology and use the data shared by others to complete an initial research and development technology. The sharing economy has changed the situation in which a few people controlled the closed intellectual property in the past and disclosed relevant data of R&D technology to the public for collective brainstorming. Sharing the initial R&D not only enables people in need to benefit quickly but also shares the wisdom of the masses in a very short time. People freely communicate and create a new R&D. As a result, the efficiency of the R&D output of various types of products has been greatly improved. 2.

Faster Production and Sales

In sharing economy, the process of providing resources is no longer a one-off production and sales under traditional economics, and the scope of production has been expanded. It is not just the first time that processing and production belong to production. The multiple uses of idle resources, inefficient resources, and proprietary resources all belong to the broad “production and sales” category of the sharing economy. For the first processing and production of goods, due to the sharing of the economy, full-time, full-open support, through the sharing of the platform, its production of raw materials can be easily acquired, its production cycle can be significantly shortened, and production efficiency is accelerated. Besides, the secondary “production” of idle resources, inefficient resources, and proprietary resources has contributed a great deal to the high output of the sharing economy. As we perceive, there are always objects in life that can be used twice but have no use-value for the time being, abandoned in a place, and these things may not be in the minority. When these items have no use-value at the moment, if the second “production and sales” is carried out, that is, sharing the use right of other people who need this resource, the remaining value of the resource is activated. When the number of items of this property is not in the minority, and people are willing to share the usage rights, the output quantity of “production and sales” for two or more times will multiply, and the supply of various resources

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in the market will increase. In the shared area of sharing economy, car-sharing and accommodation sharing vividly embody the high output characteristics of secondary “production”. Individuals and organizations can become suppliers of resources, and there is significant potential for the expansion of supply-side extensions. Their market capacity is huge, and they can form a huge “capacity supply pool” (Zhilai, 2016c). The supply of these resources essentially reflects the high output characteristics of the sharing economy that are different from the traditional economy.

10.5 Low Cost and High Yield The sharing economy is based on the concept of reducing costs and improving the efficiency of resource allocation. Therefore, the study of cost and benefits is also one of the core contents. The sharing economy has changed the cost structure of the traditional economy from the aspects of establishment, marginalization, circulation, etc., and has greatly reduced the cost of the constitution of resources. At the same time, based on the progress of ideas and the expansion of methods, the sharing economy has made up for the inefficient use of traditional economic resources. Therefore, this section will analyze the differences between the sharing economy and the traditional economic costs and benefits from a multi-faceted and multi-perspective perspective, thus expounding the essential features of a low-cost sharing economy and the high benefits of the sharing economy model.

10.5.1 The Cost-Return Feature of the Traditional Economy First, the cost–benefit of traditional economic activities consists of multiple subject levels. A resource flows from the enterprise to the customer, and through multi-tier transactions such as distributors, middlemen, and channel distributors, the product is passed on to the next-level demand side through the “cost + profit” formation pricing, in addition to the internal cost transmission at all levels of the supply side. Also, there are transaction costs between the supplier and the demander. Multiinterest forms a chain of doping together. Although each participant’s income is meager, the cost-effectiveness of the final cumulative price will be greatly reduced. Secondly, there are extreme phenomena in traditional economic activities. One is that competitive-oriented industries are characterized by low levels of vicious competition and redundant construction, which results in overcapacity in the industry and high levels of innovation; second, monopoly-dominated industries rely on government regulation to obtain high profits have caused an uneven distribution of social profits (Yiqun & Yuhai, 2016). These factors together reflect the traditional economic cost is too high, but the income distribution is not reasonable.

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10.5.2 The Low-Cost Feature of Sharing Economy Low cost is a core feature of the sharing economy. The low cost here is not just for resource providers but is based on the low-cost elaboration of the sharing economy and the overall level of the sharing economy. It further sublimates the sharing economy based on low input and can greatly reduce various types of concepts of cost. (1) The sharing economy can drastically reduce production costs. According to the preceding description, due to the sharing of technology development, companies can invite elites from all over the world to communicate and participate in the early research and development of products. They are fast and complete, and no longer need a dedicated R&D team to support the technical research and development of enterprise products. This will reduce part of the production costs. In the production stage of new products, when the production equipment, factory buildings, etc., can share the use rights through the shared platform, the amortization of the manufacturing costs in the products can be further reduced. At the same time, it is possible to achieve personalized production satisfaction from the demand side, thus saving unnecessary resource processing costs. As a result, the sharing economy model can significantly reduce the cost of producing new products by reconstructing the original methods of the R&D stage and the production stage. (2) The sharing economy can realize that the marginal cost tends to zero indefinitely. In economics, the cost of a commodity is divided into two parts, namely the establishment cost (the formation of the team and the tools needed to produce the first product) and the marginal cost (the cost of producing a new product). Compared with the traditional economic model, in the sharing economy model, the ownership and use of tangible or intangible resources are divided. In the traditional economic model, people are constrained by traditional thinking and prefer to own the property of the goods. However, the sharing economy makes people gradually abandon the original thinking, return from “consumerism” to “usage value”, and lead people at the same time of moderate consumption, rethink the nature of economic life (Hongwu & Jiangcheng, 2016). Resource holders can use the resources that are not used for a while to share benefits, and resource demanders can use the lower cost to solve the temporary needs of the resources instead of purchasing new resources. In the coming era, everyone will become a consumer (Rifkin, 2014). That is, the sharing economy is “one acquisition, multiple rentals”. The shared platform can achieve a resource in both supply and demand through a series of technologies. The transaction is effectively configured several times, and the initial acquisition cost and various expenses of this resource are shared by each demander, and the cost is reduced at this time. Whenever a resource is shared once, it is equivalent to providing a “new” commodity to the demand side. When the frequency of this resource sharing is greater, the cost-sharing of the demand side will be less and the “marginal cost” will gradually increase. (3) The sharing economy can greatly reduce transaction costs. First of all, the sharing economy model simplifies the lengthy trading process in which participants

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such as manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors are involved and reduce the transaction costs superimposed on the intermediate links where market forces exist in the traditional model. Secondly, most of the transaction costs account for the cost of collecting and comparing the information. The sharing platform in the sharing economy can capture the matching information needed by the supply and demand sides, and the mobile Internet, mobile transactions and payments based on big data, Network evaluation system, cloud computing and other technologies supervise the credit of all parties, and strengthen the relevant credit constraints on market players, thereby reducing information asymmetry. The sharing economy increases the credibility of long-distance stranger transactions. At the same time, the expansion of social networks is conducive to establishing and replicating communities and the realization of economies of scale. This reduces the overall cost of obtaining valid information and significantly reduced transaction costs. (4) The sharing economy can realize large-scale and low-cost resource replication. When the sharing economy can yield high-innovation resources, and people are no longer tied to private property rights, large-scale products, ideas, designs, and methods for solving problems can be copied and used at the same time. Because people are aware that the growth of revenue does not depend on the so-called “exclusive secret recipe”, large-scale and low-cost copying of source resources will become a trend. Under the sharing economy, the whole nation is faced with the situation of participating in supply. Production is not the patent of a professional manufacturer. Original novels, funny videos, and micro-movies are released on the platform. As supplies become more abundant, the cost of these resources has gradually decreased, giving the cost of replication is almost zero. When the idea of a sharing economy is deeply rooted in people’s minds, different people are free to use the same solution to solve the same type of problems they are experiencing at a rather low cost. In this context, sharing economy can realize large-scale, and low-cost resource replication is no longer a strange thing. (5) The sharing economy can tap and use the cost of sedimentation. The cost of sedimentation is also called sunk cost, which means that the cost has already been paid and is not recoverable. For example, when acquiring a car, an initial acquisition cost is required; when the car is used continuously, it needs to pay the maintenance cost to maintain the utility of the car; when the car is no longer used, it is spent on the car. The cost is the cost of sedimentation. Compared to the traditional economic model, the sharing economy sharable resources category adds large-scale idle and inefficient resources. Each seemingly useless temporarily-reserved resource contains a settling cost, which is the past investment time. Accumulation of money and energy, when these resources are temporarily or permanently useless, the cost will be sealed. However, under the sharing economy model, these resources were activated two or more times, and the sedimentation costs of the archives were re-excavated and utilized. After a new utility is created, these resources that are equivalent to being newly “produced” do not need to pay for the cost of acquisition again and maintain the cost of operation and maintenance for this period. Therefore, unlike the resources that the company has just produced, these are re-enabled, resources are equivalent to “zero cost”.

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(6) The sharing economy can achieve the near-free transfer of power. Under the sharing economy, the property rights of goods are divided into ownership and use rights. A few people own the ownership of the goods. Most of the users temporarily have the right to use the goods. However, many public renewable resources on the earth are not owned by any individual or organization, such as solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, biological energy, and water energy. Explained by the concept of sharing economy, the ownership of renewable energy belongs to the universe. Through artificial energy conversion facilities, humans can use the transmission power provided by these energy sources. In other words, the universe provides free access to these renewable energy sources, and humans can use these renewable energy conversion motives at a very low cost. For example, when using renewable energy to convert electricity into electricity, although the input costs for the construction of related facilities in the earlier period are heavy, the marginal cost of developing solar energy, wind energy, and other renewable energy resources will tend to increase as the generation equipment continues to use renewable energy to operate. Zero, thus making electricity almost free (Rifkin, 2014). People apply the transforming power to the operation of various types of equipment and can drastically reduce various manufacturing, operation, and maintenance costs.

10.5.3 The High Yield Feature of Sharing Economy Since the sharing economy has low-cost features, its benefits are naturally much higher than traditional economies. However, in addition to high yield relative to low costs, the benefits of the sharing economy have their unique advantages. 1.

Achieving High Income in the Economy

As can be seen from Fig. 10.2, the source of revenue is the type of resources available for trading and the transaction price and quantity of resources. Therefore, the way to increase profits is to broaden the width of resources and increase the number of transactions for resources while maintaining reasonable resource prices. The characteristics of the benefits of sharing economy are precisely the two points that improve the limitations of the traditional economic model. First, it enriched the types of transactions. Under the traditional economic model, due to the constraints of the region, time, and intermediaries, the range of tradable resources in the market is very narrow, and the full-factor, full-time, and full-open characteristics of the sharing economy can lay the foundation for broadening the types of transactions: The full-feature feature provides a variety of possibilities for everything to be shared; the full-time feature emphasizes the possibility that anytime, any places and space-time docking provide the means for sharing all resources; the full open feature is the past that cannot be achieved due to protection awareness. The transaction offers the possibility of free and equal cooperation. When the types, ways of realization, and free cooperation no longer bind various transactions, everything

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Fig. 10.2 Economic income source structure

can be shared, and it can be realized in the real sense. Compared with the traditional economic model, the sharing economy has broadened the breadth of tradable resources and enriched the types of transactions. With the scale effect of the sharing economy model, the types of resources provided by resource holders will continue to expand, consumers will naturally choose to expand their face, the volume of transactions will increase, and the benefits of a series of reactions will naturally increase significantly. Second, increase the frequency of transactions. It is undeniable that sharing platforms play a key role in the process of realizing the sharing economy model. Why do people prefer to trade resources using the sharing platform? First, price. Sharing economy emphasizes the use of resources instead of pursuing ownership. When dismantling the right to use becomes the object of the transaction, the price is naturally lower than that of transaction ownership; at the same time, there are many suppliers of the same kind of resources, the price is open and transparent, and the demanding party can choose to provide the most affordable price of the supplier for trading. Second, convenient. As described in the low input of logistics and transportation, people can choose the resources of the same city to trade as much as possible. Even in the same community, they can complete the transaction. Regarding consumer experience, Acquiring the required resources quickly can add points to your experience. Third, quality assurance. Satisfying affordable and accessible consumer experiences is still not enough, and quality guarantees can encourage consumers to choose transactions under the sharing economy model. After people complete the transaction, they can evaluate the shared resources through the community and rating system provided by the sharing platform. These evaluations can be objective and fair under the supervision mechanism of third parties. Based on the experience of previous users, people can make judgments on the quality and characteristics of the resources and select the resources that are most suitable for them. Under the premise

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of being able to guarantee affordable, easy access, and quality clearance, consumers will be more willing to choose a shared way to conduct multiple transactions, so that the frequency of transactions can be quickly improved, and the revenue derived from the number of transactions is also considerable. In summary, the increase in the types of transactions and the frequency of transactions each can bring about a substantial rise in revenue. When the two influences form interactions in the form of multiplication to drive the increase in revenue, they actually achieve high returns in the sharing economy. 2.

Achieving High Income in the Environment

Suppose the connotation of “returns” is expanded. In that case, the improvements in human beings’ living environment can be summarized as returns, and the sharing economy can help achieve high environmental benefits. Specifically, the sharing economy model can reduce the labor, material, energy, and other resources that are used to produce, distribute, and recycle products. The notion that ownership and use rights are not the repeated trading of goods on a sharing platform to achieve multiple uses at the same time. It can reduce the consumption of resources for the production of new products, thereby reducing the volume of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. In other words, it is not only a lifestyle with a very eco-friendly concept but also a way to share the economic model and share green energy and a range of basic goods and services nearly free on a sharing platform. When sustainable models with eco-efficiency become mainstream, humans gain high profits by sharing environmental protection compared to the past that wastes energy and pollutes the environment.

Chapter 11

The Elements of Sharing Economy

As an important change in the social-economic development model of human society, the sharing economy inherits and changes traditional economic models through a series of features such as effective resource allocation, cost reduction, and resource waste reduction, and it also provides a reasonable and effective guide for the development direction and development methods of human society under the limited conditions of the earth’s resources. As an economic model, the supplies, demands, and other participation elements together constitute the most basic framework of the sharing economy model, and the unique operating mode of the sharing economy also derives from the connection among the various elements. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the sharing economy from the aspects of the constituent elements, thus paving the way for the development of sharing economy theory. According to its participation subject, market operation, organizational composition, and importance, these elements can be divided into main elements, market elements, organizational elements, and core elements. Different types of elements under different divisions are independent of each other and depend on each other, forming a complete system of sharing economy models.

11.1 Main Elements Today, with the continuous consumption of earth resources along with production and living activities, the emerging model of sharing economy is undoubtedly a more resource-saving, more efficient, and more suitable way for humans to develop in the future. At the same time, as an emerging economic development model, people’s understanding of it is not deep enough, and its practice is still in its infancy. Among them, there are countless factors in the market with the huge sharing economy model, and there are various interrelated and interactive relationships among these elements. Therefore, the exploration of the sharing economy model needs to start with the most basic elements. Under the premise of fully explaining the sharing economy entity, © Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_11

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Fig. 11.1 Sharing economy model elements

Resource holder

Allocation participant

the various activities in the sharing economy model can be better explained. Here we first analyze the main elements of the sharing economy. The sharing economy is a global economic model. A large number of resources and efficient platforms are its foundation. By integrating global resources and needs and configuring them reasonably and efficiently, we can promote the full use of resources, improve the efficiency of economic activities, and allocate needs as needed. Typical emerging companies such as Uber and Airbnb, meet the different needs of both the supplies and demands by integrating the shared resources of private cars and housing and the needs of travel and residence respectively and benefit from them. In this way, according to the division of roles, the sharing economy model can be seen as an economic model involving resource holders and participants in resource allocation (Fig. 11.1). Resource holders and resource allocation participants can be a wide variety of participants, including individuals of different ages, genders, occupations, industries of different sizes, informal organizations, formal organizations, and even national entities. We collectively refer to them as personified “people”. These different “people” with different characteristics can be linked across regions and industries through the connection and efficient distribution of sharing platforms.

11.1.1 Persons In the sharing economy model, the personal subjects have a very broad scope and definition, including all persons of different genders, ages, occupations, qualifications, regions, and personalities. The range is greater than the natural person in the general sense. It can also be said that all humans can become personal subjects of the sharing economy model. 1.

Sources

As a demand side of resources, people publish their needs online and pass them to the sharing platforms. Resource holders can also share the idle inefficiencies and even

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high-quality resources that they have mastered on the platforms. Through the rational and effective configuration of the platforms, resources can be shared and transitioned without the transfer of ownership. In this way, not only the needs of the resource demand side are met, but the resource holders can benefit from the cash, social and emotional benefits. Sharing is also achieved. Of course, for most individuals, being able to share their resources means that they do not lack in certain materials, so what motivates them to join the sharing economy model is not a monetary gain. As a “social person” in modern society, in the case that you can satisfy your normal life, clothing, food, and accommodation, emotional and social benefits are what they value most. By making friends, enhancing feelings, and expanding communication, more and more people are joining and recognizing the sharing economy model. 2.

The Functions and Roles

In the sharing economy model, personal subjects play a very important role in resource provision and resource allocation. As the subjective form of the largest number and the most widely distributed, the subjects of the individual enable the model network of the sharing economy to be launched in any corners of the globe and play an important role in the operation of the entire economic model. Individual entities can serve as both resource holders of the sharing economy model and participants of resource distributors. According to statistics from the United Nations, the total population of the world reaches 7.2 billion by 2016. The huge population base gives the extensiveness and freedom of resource interaction in the sharing economy model. It also brings the possibility of unlimited development of the sharing economy model. The development of the Internet has greatly accelerated the speed of resource exchange. It can be said that individual subjects are the basis for the sharing economy model to achieve sharing exchanges. It is also an important driving force for the development of the sharing economy.

11.1.2 Enterprises As a global economic model, the sharing economy has a worldwide market network, covering a wide range of business forms in various industries, regions, scales, and organizational forms. Therefore, the defined scope of the enterprise entity in the sharing economy model is also quite large. 1.

Sources of Enterprises Entities

Enterprises and persons constitute the two most basic subjects in the sharing economy model. However, unlike the individual subjects, the sources of the enterprise’s entities in the sharing economy model are not the same. As we all know, companies are the legal entities or other social economic organizations that provide goods or services to the market through the use of production factors such as land, labor, capital, technology, and entrepreneurship, and are autonomously operating, selffinancing, and independent accounting. Its ultimate goal is profitability. Of course,

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this is under the conditions allowed by laws and regulations, so the source of the corporate subject under the sharing economy model is better profitability. Then, as the emerging economic model, what kind of improvement can the sharing economy provide for the company’s profitability, or how does it better to suit future development? This is related to the full use of resources by the sharing economy. Firstly, in the sharing economy model, the sharing and utilization of idle and inefficient resources can make full use of almost all resources, which not only enhances the income of enterprises and individuals but also reduces the consumption of resources and costs of enterprises and individuals. Secondly, the sharing concept advocated by the sharing economy meets people’s emotional needs while also helping employees improve their work efficiency. The quality and efficiency of work activities performed by people when they feel comfortable are always better than at other times. It greatly benefits the improvement of performance and performance management. In addition to these two points, the sharing economy model has strategic and cash benefits for the company’s profitability. With the many advantages of this and the common benefits of future social development, more and more companies are carrying out the transformation and upgrading of corporate sharing economy models, and the impact of the sharing economy is further deepening. 2.

The Functions and Roles

As the second major factor in the sharing economy, enterprises are similar to individuals in the sharing economy model. It can also act as both resource providers and participants in the process of resource allocation. The operation of the company in these two roles is more normative and more specific, which is determined by the goals of the company’s profitability. The resource exchanges of the companies tend to be more highly rewarding. In addition, compared with individuals, companies have a greater influence on the market and the economic model. A well-managed, sharing economy enterprise can promote the growth of this economic model more than a group of individuals in the sharing economy model.

11.1.3 Informal Organizations Informal organizations involved in the sharing economy also have a broad concept. The so-called informal organizations refer to those informal organizations that have spontaneous interests and hobbies in the daily working and learning process. In the sharing economy model, informal organizations can be made up of many different people. 1.

Sources

Unlike traditional informal organizations, a large part of the informal organizations under the sharing economy model can be made up of people linked together through the Internet. This part of people come from different regions. Through the Internet, people with the same interests and hobbies form informal organizations, for example,

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WeChat and various interest groups on QQ which cover all aspects of animation, sports, collection, food, and so on. The sources of informal organizations in the sharing economy model are generally similar to those of individuals. As a group that spontaneously forms no formal rules, the sources of individuals with the same interests and hobbies in groups reflect the sources of informal organizations as a whole. Of course, it does not mean that informal organizations are dispensable in the sharing economy model. On the contrary, informal organizations are an important part of the sharing economy model. 2.

Functions and Roles

In informal organizations, members of the organization spontaneously gather because of the same hobbies and interests. Before forming informal organizations, these members themselves have some resources, that is, these common interests and hobbies related resources, and each individual has different resources. After forming informal organizations, a small sharing economy circle can be formed within the organization. Members can independently share, select, and acquire the resources of other people. Such resources include a wide variety of types such as ideas, time, and entities when one member acquires the ideas of others and then combines them with his own, so that not only does he have two ideas, but also there will be more new ideas, and other resources are the same. Resources sharing within informal organizations can expand the scope of resources and increase the number of resources. This combined product is the in-depth content of resources in a particular field, and when entering the global sharing economy model, the sharing interaction is more enriched.

11.1.4 Formal Organizations In the previous narrative, the sources and roles of informal organizations in the sharing economy model have been elaborated. As spontaneous organizations, there are significant differences between formal organizations and informal organizations in the sharing economy model. The formal organizations in the sharing economy model are voluntary organizations with rules. It refers to the formal groups other than the enterprises and the states, such as some scientific research institutions, professional supervision, and evaluation agencies. In the sharing economy model, the formal organizations not only can serve as the three major parts in the sharing market but also can be used as the fourth part of the supervision and evaluation institutions in the operating structure of the sharing economy. 1.

The Sources

Different from the sources of the informal organizations in the sharing economy model, the sources of formal organizations are closer to the sources of the enterprise’s entities in the sharing economy model. They are spontaneous groups with institutional rules. Individuals in groups have common purposes. The participation of formal organizations also has certain selection systems and standards. This makes

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the participants in formal organizations all be authoritative professionals or experienced individuals. The huge economic market and development potential brought about by the sharing economy model are attractive to them. 2.

Functions and Roles

In the sharing economy model, if the informal resources brought by the informal organization and the new resources created are compared to the unofficial history, the formal institutionalized resources brought by formal organizations can be considered as official history. The two are mutually reinforcing and indispensable. Formal organizations standardize the compositions and rules of the sharing economy model and build the foundations and frameworks of the sharing economy. Informal organizations bring some inspirations that break the conventions and are full of imagination. They expand the extensions of the sharing economy model and enrich the contents of the sharing economy.

11.1.5 States Entities From the aspect of contents and characteristics, state entities in the sharing economy model can be classified into formal organizations. It is a formal group with organized, targeted, and regulated. Unlike formal organizations, state subjects have stronger influence and authority. Regardless of the model, it requires the policy and institutional support of the state entities. At the same time, making the right rules and regulations to adapt to the economic development model also promotes the progress of the state entities. 1.

Sources

The sources of the state entities are independent countries that include many countries participating in the sharing economy model all over the world. In the sharing economy model, the links among supplies, demands, platforms, and other elements in the market are more interactive and open. The dissemination of information is also faster and more extensive. For the state entities, all aspects of access to information and comprehensive considerations of the impact of rules and regulations are prerequisites for making policies conducive to economic development. In the sharing economy model, the role of mastering more at the key moments and mastering less at peacetime for states entities is the direction of future development. The state entities are always the most important participant, and how to better guide and transition to the sharing economy model is still worth considering. 2.

The Functions and Roles

In the sharing economy model, the roles played by the state entities are more of the rule-makers, the market supervisors, and the economic model leaders. As the most advanced organizational form in the sharing economy model, the state entities have the strongest credibility and guidance in the economic model. The state entities

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can guide the development direction of the sharing economy model by formulating corresponding regulations and measures, and at the same time supervise the market effectively and ensure the orderly operation of the sharing economy model.

11.2 Market Elements Similar to the traditional economic model, in the market of the sharing economy model, there are also many market elements. By dividing the participants in a transaction process, it can be divided into various elements including transaction subject, transaction object, trading platform, and other elements. Among them the transaction subject is the two sides of the transaction, the transaction object is the goods or services handed over by both parties, and the trading platform is the connection point and the place where the transaction takes place. Together with other elements including supervisory agencies and evaluation agencies, these four components constitute a complete transaction process in the sharing economy model, as shown in Fig. 11.2. Because of the globalization and transient characteristics of the sharing economy model, companies, individuals, or organizations from different regions can complete the transaction process instantly. This not only expands the scope of the market but also makes the transaction more efficient. Trading activities can be presented and completed more frequently and more diversified. Of course, the completion of this more efficient trading process requires perfect and flexible participation of market elements. Therefore, in order to thoroughly explore the inherent regularity of the sharing economy model, it is necessary to introduce and explain the market elements.

Other Elements

Transaction

Transaction Objects Transaction Subjects

Fig. 11.2 Market elements

Objects Trading

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Platform

Subjects

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11.2.1 Transaction Subjects The first section of this chapter explains the participants in the sharing economy model, including individuals subjects, enterprise entities, informal organizations, formal organizations, and state subjects. These five major subjects constitute most of the sharing economy model, and they serve different functions as different components of the sharing economy model. These five main elements also acted as transaction subjects in the sharing economy model. The so-called transaction subjects refer to the supplies and demands parties which are active parties in transactions in the sharing economy model. 1.

Sources

Among the five major entities, all of the individuals, enterprises, informal organizations, formal organizations, and countries have idle and inefficient resources in their daily operations and lives. It is a part of the resources that have not been fully utilized. At the same time, these five main entities also have needs because of the lack of certain resources which may be underutilized resources owned by other subjects. In this way, the holders of the resources can satisfy the needs of the demands by sharing the rights to use the resources, while gaining revenue. These kinds of transaction supply and demand relationships exist extensively among a large number of participating entities in the sharing economy market. This provides sufficient preconditions for the transactions in the sharing economy model. In the meantime, with the development of the sharing economy model, the sharing of resources is becoming more diverse. More than idle and inefficient resources can be shared in the transaction. The efficient and high-quality resources held by the companies are also important trading objects of the sharing economy. In summary, the five main elements of the sharing economy model can serve as the transaction subjects in the sharing transaction. 2.

The Functions and Roles

In the transactions of the sharing economy model, as the initiators and recipients of the resource interaction process, the five major trading entities play important roles in the transaction process of the sharing economy model. Firstly, the occurrence of the sharing economy originated from the transaction entities. The uneven distribution of resources and the growing demands provide opportunities for the sharing economy. At this time, the demands for efficient trading and distribution gradually develop to form the sharing economy model. In the sharing economy model, transactions are initiated by the entities. That one party issues demands and one-party issues resources constitutes the beginning and endings of the repeated transaction process; secondly, the trading entities are the resource holders of the transactions or the participants of the resources allocations in the transactions. The transaction subjects may hold both the resources required by others and the demands for certain resources, and the resources held by different transaction subjects are accordingly different. This brings a larger sharing scope and combination mode of the sharing economy model, which promotes the effective and rational allocations of resources.

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11.2.2 Transaction Objects The so-called transaction objects refer to the passive parties in the transaction processes, such as stocks in stock trading, logs in timber transactions, etc. They are all transaction objects in the transactions processes and can also be called resources. 1.

Sources

In the sharing economy model, the first trading targets are the idle and inefficient resources owned by the transaction subjects, such as Uber sharing private car spaces and Airbnb sharing idle rooms. These sharing transactions make full use of idle and inefficient resources and reduce resource wastes. After that, with the development of the sharing economy, the sharing economy market continues to improve and expand, and the range of trading objects in the sharing economy model is also expanding. More than idle and inefficient resources, high-efficiency and high-quality resources can be shared smoothly. For example, the development and utilization of open-source software, can not only meet the needs of the demands, but also bring various benefits to the holders of the resources, and quality resources can also be updated and upgraded during the sharing processes. From the specific types of trading objects, the trading objects in the sharing economy model cannot only include traditional trading objects, such as steels, timbers, products, services, but also can include non-entity categories such as time, thoughts, and emotions which realize the sharing of more and more resources. With the development and the in-depth study of the sharing economy model, the trading objects in the sharing economy model are more abundant. 2.

The Functions and Roles

In the transaction processes of the sharing economy model, the transaction objects are the resources that the transaction subjects need, and they are also the resources which the sharing economy emphasizes that needs to realize the sharing of the use rights. In any economic model, there are trading objects in the transaction, but the difference of trading objects in the sharing economy model is that the objects are not only the final products or high-quality products of the enterprises. The trading objects of the sharing economy model have a wider scope. They can include almost all resources such as idle, inefficient, and efficient resources of the companies. It means everything can be shared. The effect is that resources can be more effectively used in the market and the economy is more efficient. Such sharing of trading objects is of great significance today when resources are increasingly lacking.

11.2.3 Trading Platform The trading platforms in the sharing economy model are the central elements of the trading process. All sharing economy transactions are realized through the effective connection of the sharing platforms. It can be said that the core element of the sharing

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economy model is the trading platform. Uber and Airbnb, which we are familiar with, are sharing platforms. 1.

Sources

In the sharing economy model, the sharing platforms are unique market elements. Its sources are number of platform-based, central-type sharing economy enterprises. Uber, Airbnb, and others are all emerging platform-based enterprises in the sharing economy model. In the transaction processes, the sharing platforms firstly obtain the needs of resource holders and the demands. Afterward, on the platforms, the supplies and demands are quickly and efficiently matched to realize the transactions. It can be said that the sharing platforms are the hubs for sharing economy model transactions. In addition to matching the supplies and demands, the sharing platforms also have some other functions, such as feedback, supervision, etc. Participants of the transactions implement feedback on other trading participants through messages and evaluations. Of course, this feedback and evaluation mechanism in the sharing economy model is more interactive. 2.

The Function and Role of the Trading Platform

As the hubs and cores of the transaction processes, trading platforms are of great significance in the sharing economy model. In the traditional economic model, the roles of the traditional trading platforms are mainly to provide channels for enterprises to display and sell products. Compared with the sharing platforms in the sharing economy model, these traditional trading platforms lack effectiveness and interactions. This leads to the transaction objects can only passively select the products, and can not fundamentally meet the needs. In the sharing economy model, the sharing platforms are internet-based trading platforms. They are not only “display cabinet” for resources sales, but they are also effective joint distribution platforms and information platforms full of interactive communications. In transactions, the sharing platforms obtain information on the resources provided by the transaction subjects and the information on the resources requirements through the Internet. Through effective calculations and distributions, these requirements are matched with the corresponding resources, which can satisfy the needs of the transaction subjects to the maximum extent and reduce the resource waste at the same time. In addition, in the transaction processes, the transaction subjects can also interact and exchange through the sharing platforms, and better realize the connections between the two parties of the transactions. It is of great significance to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the transaction processes of the sharing economy model.

11.3 Organization Elements The social network analysis method in Chap. 3 of this book introduces the complex social network of the sharing economy, and the organizational elements in the constituent elements present the entire network of the sharing economy in detail.

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Third-party

Assessment

Payment

Agency

Resource

Resource

Supply

Sharing

Demand

Side

Platform

Side

Credit Agency

Regulatory Agency

Fig. 11.3 The Organization elements of the sharing economy

Sharing economies is the improvement and development of the original economic system. It involves multiple parties, including suppliers, demanders, sharing platforms, and other participants, forming a multilateral platform structure for sharing economy networks (Fig. 11.3).

11.3.1 Supplier and Demand Side The concept of the supply side and the demand side has already been mentioned in the main elements and market elements of the previous article and will not be repeated here. However, in the organizational elements, the supply and demand sides form “supply cloud” and “demand cloud” on the sharing platform, respectively, and become part of the multilateral platform structure. The book Cognitive Surplus argues that PickupPal creates set value—the more users there are, the more likely it is to match (Xianxiang 2016). Similarly, in a sharing economy, the realization of resource transactions must be based on a sufficiently large number of parties involved in supply and demand so that the sharing platform can compare and match the information provided by the supply side with the demand side. At the same time, cloud computing

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provides support for cardinality storage. The data in cloud computing has a massive nature. It effectively manages and processes these data by effectively using GFS (Google File System), BigTable, Dynamo, and other technologies. Massive data (Zhengwei et al., 2012), thus forming “supply cloud” and “demand cloud”, facilitates the extraction of information from data and further connection, management, and matching when the sharing platform is running.

11.3.2 Sharing Platform The sharing platform is the core element of the organizational elements. It is the center and connects the supply side, the demand side, and other participants, thus forming a multilateral platform structure. Currently, the trading platforms of the sharing economy are usually some sharing websites where the renters and renters obtain the rights to obtain intermediary services through registration (Jun, 2016). However, some sharing platforms are not presented in the form of network platforms. For example, Tsingtao Brewery, which shares production capabilities, is itself a sharing platform; some sharing platforms are presented in a personal way, such as painters who sell paintings in parks, and their personal sites. The personal site is a sharing platform in itself, sharing painting technology resources. The sharing platform needs a series of functions to match the resources. Its specific features will be analyzed in Sect. 11.4.

11.3.3 Other Participants In the composition of the sharing economy network, other participants are indispensable roles. If the market elements play a major role, then the other participants are the adhesives that ensure the realization of the primary functions. Other participants mainly include third-party payment, assessment agencies, credit bureaus, and regulatory agencies. 1.

Third-Party Payment

With the development of modern technology, the convenience and security of thirdparty payment methods have gradually gained people’s favor. Similarly, in the sharing economy, third-party payment has become an essential tool for completing resource matching. The third-party payment mainly refers to the signing of major banks in the circulation area of products, as well as an independent third-party organization with a certain strength and reputation as the company, and provides a trading platform to realize the circulation of products and currency (Jie, 2014). Third-party payment is a key step at the end of the transaction in the sharing platform: the payment platform transfers funds for purchasing goods or services to the storage area according to the

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needs of the demanding party and informs the supply party to provide the goods or services for the demanding party and waits for the satisfaction of the user to confirm. When the payment is made, the supplier can receive funds temporarily deposited in the storage area of the payment platform, and the transaction ends. Not only that, the development of e-commerce and other technologies has prompted third-party payment operations to be perfect, with the role of both keeping money and monitoring transactions (Xia, 2017). Therefore, third-party payment, as an intermediary service, establishes a bridge between the supply side and the demand side, that is, the establishment of an intermediate transitional electronic account to control the flow of funds between the parties at any time. 2.

Assessment Agency

The characteristics of full openness of the sharing economy make the sharing of resources between strangers more and more frequent. Under this premise, the evaluation institutions under the sharing economy model can help mutual understanding between various participants and facilitate the completion of transactions. From the perspective of the evaluation object, in addition to evaluating the seller under the traditional economic model, relevant evaluations of the sharing platform, demandside and other participants will also be strengthened (Fig. 11.3). In particular, for both parties to the transaction, the “supplying parties” will not have lasting advantages because the roles of the supply and demand sides in the sharing economy can be changed at any time. From the assessment type, the types of assessment include quality assessment, price assessment, risk assessment, etc. The more comprehensive the types of assessment, the more specific evaluation services can be provided so that participants can fully understand each other and improve the success rate of transactions. 3.

Credit Agency

In credit information, third-party professional organizations integrate credit information recorded in public institutions such as banks and governments and predict future economic activities based on past credit behavior of users. The resulting credit report has always been considered an “economic identity card” (Yaqing, 2016). In order to enable the sharing platform and the participants to deepen mutual trust, the credit database is formed based on years of accumulation. Government, banks, and other public institutions are used as channels, and the target of credit investigation is all participants (Fig. 11.3). Platforms for supply and demand at both ends provide audit or reference. Furthermore, personal credit services are also rapidly emerging in the sharing platform. For example, sesame credit will use “credit scores” for living areas such as borrowing items and can enjoy services such as deposit-free charge and lending umbrellas. In the future, the functions of credit information will also cover a broader range of areas and effectively implement the supply and demand side of the sharing platform. Therefore, credit information can provide a trusting precondition for the sharing economy.

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Regulatory Agency

The development of the sharing economy is at an early stage, but the scale effect of its detonation is overwhelming. Therefore, the relevant regulatory agencies must act as a protective wall to ensure that the sharing economy model is operating on the correct track. The traditional supervision course is mainly divided into environmental supervision and financial supervision. The characteristics of the sharing economy saving and reuse of resources make the direction of supervision focus on financial supervision. The regulatory object is the various participants (Fig. 11.3). The regulatory content is the supply and demand side. Benefits of sharing platforms, the effectiveness of credit systems and payment platforms, and the effectiveness of assessments. At the same time, regulators need to inject new regulatory ideas and supervision. Since many participants in the sharing economy complete the transaction together in a vast amount of resources, the government cannot undertake the supervision content without any detail, so it should get rid of the old “single center” mandatory management of the backward ideas and establish a new concept of cooperation supervision (Right, 2016). Focusing on the government’s administrative oversight, and without intervening in the autonomy of the participants, the two parties will conduct in-depth cooperation with the supply and demand sides and the sharing platform to check and supervise each other, to improve supervision efficiency.

11.4 Core Element: Sharing Platform and Its Functions Although the sharing platform has the function of the market but exceeds the traditional market, it has broken through the space-time constraints of the traditional market. This is another extension of the resource theory of traditional market economy allocation (Xianxiang, 2016). As mentioned earlier, the sharing economy to mediate and re-intermediate, form a sharing platform. They use information technology such as the Internet, cloud computing, and big data to connect suppliers, demanders, and other participants together to manage all parties’ resources and optimize the matching of both parties. To maximize the revenue of all parties. It can thus be seen that sharing platforms sustain multiple relationships and facilitate the completion of transactions between supply and demand parties, which are the core elements of the sharing economy. So, what share of the sharing platform is to form the sharing economy model? Next, the specific functions of the sharing platform will be launched.

11.4.1 Connection Function of the Sharing Platform The sharing platform connects the supplier and the demand side. The actual operation of the sharing platform, it differs from the previous description. From here, the

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connection between the sharing platform and the supplier is called a connection, and the connection between the sharing platform and the demander is called the match. In addition, the operation of the sharing platform itself also requires the operator’s network connection (Fig. 11.4). 1.

Network Connection

The network layer consists of 3G, 4G, WiFi, and broadband networks. It mainly implements data transmission, exchange, and support for information transmission between systems. It is a physical guarantee for interoperability between application systems (Bo & Wei, 2016). In particular, mobile WLANs and cellular networks have great potential for development. The effective use of WLAN can maximize the advantages of various access technologies (Bohe & Yuan, 2014), and can achieve optimal network conditions under multiple conditions. Most sharing platforms for sharing economy are based on networks, but there are also a small number of resources that can be shared without the need for networking, such as sharing of shares and direct sharing of production capabilities. 2.

Supply Connection

The operation of all platforms must be input first before output, and the sharing platform is no exception. The supplier holds different kinds of resources to enter the sharing platform, providing the basis for all transactions for the sharing platform. It can be imagined that if a city has only one or two places ofo sharing bicycles, the user experience will undoubtedly be greatly reduced. Therefore, if you want to trigger the economies of scale in the rapid match of the sharing economy, you must first connect the suppliers through the sharing platform and input a large number of sharable resources.

11.4.2 Management Function of the Sharing Platform The sharing function of the sharing platform brings large-scale resources to the sharing platform. The sharing platform needs to manage the resources effectively. The sharing platform implements the classification, updating, and maintenance of resources through storage management, control management, and system management, thereby ensuring the implementation of matching functions (Fig. 11.4). 1.

Storage Management

The storage layer provides a data source for sharing resources for other management functions and matching functions of the upper layer sharing platform. Storage management is embodied in the integration, analysis, exchange, and storage of data of the originally shared resources. When the resource holder provides the information of the held resource to the sharing platform, the sharing platform needs to perform a series of data transformations on the information, and then store it in a readable form for further management and matching. All the data are stored in the data center,

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Fig. 11.4 Sharing platform and its functions

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the data of different application systems are appropriately and effectively integrated and cleaned, and a standardized data exchange interface is established, which is flexible and extensible (Bo & Xi, 2016). From the previous file storage system of storage area network (SAN) storage architecture (Yangcheng et al., 2011) to the largescale network data storage system (Rongli, 2017), the technological advancement has been to share the economic model to accommodate a large amount of resource data provides powerful computer information technology support. In particular, the processing of raw data also depends on cloud computing and other technologies to complete large-scale parameter acquisition and distribution storage parameters (Kongru, 2017). At the same time, these computing technologies also run through all subsequent management stages and matching stages, laying the foundation for the implementation of the functions of each stage. 2.

Control Management

The control layer mainly includes the control of shared data and users. At the same time, when the extensive data is stored on the sharing platform, the data needs to be controlled and managed under the conditions of good equipment and environmental security, to ensure the smooth execution of the transaction of the sharing platform. The first is data control. Under the traditional economic model, many companies produce different types of products or provide services, and each company’s distribution channels are not the same. Therefore, various types of products or services are scattered. In other words, the classification of products or services is messy, and the degree of standardization is low. In the sharing economy model, the first step to achieve the management function of the sharing platform is to re-design the process, standardize the categorized resources or processes, integrate various types of information, content, and applications, and apply for various services provided by different suppliers and to get integrated with the services organically. Specifically, firstly, using information technologies such as big data, the hashed resource data that has been stored on the sharing platform is attribute-encoded, and the same attribute data is categorized into a large category; secondly, the aspects of the resource data in the large category are extracted. Tag encoding, by computing these resource data, people categorize them according to different refinement features on the sharing platform. Taking the EWC in the sharing-economy-sharing field as an example: The EWC’s private kitchens have different areas of expertise, such as Chinese food, western food, morning tea, and afternoon tea. These sharable resources in different areas are included in different types of meals in the form of stored data and are expressed on a sharing platform to be presented to demanders. This is the division of major categories. Afterward, each type of meal needs to be refined according to individuality. The direction of refinement can be either progressive or parallel. The sharing platform emphasizes standardization and diversity of directions, to facilitate management and facilitate the selection of demanding parties. For example, the type of refinement, Cantonese cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Dongbei cuisine in Chinese cuisine, location refinement, provinces, cities, and districts where private kitchens can visit, time refinements in the morning, noon, and evening, price, scale, and occasion and so on. The higher the degree of standardization of the process, the easier it

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is to manage the sharing platform, the better the user experience, and thus increase the transaction frequency. The second is user control. After classifying and standardizing resource data on a sharing platform, the second step of control management is user control. The user control mainly grasps four aspects, namely supply-side control, demand-side control, evaluation system control, and community control. The supply and demand parties enter the sharing platform registration sharing platform ID from different portals, and the user center manages the supply and demand side files respectively. The evaluation system and community are effective ways to reflect and improve the user experience. The evaluation system is standardized to build and control, that is, the user’s evaluation criteria, opinions, suggestions can be classified, filtered, and extracted so that suppliers can improve and purchase different choices. The operation of the community follows the concept of the free and equal sharing economy. There is enough space between strangers, sellers and sellers, buyers and buyers to build a community based on mutual trust and sharing of resources on the sharing platform. Concepts, people-to-people conversations can promote efficient transactions between suppliers and demanders and increase user loyalty. At the same time, because the standardization controls various functions on the sharing platform, the user center can monitor the status of the user at all times, place the abnormally performing users in the isolated area of the sharing platform, conduct a thorough investigation and other follow-up processing, and prevent the occurrence of harm. The third is equipment control and safety control. Equipment control and security control are the most basic control management functions of the sharing platform. Equipment control is mainly to support the control and management of computer equipment running on a sharing platform, including the standardization of the computer use environment (standardization of temperature, humidity, dust, ventilation, and lighting) and the standardization of computer equipment safety (standardization of power usage, safety of equipment), etc. (Baowu & Minglei, 2016). Security control is not only the security control of the equipment but also mainly includes computer network security control. Computer network security control is controlled from physical security, access control, information encryption, and network security management, including security responsibility of network users on the sharing platform, security responsibilities of system administrators, proper use of network resources, and detection of network security issues. Through technologies such as information, cloud computing, and big data, ensure the normal operation of the equipment and the security of the sharing platform, and conduct anomaly investigation at any time. 3.

System Management

The system layer provides technical support for the upper layer of the sharing platform, including data analysis, internal and external data exchange, distributed file storage, search engines, geographic information systems, Web containers, security authentication centers, electronic payments, etc. (Bo & Hao, 2016). The computer processing technologies such as data analysis, internal and external data exchange,

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and distributed file storage lay the foundation for data processing for system management of the sharing platform; search engines provide entry support for resource demanders connected to the sharing platform; geographic information systems are the location of supply and demand sides. Positioning is conducive to the following supply and demand matching; Web container is the main platform for running Web applications, and it can provide differentiated services for different requests (Yang et al., 2017). The security authentication center provides information security for real-time transactions on sharing platforms. Electronic payments offer support for the payment methods developed by the sharing platform itself.

11.4.3 Matching Function of the Sharing Platform The sharing platform is essentially a matching program. It is a central allocation system among transaction subjects. The precondition for the sharing platform to implement the matching function is that a large number of resource holders and resource demanders are connected at both ends of the sharing platform, and large-scale resource data is freely circulated on the sharing platform. As previously described, the sharing and management capabilities of the sharing platform consolidate the resource data of the resource owner onto the sharing platform, laying the foundation for the ultimate and demand-side implementation of matching capabilities. Unlike the traditional model, where people spend a lot of time and costs to find resources that meet the required requirements, the sharing platform can efficiently achieve the matching between transaction subjects. The sharing platform mainly achieves efficient matching in terms of resource types, time and space, and pricing. 1.

Determine Resources

The existing sharing platform has provided sharable resources in various fields. In the future, there will be more and more integrated sharing platforms that accommodate multiple resources. When the richness and quality assurance of the resources provided by the supplier are sufficient to attract the demander, the resource demanders will actively browse the classified catalogs and search on the sharing platform, thereby locking the resource types to complete the matching of time and space and price quickly. At the same time, the individuation of the sharing economy to meet demand can strengthen resource locking and improve the efficiency of resource selection. 2.

Docking Time and Space

Docking time and space is a key processing step for the sharing platform implementation. As an abstract sharable resource, time and space are not confined to their sharing. The higher limit is reflected in the docking services provided by both suppliers and consumers. The supply resources and user requirements of the sharing platform connection are in different times and space. The matching ability depends on the richness of the resources and the matching of the time and space between the

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demand and the resources. Assume that the A demander needs D resources at the C location of the B time. In addition to the basic D resource type to be satisfied, it must also satisfy the B time and the C location. This requires the sharing platform to connect the D to the B and C services. A demand-side. For example, Airbnb meets the needs of users by connecting accommodation resources (date of residence) and location (cross-region, cross-country); Uber will match vehicle resources to the current time and place so that nearby vehicles can immediately provide services to users. Therefore, the sharing platform can achieve matching of supply and demand in the docking space and time with precise computing capabilities, thereby enhancing the possibility of supply and demand transactions. 3.

Flexible Pricing

The construction of a flexible and reasonable price system is the final step in achieving a high degree of matching on the sharing platform. Many sharing platforms attract and accumulate early-stage users with large discounts or even subsidies to users in the early stages of development. They hope to quickly open the market and detonate users’ network effects through low-cost methods (Wang Ying & Weiru, 2016). The significance lies in balancing supply and demand. Which side of the supply and demand side the sharing platform chooses to subsidize largely depends on which side the value growth is slow, and where the value of the user growth is slow, it will hinder the rapid increase of the user experience upgrade. Assume that end-user popularity is high and supply resources are abundant. However, because the share price is higher than the mental expectation of the end-user, the demand on the demand side will be much lower than the supply side. Even if the connection time can be realized, matching supply and demand is difficult to achieve. Therefore, the sharing platform adopts flexible pricing in the form of profit sharing and can adjust the value of the platform’s supply and demand user’s end. When the demand side is subsidized in the above assumption, the user’s goodwill will rise rapidly, and the value will increase rapidly, thereby detonating the network effect of supply and demand matching. To sum up, the flexible pricing of both ends of supply and demand will further enhance the possibility of matching, and ultimately realize the transaction between the supply and demand sides on the sharing platform.

Chapter 12

Operating Mechanism of Sharing Economy

The operating mechanism usually refers to the constraint relationships between the internal components of a system, or the mutual influences and interactions between elements of a system. To make a healthy development of a system not only requires a complete structure but also requires a set of rules to ensure its stable operation. The operating mechanism of sharing economy can be considered as the necessary constraint relationship for effective operation. Under the sharing model, the sharing of various types of goods and services, the sharing of data-centric information, as well as the sharing of tacit personal knowledge represented by individual intellectuals cannot be realized unless having certain media and operational mechanisms. Only in this way can we form a social ecosystem based on the sharing of production resources between individuals and society. Sharing economy breaks the inherent limitations of capitalist private ownership that the ownership and the right to use usually belong to the same subject, and it emphasizes the public use of production resources. Correspondingly, the operation mechanism of sharing economy is different from the one of traditional mode because of its unique internet pattern. Therefore, it is critical to analyze the operational mechanism of sharing economy indepth. Based on researching the characteristics and operational processes, exploring the operational mechanism is a necessary step to perfect the theoretical system of sharing economy, and is the prerequisite for analyzing sharing economy’s range of applications. The operating mechanism is divided into eight parts: spontaneous order, driving mechanism, cooperation mechanism, cultural mechanism, dynamic pricing mechanism, trading mechanism, evaluation and trust mechanism, restraint mechanism, and punishment mechanism.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_12

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12.1 Spontaneous Order Spontaneous order is the self-organization problem in complex adaptive systems, that is, a spontaneous interactive feedback mechanism. The sharing economy model is a multi-subject system in which a large number of individuals actively cooperate and compete with each other to form an orderly state through their mutual interaction and spontaneous adaptation without central command.

12.1.1 The Theory of Spontaneous Order The spontaneous order of sharing economy is based on Hayek’s theory of spontaneous order (Zhigang, 2015). The spontaneous order put forward by Hayek is a kind of “outlook of social development “to some extent, which the main point is that the development of humans can be realized only by people cooperating, thus forming an autonomous spontaneous order. Hayek divides the cognitive viewpoint into two kinds, namely the omnipotent cognitive view and the “ignorance” cognition. The omnipotent cognitive view holds that people can have all the knowledge needed in the development process. However, the “ignorance” cognition view believes that people can only possess part of the knowledge because of the specific characteristics of knowledge which depends on the specific material environment and the existing level of knowledge, that is the level of knowledge is periodical, and its inheritance and development are vertical. Hayek believes that in these two viewpoints, the “ignorance” cognition view is the one that exists in the development of human society. People have to face the fact that people cannot have all the knowledge needed to develop themselves. Each only has limited knowledge, and there is a large amount of repeated basic knowledge among all the knowledge people have. According to the principle of “value externalization of knowledge” in knowledge economies, the value brought by repetitive knowledge isn’t superimposable. So, Hayek pointed out that “the division of knowledge is the real core issue in economics”. Because individuals can only grasp a small part of the knowledge necessary for the development of human society, it is necessary to divide the work according to the knowledge to realize the development of human society and the equilibrium of the market. Individuals with different knowledge cooperate in gathering as much knowledge as possible for the development of human society. Through the division and cooperation, the whole society’s overall cognition is constantly approaching the “omnipotent” state. In response to the two cognitive views proposed, Hayek further proposed two social orders, namely, the self-generated social order and the constructed social order. Spontaneous order is a cumulative product that is self-generated through the accumulation of knowledge and experience in the process of human development, corresponding to the cognitive concept of “ignorance”. The constructed social order is

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artificially designed, an external manifestation of the collection of personal knowledge, a product of the individual’s mind, and a corresponding cognitive view of omnipotence. The emergence of the sharing economy coincides with Hayek’s theory of spontaneous order, that is, the advancement of the knowledge base will lead to a substantial leap in the level of knowledge in human society and thus increase social income. Specifically, the rise of the sharing economy is premised on the development of information technology, the Internet, and especially the mobile Internet. The advancement of the knowledge base has increased the connection of social and economic networks, and the opportunities for individual economic exchanges have greatly increased. At the social level, advances in technology enable individuals to discover more potential homogenous partners, social knowledge boundaries with the possibility of cooperation, and enable individuals to discover more potential heterogeneity. Sexual partners, social knowledge boundaries with heterogeneous innovation opportunities have also expanded significantly. The emergence of the sharing economy model is a new stage of deepening and widening the market economy, and also a process of economic knowledge, that is to say, the emergence of the sharing economy is the embodiment of spontaneous order.

12.1.2 Mechanism of Spontaneous Order The specific mechanism of the spontaneous order mechanism of the sharing economy is the cognitive surplus. A cognitive surplus is a collection of free time that individuals with high educational background and sufficient discretionary time have. In general, individuals with a wealth of relevant knowledge in one or a few areas, or with rich life experience, have a strong desire to share their knowledge or experience. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, these individuals are mostly in the fourth stage (respect) or the fifth stage (self-realization). For them, the satisfaction that others bring to their respect and self-worth is far greater than consumption. The spontaneous order mechanism of the sharing economy is the driving force behind the sharing of the economy. It is the overcapacity brought about by the industrial revolution and the cognitive surplus brought about by the development of the information age. After people are satisfied at the material level, they are willing to share their resources to achieve self-realization and promote the generation of the sharing economy. Moreover, the widespread existence of cognitive surplus in the whole society has enabled the continuous improvement of the overall knowledge level of the society and provided an inexhaustible motive force for the development of the sharing economy. Thus, the emergence of the sharing economy is a revolution in the field of consumption, the development of technology - the Internet gives people a chance to participate in global projects at low cost. For example, the emergence of sharing platforms such as Apache, Ushahidi, Wikipedia, Linux, and Zhihu is a concentrated expression of cognitive surplus in the sharing economy.

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12.2 Drive Mechanism The driving mechanism means that in a diversified sharing economy, a large number of individuals have sufficient willingness to participate in the sharing economy, showing behavioral tendencies or trends for some pursuit. The rise and development of the sharing economy is the result of a combination of economic, cultural, and technological aspects. Its driving force is mainly composed of the improvement of user demand, the willingness to increase income, the promotion of information technology, the change of consumption concept, the pursuit of flexible employment, and the enthusiasm of the capital market (Xinhong et al., 2016a).

12.2.1 To Enhance the User’s Needs The completion of the three industrial revolutions has greatly enhanced the material life of people while improving the level of industrial technology, and the standard of living has been significantly improved. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, people’s physiological needs and safety needs have been generally met, and society is in the process of meeting the needs of higher levels. The traditional economic model has exposed many shortcomings, such as information asymmetry, lack of supply and demand, high cost, low efficiency, etc. Standardized products and services can no longer meet the increasing individualized needs of consumers. The emergence of the sharing economy has brought more rich choices and more intimate experiences to users, effectively solving the problems existing in the traditional model and promoting the further development of the industry.

12.2.2 Willingness to Raise Revenue One of the biggest differences between the sharing economy and the traditional economy is that transactions no longer need to sign a complete contract, and the supply side no longer needs full-time working hours. You only need to sell your resources through the sharing platform during the idle period of your idle time, and you can get some benefits. The sharing economy allows suppliers to use idle resources to create value and increase revenue. When the financial crisis broke out in 2008, the tide of unemployment and the reduction of wages made people have to find other ways to make money. For this reason, the sharing economy developed rapidly, which led to the sharing of economic platforms such as Airbnb and Uber. People rented houses and cars to get extra income.

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12.2.3 Promote Information Technology The spirit of openness is a trait of the Internet since its birth. The open Internet has led people into the information age dominated by creation and sharing. With the development of smartphones, the mobile Internet has reduced the barriers to entry, and the number of participants has been further expanded. Mobile payment and location services have made the Internet more convenient and easier to share. The big data analysis technology effectively solves the problem of the high transaction cost of mutual transactions between individuals, and the asymmetry of supply and demand matching information, so that both the supply and demand sides realize fragmented transactions. The instant messaging network and credit rating mechanism also enables both parties to build enough trust to complete the transaction. The development of information technology, in addition to giving support to the sharing of economic and technical aspects, the concept of open-source sharing brought by the Internet has also laid the foundation for the further development of the sharing economy.

12.2.4 Change of Consumption Concept In the industrial era dominated by capitalism, the material is not rich. People are generally at the lower level of demand for physiological needs, paying more attention to materialization and privatization of property rights. The activation of production capacity brought about by the industrial revolution has enabled people to get material satisfaction. The ensuing environmental problems and sustainable development problems have caused people to stop pursuing excessive consumption and possessive consumption, and pay more attention to saving resources and creating social values. The sharing economy has brought people a new way of trading. Through the timely exchange and sharing of Internet information technology, the reuse of idle resources has created new value. Happy to share, that sustainable Internet generation has become an important driving force for the sharing economy.

12.2.5 The Pursuit of Flexible Employment The development of industrial technology and the large-scale application of machinery in the industry have enabled more and more workers to be freed from repetitive mechanical labor. The reduction of fixed jobs and the pursuit of a free life concept have made young people more inclined to choose jobs with flexible working hours and free working places. According to the China Sharing Economy Development Report, in 2015, more than one-third of American workers chose freelance employment as their employment method. In China, the emergence of many

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sharing economy platforms has also made more people choose to become freelancers. Compared with the traditional employment method, the practitioners of the sharing economy are freer in the process of entering and leaving the social production, and the degree of dependence on society is also reduced. People’s pursuit of flexible employment has accelerated the growth of the sharing economy.

12.2.6 Hot Market Capital In recent years, sharing economy entrepreneurship has become a hot point for investment in global capital markets. According to Crowd Companies, the global investment in the sharing economy totaled $4.3 billion between 2010 and 2013, and the investment in 2014 and 2015 was $8.5 billion and $14.206 billion (a total of $22.7 billion). This boom in the sharing economy has also been detonated in China. In recent years, the number of companies and the amount of financing that have acquired venture capital in the shared sector have also exploded. In 2015 alone, the total amount of financing announced by Didi has exceeded 22.945 billion yuan, and Meituan.com and Ant Financial Services have received financing totaling 13.86 billion yuan and 12.1 billion yuan respectively. The concept of sharing has been enthusiastically sought after by capital investors around the world. It is widely believed that the sharing economy will be a good measure to resolve resource constraints and economic development limitations. The capital market’s generous investment in “sharing” is an important reason why many entrepreneurs have invested in sharing the economic tide.

12.3 Cooperation Mechanism Think of the sharing economy as a platform. This platform is a multilateral platform structure with multiple entities involved, including suppliers, demanders, and platform providers. Third-party organizations include regulators and payment platforms. It is indispensable for multiple entities to participate in the operation, and the cooperation between the various entities is indispensable. The cooperation mechanism is based on how the various entities cooperate to drive the smooth operation of the sharing platform. In the sharing economy, the mechanism of cooperation is that the supply and demand sides participate in the platform to realize their own needs and abide by the rules formulated by the platform providers and regulators. Each entity in the sharing platform performs its functions while cooperating with other entities to complete the transaction smoothly, and the platform provider and the third-party payment platform obtain revenue from the transaction. In the sharing platform, the functions of each subject and the sub-tools in the cooperation are as follows.

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12.3.1 Supply and Demand in the Sharing Platform The supply side provides excess capacity in the platform, such as cars and houses that are not commonly used by themselves, and publishes them to the sharing platform, which greatly reduces transaction costs. With the popularity of the Internet, especially the mobile Internet, the transparency of information on transactions is getting higher and higher, the difficulty of trading operations is reduced, and more and more transactions can be carried out. The demand side can search for favorite products or services through the platform, which is the main force of the excess capacity provided by consumer suppliers. For the demand side, the reduction in the transaction cost of the supplier causes the transaction price to decrease, and the demand side can pay the price lower than the traditional transaction mode while enjoying the same or even better products and services, and the non-standard products provided by the supplier also satisfies the demands of the demand side for individuality and diversity. For example, Uber and Airbnb compare with ordinary taxis and hotels. When consumers need to rent a car but don’t want to endure the traditional taxi models and services, they can use Uber to call a car they want and a humorous driver. Similarly, when consumers have a need to travel, but do not want to stay in a traditional standardized hotel but look for a home-friendly room, Airbnb’s diverse rooms and owners with different personalities will meet the needs of consumers.

12.3.2 Platform Provider for Sharing Platforms A platform provider is a sharing platform builder that builds a trading platform for the supplier and the demander. The transaction replaces the traditional business organization, which makes the transaction from the original “personalization” to “non-personalization”. It is no longer a transaction between the acquaintance circles. The strangers can also establish trust and complete the sharing of resources. These platforms are also CPUs (central processing units) in the sharing economy. They are the place where data, wisdom, and creativity intersect. We can see huge resources and richer knowledge. With the help of the sharing platform, the supplier does not need to be employed by the enterprise, and he is a “small business owner”. The huge consumer group on the platform also reduces the time and opportunity cost of the supplier seeking the customer. The demand side searches the platform for a wide variety of products or services and enjoys better resources at the same or even lower prices.

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12.3.3 Third-Party Organizations in the Sharing Platform Third-party organizations include regulators and payment platforms, and regulators are divided into internal and external supervision. Internal supervision, that is, the supervision system established by the platform provider (evaluation mechanism and constraint punishment mechanism). When the supplier’s evaluation score is low or is complained about, the platform provider will take corresponding punishment measures to ensure safe and efficient operation inside the platform. However, due to the popular participation of the sharing economy, the entry threshold is very low, it is difficult to ensure that all suppliers’ information is true and effective, it is difficult to ensure that the transaction has no security risks, and it is difficult to guarantee the quality of consumers. In order not to bring property damage to the supplier, external supervision is required, that is, supervision by the government and the legal department. In addition to ensuring the legality and security of transactions, and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, and the security of information and property, external supervision must also coordinate the interests of all parties, create a fair market competition environment, and maintain a fair market competition order. For example, in the “ghost car” incident that occurred in the Didi taxi, some drivers of the car car started the journey after receiving the order and did not contact the passengers in the middle. Most of the “ghost car” orders ended in one minute. This is an illegal act by criminals using virtual positioning to scam the cost of the Didi platform. Afterward, Beijing, Shanghai, and other regions successively issued a new policy for the network of vehicles and formulated the Interim Measures for the Administration of Network Appointment of Taxi Management Services to standardize the quality of employees. However, as the sharing economy is still in the development stage, the government and the legal system still lack experience in formulating relevant policies. The transaction of the sharing economy is done on the mobile Internet, and the payment method is not the traditional offline cash payment, but the online payment. China’s payment platforms mainly include UnionPay electronic payment (under China UnionPay), Alipay (owned by Alibaba), WeChat payment (owned by Tencent), and Europe and the United States mainly use PayPal. The payment platform of the sharing economy is not only safe and convenient, but also enables the platform provider to record the amount of each transaction, which is convenient for calculating the operating income, and also eliminates the acquaintances.

12.4 Cultural Mechanism Culture is a broad and abstract concept. Many philosophers, sociologists, and linguists have tried to define culture clearly, but so far there is still no recognized and unified definition. Even so, the subtle influence of culture on human behavior is generally accepted by the public. Management believes that each organization

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has its own organizational culture. Organizational culture can influence the behavior of everyone within the organization so that each individual’s personal goals can be consistent with organizational goals and more conducive to achieving organizational goals. Similarly, the sharing economy model also has its own culture, which is a highly condensed core concept of the sharing economy model and has a guiding role in the behavior of each economic participant.

12.4.1 “Sharing” Cultural Mechanism As a new economic paradigm, it is very important to establish a “sharing economy culture” in order to develop healthier and longer-term. This culture accepted by each participant on the sharing economy platform will give them the ability to differentiate themselves from other economic model participants and guide their behavior towards a more platform-oriented culture. All along, under the influence of capitalist private ownership, people attach great importance to the private property of property, emphasize the ownership of property, and think that “all exists”, and excessive attention to property ownership leads to the willingness to share even if the property is idle. The emergence of the sharing economy has changed the traditional concept of property rights, emphasizing “not seeking to own, but seeking to use”, All of the property does not bring about an increase in people’s satisfaction, and the use of property can satisfy people’s real consumption needs and obtain true satisfaction. The transaction of the right to use goods and services requires a sharing platform. Through the sharing platform, people can trade their own but not used items into a supplier on the sharing platform. At the same time, on the sharing platform, we can find the goods or services that can meet our own needs and become the demand side on the sharing platform. Through multiple transactions, the goods can be maximized, thereby reducing the idle waste of social resources and improving the overall welfare level of society. Therefore, the essence of sharing economy culture is sharing. Its main manifestation is “public ownership, public use”.

12.4.2 Mechanism of Action of Cultural Mechanism At the beginning of the sharing economy, it separated the commodity property into many parts such as ownership, use rights, and income rights, and the innovation of trading each part of the rights was difficult to understand. Although the traditional concept of private property ownership satisfies people’s private desires, the signing of a complete property rights transaction contract is time-consuming and laborious, which makes it extremely wasteful and overcapacity once the goods are difficult to change and meet the needs of different people. When people no longer look at the

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private occupation of the property, the production and consumption patterns under the original capitalist economy have been greatly affected. The mechanism of the sharing economy and cultural mechanism is to enable participants to accept and recognize the shared culture after changing the concept of sharing for the public, to change the concept of attaching importance to ownership in the past, and to truly “do not seek to own, but seek to use” by sharing the goods or services, meeting the different needs of different participants, improving the efficiency of the use of social resources, promoting economic development, and improving the overall welfare of the society. The creation of Airbnb originated from an idea that was considered to be commonplace. Airbnb founder Brian Chesky originally proposed to use the Internet platform to conduct peer-to-peer transactions between strangers, so that people can try localstyle houses on their way. This “crazy” idea was not supported by his grandfather, because until the 1950s, the main way people went out to stay was to live in a friend’s house or a friend’s friend’s house. The seemingly ordinary idea is that because the application of Internet technology has become unusual, the Internet has broken through the limitations of time and space, linking strangers in the network, breaking through the boundaries of people’s social circles, and creating more possibilities (Guohua, 2015). With the success of Airbnb and Uber, the concept and value of the sharing economy have been more widely recognized. More and more people have accepted the concept of sharing, linking property rights to a shared culture, becoming both a consumer and a supplier. In addition to idle housing and vehicles, more and more idle resources and inefficient resources in people’s production and life have joined the shared community of the sharing economy.

12.5 Dynamic Pricing Mechanism The determination of the market transaction price has different mechanisms according to the characteristics of the market and the content of the transaction. In many pricing mechanisms, according to the dynamic characteristics of the pricing mechanism, it can be divided into two types: static pricing mechanism and dynamic pricing mechanism.

12.5.1 Static Pricing Mechanism In the static pricing mechanism, once the price is determined to be unchanged in a short period, the commodity price presents a staged static state, so it is called a static pricing mechanism. In this mechanism, the market price of the commodity is mainly determined by the seller, depending on the seller’s information related to the market supply and demand situation and the customer’s ability to pay and the psychological

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expectation of the commodity price, and the market price is determined by the seller’s subjective judgment. For example, the determination of the price difference in group pricing depends on the seller’s understanding of the difference in the valuation of the consumer group. In the static pricing mechanism, although the commodity price will change over a longer period, the change is a phase change. Reflected on the timeline, the price remains constant for a short period, which is a line segment parallel to the time axis but exhibits a jump change over a long period. And this pricing mechanism is centered on the seller. The accuracy of pricing depends on the accuracy and sufficient quantity of the seller’s information and the seller’s keen judgment on the market operation. Because the seller needs time to collect information, the performance is determined by the price determination, which is behind the change of the market supply and demand relationship, showing price stickiness. Even if the seller can judge the trend of the market price in advance by his own experience, the accuracy of the price determination needs to be considered.

12.5.2 Dynamic Pricing Mechanism The so-called dynamic pricing mechanism refers to a pricing mechanism in which buyers and sellers determine different prices at the time of trading in different trading periods, in particular, the trading price also fluctuates in a short period. In the dynamic pricing mechanism, real-time fluctuations in prices reflect supply, demand, and consumer behavior. For example, the transaction of Didi Travel is based on the principle of proximity, and the passengers with the demand for the vehicle are notified of the surrounding vehicles. If the demand for passenger vehicles in a certain area increases and the supply of vehicles in the area does not meet the needs of passengers, the “dynamic markup” is adopted for the determination of the price of the used vehicles. If passengers want to find a travel vehicle quickly, they can choose to increase the price to attract the vehicle supplier to take orders. At the same time, the Didi Platform will dynamically adjust the price of the car according to the time of the car and the area of the car to balance the supply and demand balance in a certain time and area. The emergence of the Internet and e-commerce is changing the traditional market environment, breaking through the limitations of the original space, unifying the markets originally divided by space through Internet technology, expanding the scope of the market, and increasing the number of people involved in the transaction. With the development of smartphones, buyers and sellers on the mobile Internet are expanding in an unprecedented way. According to China Mobile Internet Development Status and Security Report (2016), the number of active mobile Internet users in China reached 780 million in 2015, accounting for 56.9% of the national population. The expansion of the market has increased the uncertainty of market operations. At the same time, due to the expansion of the market scope and the increase in the number of market participants, sellers need to obtain sufficient information to

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determine the difficulty of commodity prices and challenge the application of static pricing mechanism. At the same time, it provides favorable econ. In an uncertain market environment, because the economic operation mechanism is complex and changeable, the cost of collecting information is extremely expensive, and the high integration of information is mainly due to the uncertain market environment. The ever-expanding market capacity makes the butterfly effect in the economic operation significant, and the information collection needs to be completed in a very short time. And the collection of information needs to be carried out frequently to ensure that the collected information can be used in the pricing process. The extremely expensive information collection cost restricts the collection of information. At the same time, the information collection workload is large and complex, and it takes a lot of information collection time. At the same time as information collection, the market environment changes at any time. This leads to the information collected always lags behind the latest environment of the market economy, so the market price determined according to the collected market information always deviates from the ideal market price determined according to the real-time market economic environment, thus forming a loss of market efficiency. Because of the uncertain market environment, static pricing mechanisms are difficult to apply in uncertain environments. In the static pricing mechanism, the ideal pricing mechanism is that the seller can make corresponding adjustments to the price of related commodities on time when the market environment changes. However, under the traditional economic model, the price of the commodity market has changed, and the seller of the commodity needs to bear the information of notifying the buyer of the price change and re-evaluating the cost of the buyer’s expected consideration, and even the increase of the opportunity cost brought by the change of the customer group, commonly known as menu cost. The occurrence of these costs significantly constrains the price adjustment. Therefore, although the static pricing mechanism has been successfully applied in many industries, it is difficult to implement in an uncertain market environment. Different from the embarrassing situation that the static pricing mechanism is difficult to exert in an uncertain environment, the dynamic pricing mechanism helps to find a reasonable price in an uncertain environment. In today’s Internet-based economic environment, the high menu cost in static pricing mechanisms is reduced to simple updates of relevant information data in market participants’ databases. Quickly use the latest data to create new market prices with existing pricing rules, the application of Internet technology has greatly reduced the menu cost brought by the price adjustment, thereby reducing the limitation of the menu cost to the frequent adjustment of the market price by the seller, and making the seller more inclined to adjust the market price in time to reduce the loss of market efficiency. Therefore, in today’s volatile market environment, the application of Internet technology makes the static pricing mechanism more dynamic. Through the real-time matching of market prices and market economic conditions, the transaction matching between sellers and buyers is more optimized. The reduction in efficiency caused by market prices is conducive to the improvement of market efficiency.

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12.6 Trading Mechanism According to the transaction cost theory, the cost of using the market for social resources is too high, so the professional division of labor is formed within the society to reduce the transaction costs. Coase said that many transactions could not be carried out because the transaction costs are too high. The sharing economy is to follow the trading mechanism of its own, build a multi-party platform, break through the enterprise mechanism, reduce transaction costs, and make Coase’s transactions that are not realized because the transaction costs are too high become a reality.

12.6.1 Characteristics of the Trading Mechanism Divided from the continuous characteristics of trading time, one of the characteristics of the trading mechanism of the rent-based sharing economy is continuous trading. Continuous trading does not mean that transactions in the sharing economy are continuous, but in the sharing economy mode, the trading orders in the process of related business are continuously matched. As long as there is a supplier in the market, the consumer can immediately close the transaction if the order is placed following the trading conditions, and there is no need to wait for a period to complete the transaction. The transactions here are a timely response, instantaneous matching, and direct trading between the supply and demand sides. Under this mechanism, the market provides consumers with the timeliness of transactions and also provides more market price information. Divided from the characteristics of the decision of the transaction price, another trading mechanism of the sharing economy is characterized by instruction-driven, also known as order-driven. In the shared market, the transaction price is driven by the buyer’s order and the seller’s order in the market. The consumer inputs the purchase order into the third-party sharing platform and the third-party sharing platform matches the supplier in time and adjusts the price according to the dynamic pricing mechanism. The transaction was initiated until both parties were satisfied with reasonable prices. In this process, the system sorts the continuously entering consumer trading orders by price and time priority and pairs the trading orders. Regardless of the continuous characteristics of the trading time or the decision characteristics of the transaction price, the main body of the sharing economy trading mechanism is the supply side and the demand side. When the demand side has consumer demand, it immediately sends a trading order to the sharing platform. According to the continuous trading mechanism, the online supplier responds in time, and the sharing platform performs the matching between the buyer and the seller according to the instruction-driven mechanism and initiates the transaction.

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12.6.2 The Expression of the Trading Mechanism The sharing economy transaction not only reduces transaction costs but also optimizes resource allocation. Some resources also have supply and demand, but the cost of finding each other, bargaining, and making contracts are too high, so they cannot enter the market for trading, and they can only idle and waste. The emergence and development of the Internet, especially the mobile Internet, has turned these “non-tradable” resources into “tradable”, resulting in a huge scale of sharing economy. Because of the characteristics of its trading mechanism, leasing benefits from the huge scale of sharing economy have become more convenient and faster, greatly shortening the time required from buying to use, and can instantly meet the needs of consumers. Coupled with the change in people’s consumption concept, the transaction form has changed from the past “buy-based” to the current “rent-based” (Xianxiang, 2016). Taking the automobile market as an example, before the Internet became popular, the information in the rental car market was extremely asymmetrical, especially in long-distance car rental, the transaction cost was high, and it was difficult to match the needs of consumers instantly. When consumers consider that the transaction cost of multiple leases is much higher than the transaction cost of purchase, they will choose to buy a car instead of renting a car. This not only ensures that they can be used at any time, that is, to meet their own needs, but also to gain the psychological effects of possession and comparison. This kind of consumer psychology has created a traditional business model in which the automobile industry is mainly based on buying rather than renting. The emergence of shared cars has changed the trading pattern of the original car rental industry. The shared car trades the right to use the car on the sharing platform without changing the ownership of the car, and the transaction of the car use rights is continuous and order-driven. The traditional car rental industry’s trading model is that the vehicle provider publishes information for renting a car. If the consumer has a car rental demand, he will get the information of the car rental provider from the newspaper, magazine, or acquaintance circle, and communicate the transaction time, pricing, and other requirements. Only when both parties accept the transaction conditions, the car rental transaction can be completed. Traditional car rental methods because of the limited car rental information, it is difficult for both parties to obtain sufficient information, so the transaction is not only time-consuming, but also because it is urgent to rent a car, but it is difficult to find a better choice within a certain period. This allows car buyers to make only sub-optimal choices. Sharing the economic car rental method, the vehicle provider on the sharing platform and the person who has the rental car demand provide their information, provide a reference for the potential transaction object to understand the information, shorten the rental car search time, and make the transaction can be in a short time, reducing the waiting time between each transaction, so that the transaction can continue. At the same time, both parties can communicate transaction information on time on the sharing platform. The completion of each car rental transaction requires the

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parties to negotiate the pricing according to the specific content of the transaction. The content of the order completely determines the transaction process, and the transaction parties determine the transaction price by issuing an order negotiation according to the requirements of the order. It can be seen that the shared car rental realizes the continuous operation and command-driven operation of the car rental transaction in the sharing economy through the complete information displayed on the sharing platform and the convenient communication channels between the two parties, and solves the problems of renting cars under the traditional economic model, promotes the healthy development of the industry.

12.7 Evaluation and Trust Mechanism With the development of the Internet and mobile terminals, strangers who have never met can trade. However, there is also an information asymmetry between the buyer and the seller, and this asymmetry is more serious than the traditional market, and trust has become the first stumbling block to the start of the sharing economy. If the supply and demand sides can’t complete the sharing of items without basic trust, and a lack of trust system, it is difficult to have economic sharing behavior. Therefore, the establishment of a trust system is very important.

12.7.1 Establish an Evaluation System Usually, in the buyer and seller of a transaction, the seller has more information than the buyer. To benefit from the transaction, buyers who are lacking in information often choose to purchase tentatively, try to obtain information from the seller, reduce the asymmetry of information, and build confidence. But in the sharing economy consumption model, transactions are mostly impersonal. Consumers subconsciously have a distrust or insecurity in the products or services of the operators. The evaluation mechanism provides consumers with an important source of information. Consumer confidence also depends on the benign trust mechanism established by the sharing platform. When a transaction is over, the sharing platform will prompt consumers to conduct product service scoring and evaluation in its independent evaluation interface. The average score and evaluation content of the supplier will be published on the platform together with the basic information for consumers’ reference. Potential consumers have gained more effective information from the evaluation system, established a sense of trust and security in conducting transactions, and made transactions between strangers possible. The evaluation mechanism has played a role as a bridge and has become a necessary prerequisite for the establishment of trust between buyers and sellers. The main body of the evaluation mechanism is the consumer. After the buyer and the seller have a transaction on the sharing platform, the consumer evaluates

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the product or service provided by the supplier, gives praise or a score that meets psychological expectations for a satisfactory product or service, or gives a bad or low score for a poor experience. At present, the more popular evaluation systems in the sharing economy platform mainly include the good and bad evaluation model and the five-point evaluation model.

12.7.2 Building a Trust System When consumers purchase unfamiliar products or services in a sharing platform, the evaluation of suppliers by reference to other consumers is dominant in consumer decision-making. Before conducting a transaction, the consumer will have a psychological expectation of satisfaction with the transaction, which is a combination of the consumer’s experience, specific needs, and the word of mouth of the operator. However, the spatial and temporal separation and virtual nature of the Internet make it difficult for consumers to obtain more information. The existence of the evaluation mechanism enables consumers to perceive the service and product quality of the merchant by the evaluation of other buyers, thereby making an expectation of the purchase experience. If the experience of the transaction meets or exceeds the psychological expectation value, the customer usually gives a high score to the merchant, which has a positive word-of-mouth effect and is more likely to attract other customers to establish the trust of the initial transaction. If the experience of the transaction is lower than expected, the customer will have an unsatisfactory complaint, giving the seller a negative evaluation and forming a negative word-of-mouth communication effect (Kezhen & Congqun, 2015). We use four dimensions to build a trust system, namely the seller information dimension, the buyer information dimension, the transaction dimension, and the institutional dimension (Fig. 12.1). These four dimensions are defined as follows: ➀ The seller information dimension refers to information that affects whether the goods or services provided by the seller can be trusted and accepted by the consumers, including whether the information of the goods or services provided by the seller is authentic and reliable, and the reputation formed by the seller’s past transactions; ➁ The buyer information dimension refers to the personal attributes that affect whether the buyer chooses the transaction behavior, including the individual’s life experience, knowledge level, and living environment; ➂ The institutional dimension refers to the external system that constitutes an important part of the external environment of the transaction and the third-party institutions related to the formulation of the system, such as laws, systems, government and third-party intermediaries; ➃The transaction dimension refers to the attributes that make online transactions credible, such as the transparency of online transactions, the determination of transaction prices, payment methods, return policies and after-sales services (Xiaochun & Man, 2007). Under the support of Internet technology, the sharing platform reduces risks through user “crowdsourcing” feedback and evaluation. The reputation information function of many user evaluations and sharing platform design has become an

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Buyer information dimension

Seller

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information dimension

Institutional dimension Fig. 12.1 The process of sharing economy trust mechanism

indispensable basic guarantee mechanism for sharing mode. For example, the worldrenowned sharing platform, the couch surfing website, has designed four levels of trust for users to choose from: the base layer is the user name and addresses authentication card; the second layer is the account data description (open design question); the third layer is to encourage users to introduce themselves more; the fourth layer is the highest level of trust, the “guarantor” system, which provides guarantees through third parties who have been in contact with offline. Other sharing platforms such as Taobao and eBay have also established their trust mechanisms. The mainstream approach relies on a wide range of shared participants to provide evaluation and reputation ratings. The practice has proved that such a trust mechanism can well solve the barrier of trust between consumers to achieve consumer sharing (Shuai, 2016).

12.8 Constraint and Punishment Mechanism With the growing development of the sharing economy, consumers will pay more and more attention to the quality of goods and the quality of service provided in the sharing platform. The mismatch between the false information and the quality of the suppliers that exist on the sharing platform has become the biggest obstacle to the development of the sharing economy. At this time, it is necessary to share the third party and the supervisor in the multilateral platform to conduct collaborative management constraints on the suppliers of goods or services, and to punish the offending suppliers. The constraint and punishment mechanism is mainly implemented by the operator and around the information and evaluation in the transaction.

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12.8.1 Information Perspective Constraint and Punishment Mechanism From the perspective of information, the sharing economy platform is built on the Internet. The operator publishes the information on the sale (rental) of the goods or services in the sharing platform, and the consumer decides whether to consume according to the information in the platform. Because of the spatial and temporal separation and virtual characteristics of the Internet, the transaction has the problem of information asymmetry. The false information of the operator will inevitably damage the consumer rights. After the establishment of the restraint mechanism, with the support of big data technology and information sharing, all the people who have previously recorded the breach of trust record will be included in the case, and the barriers to entry will be improved, so that allows consumers more fully and directly understand the bad credit history of those who have lost the letter, and judge whether the transaction continues. This will alleviate or even eliminate the asymmetry of credit information in the transaction. The mechanism has high requirements on technology and data. It is necessary to confirm the credit information of each operator, but it is beneficial for consumers to grasp the information more comprehensively and at a low cost, thus obtaining more potential traders. Taking Didi as an example, the registration requirements for the driver of the drip driver to request the owner include: ➀ The price of a naked car is more than 70,000; ➁ car age is less than eight years old; ➂ driving age is more than three years old; ➃ the driver is 22–55 years old. Not limited to men and women, healthy. This is the constraint of the third-party platform on the supplier, but this is only a basic requirement for the supplier, and it is difficult to guarantee its service level and moral literacy. After the “Ghost Car,” incident and the rumors of female passengers in the network car market, Cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have successively issued the “Regulations for Network Appointment of Taxi Operation Services”, which imposes standardization standards on various households such as household registration, age, driving age, criminal record, vehicle number plate, and performance.

12.8.2 Evaluation Perspective and Punishment Mechanism From the perspective of evaluation, the punishment mechanism limits and penalizes the behavior or income of the operators with lower scores and poor evaluations in the sharing platform. The evaluation of the operator in the platform is permanent, and the score is the average of all consumer ratings. When the operator has too many bad reviews or low scores, the sharing platform will deal with them accordingly, including fines, limit singular numbers, etc. Those with serious bad records will face the expulsion of the title. But in response, the good reviews received by the good operators will be accumulated, get a higher rating, and get some extra rewards.

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Take Taobao as an example. When a buyer searches for a product, the store with a lower overall score will be at the end of the search results. When the store receives a certain amount of bad reviews, the Taobao platform will take a blockade. For stores with higher overall scores, Taobao will rely on the support of big data technology to recommend to buyers and attract more customers. Constraints and penalties can be implemented through established rules, using technical support and third-party oversight. It can also be used as a kind of psychological education to let people form a positive value orientation consciously, but this cannot be used as a binding way. This kind of mechanism is mainly the conscious resistance of people who do not conform to the information in the transaction and provide inferior products or services. It does not trade with the operators with a poor reputation so that it can reduce trading opportunities and it is difficult to stand in the society. This is the most important punishment.

Chapter 13

Practice of Sharing Economy

The advent of the era of sharing economy has brought great changes to people’s lives. People enjoy the convenience and joy of sharing in every aspect. Short rents provide a variety of options for people with short trips. People have more opportunities to contact local customs and locals, and the lessors can gain income through renting. P2P car renting that can be realized through the network platform to provide services to users who need vehicles, and the emergence of the shared finance supplements the current finance system, and the asset owner borrows idle funds to the demand-side to make effective use of the funds. It is not difficult to find that there are a variety of ways of sharing economy. We generalize it in 11 ways: leasing, borrowing, sharing, linking, crowd-funding, P2P lending, crowd-sourcing, crowd-creating, collaboration, transaction, and donation.

13.1 Leasing Leasing is a common economic behavior in today’s society. The lessor gives the tenant the right to use the goods or something for a period of time, but the ownership of the item remains in the hands of the lessor, and the lessee has to pay a certain fee (rent) (Zhang & Xu, 2012) to the lessor for the right to use it. In the era of sharing economy, leasing becomes more convenient and shows the unique characteristics of sharing. The online Internet platform integrates the resources under the line, which is more efficient than the traditional medium, and then the lessee selects it on the platform according to their demand. It gives various choices and reduces the cost of the rent. Leasing under sharing economy is a typical O2O mode, emphasize the integration of online and offline resources. People trade and communicate with each other online, and complete the transaction offline. The prominent advantage of this way is to improve the efficiency of resource utilization and save costs. To make the transaction

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smoothly between two strangers, the platform needs to establish mutual trust between the two sides. It plays an important role in this process, which can be found in every way of sharing economy.

13.1.1 Forms of Leasing Depending on the length of the lease, the lease can be divided into a long-term lease and a short-term lease. Long-term lease paid monthly rental costs, lasting for more than a year, such as leasing the entire apartment with unified decoration and management, and the crowd-creating space provides office space for entrepreneurs. A short-term lease is one of the typical models of sharing economy. It usually takes 24 h as a unit of measurement and charges by day. It aims at meeting people’s short-time demand for certain articles. With the increase of people’s travel and the prevalence of the idea of adequate use of goods, there will be more and more fields involving a short-term lease. The short-term lease often can bring more profit to lessors than the long-term lease. From the aspect of the typical house rental industry, the short-term lease industry attracts many homeowners, especially in cities with developed tourism. Rooms under the short-term lease are usually small and beautiful, and also can provide more valueadded services, which bring spiritual and cultural enjoyment to the tenants, therefore homeowners can get a higher premium. A long-term lease lacks the flexibility to meet the rapidly changing needs of the situation.

13.1.2 Practice of Leasing Leasing under sharing economy is familiar to everyone. At present, the typical application is in the housing and transportation field. With all walks of life continue to explore, leasing is more and more widely used. The house leasing under sharing economy has been well-known and involves both long-term and short-term leasing. Taking long-term leasing as an example, compared with traditional house leasing, it provides standardized hardware facilities and more value-added services. First of all, the platforms collect idle houses from lessors, carry out uniform decoration and provide standard furniture. Secondly, the panoramic shooting of each house is put online. The high consistency of pictures and physical objects also improves the turnover rate. Finally, tenants can make an appointment online to visit the room. After the deal, tenants can also enjoy a series of followup services, such as maintenance and cleaning services, and social places provided by centralized housing. The long-term lease under sharing economy changes the perception that leasing houses are poor and shabby and attracts tenants with the concept of people-orienting. Rental housing is not only to survive but also to live. Also, short-term leasing led by Airbnb has developed rapidly in all parts of the

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world. In China, short-term leasing, such as Little Pigs and Way Home Network, is constantly exploring, and integrating idle houses with different modes of C2B (consumers to businesses) and C2C (consumers to consumers), to provide a costeffective and diversified housing experience for renters. In the field of travel, bicycles, taxis, private cars and buses can be easily leased through sharing economy platforms. The PP Car Rent software is active in China. Its typical business is asset-light short-term leasing, integrating offline vehicle resources and offering them to people in need of cars. In order to establish the trust relationship between the two parties and make the transaction proceed smoothly, PP Car Rent adopts the following mechanism: firstly, all members are examined and real name certification; secondly, the platform buys vehicle loss insurance and thirdparty liability insurance, to protect the owners’ rights and interests; thirdly, PP installs vehicle recording instruments on vehicles to record vehicle route; Fourthly, users can evaluate their experience after use, providing a reference for other users’ selection. In 2016, PP introduced a new long-term leasing service to enable car lenders to experience the same experience as private cars and avoided many troubles such as vehicle maintenance, insurance, and so on. In addition to the light-asset platforms that leasing vehicles such as PP Car Rent, many platforms have adopted heavy-asset models, such as Mobike and Car2go. Not only in the field of real estate and travel tools does sharing economy get development momentum, but other industries are also trying this model, such as parking space leasing BoboParking, clothing leasing Clothing Two and Three, toy sharing Toy Superman, and so on. Sharing economy is constantly opening new doors for people in the leasing industry.

13.2 Borrowing Borrowing is the process that lenders give their right to use the items for a certain time to borrowers, without profiting from it. In the sharing economy, the scope of borrowing has expanded, and borrowing becomes more convenient. By definition, the difference between borrowing and leasing lies in whether to pay for the right of use. Lessors can gain extra income by leasing their resources, which attracts people to participate in sharing. But this way does not apply to any item, especially small items, which are used with low frequency and only earn little return even difficult to cover the cost of leasing it. In this situation, money has little effect on people’s decisions, so the negative incentives of money for people to participate in sharing are removed, and the costs and benefits are measured in other ways.

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13.2.1 Forms of Borrowing At home, there are always some high-cost but low-frequency tools that take up storage space without a corresponding value, such as a ladder, a weeding machine, a vacuum cleaner, and some entertainment tools. The community tool rental platform emerges as the times require. It integrates these resources to facilitate borrowing between neighbors. After people register on the website, they display tools that they can share in the network community. When they need a tool that they don’t own, they can search on the platform and pay the deposit. And the credit score can be obtained by returning on time and protecting tools. The higher the credit score, the easier the next borrowing is, and the lower the deposit is. This kind of network community is not only convenient for people to borrow tools, improve borrowing efficiency, but also shorten the distance between neighbors. As Li Houchen, the founder of Sharing and Borrowing, the Chinese first community tool rental platform said, the activation of the relationship between people to a large extent requires one thing as the medium, and the experience of borrowing just is a good basis for the relationship.

13.2.2 Practice of Borrowing The pioneer of borrowing is the American platform NeighborGoods, followed by a series of similar attempts in other countries. Taking Chinese Sharing and Borrowing as an example, its target users are a group of people who are curious and willing to accept new things but face the pressure of high living costs and limited space area in cities. After registering, you can upload and introduce your idle things with photos and descriptions and share them with others. At the same time, you can also check other people’s articles by searching, browsing, or looking around you. When you need something, you can search for it in a special module and encourage neighbors to share it. You can also find your favorite items on the platform and try them out before buying, to help people consume rationally. The way of borrowing is also very simple. You only need to pay the deposit, then you can get the goods by post or by yourself. You can get the deposit back when you return it. The platform extends borrowing from former acquaintances and neighbors to strangers, so it is particularly important to establish mutual trust among strangers. Every action on the social network is recorded to form a personal database, and the accumulated trust score forms personal credit capital. Although borrowing does not consume money capital, it is at the expense of credit capital. If you make a mistake in the process, the credit capital will be damaged. If you take every action carefully, such as paying deposits, taking and returning goods on time, your credit capital will increase, and you will enjoy more convenience in the next borrowing.

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On the one hand, the platform of borrowing instead of leasing has improved the efficiency of the use of idle goods, on the other hand, it expands the social circle of people and increases the interaction within the community, which has been welcomed by people.

13.3 Sharing In an era when knowledge is becoming more and more important, people can create great value by mastering knowledge and technology. But limited by the limited platform and time resources, these intangible resources are not used to the best advantage. If owners are given opportunities to show their knowledge and skills and create value for those who need it, this will produce a cognitive surplus. Sherky (2012), Professor of New York University defines cognitive surplus. Educated people with free time, rich knowledge, and a strong desire to share, converge their time together to produce huge social effects. Sharing is to release the social effects of cognitive surplus and make it available for more people.

13.3.1 Forms of Sharing There are differences between the ways of creating the value of cognitive surplus, and we roughly divided them into two kinds. One is the sharers share their knowledge and skills forwardly in the form of words or videos. Then persons interested in them can look through these materials. MOOCs, a large-scale open course in the field of education, operate in this way. The other is the question-and-answer type. The questioner puts forward a question. It can be designated to a special person or freely discussed and answered by the public. The questioner sometimes needs to pay some reward to the respondents. Many platforms run in this way, such as Chinese Zhihu, Zaihang, Fenda, and so on. Sharing motivates people to use their leisure time to create value. Sharers gain benefits from this, and the value of their knowledge is magnified. At the same time, the learners acquire the knowledge and skills which can create value in their leisure time. What’s more, sharing also allows people to contact industry professionals. Through sharing knowledge and answering questions, connections between people are established.

13.3.2 Practice of Sharing Taking MOOCs as an example, according to the definition of Wikipedia, the courses are published by the participants, and the materials are scattered on the Internet. The curriculum has the following characteristics: firstly, through the Internet, teachers

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and learners all over the world are involved, not just a few people; secondly, the courses are open, and the publishers, retaining certain rights, share its content with the public and allow others to spread them again. The foundation of the platform is the “surplus” of educational resources. Under the traditional educational system, the excellent educational resources are limited by school gates, which is difficult to extend in a large scope. The network platform can spread education resources on a large scale. At present, relatively mature platforms are Coursera, edX, and Udacity. Target people are those who are eager to learn some knowledge independently. The courses were offered initially by well-known universities abroad. They offered classic courses, and they expanded rapidly. The teaching model on MOOCs is similar to the traditional class. By using micro-videos plus interactive practice, students should attend lectures, communicate with classmates and teachers, complete their homework and test on time just like in school. Course learning generally does not charge, but if you want to get a degree certificate, you have to pay for it. In China, MOOCs are still in their growth period. In May 2013, Tsinghua University and Peking University joined edX, and Tsinghua University led to building the Chinese platform for edX. Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University joined Coursera in July 2013. In the form of MOOCs, the doors of famous universities gradually open for everyone, which provides a solution to present uneven distribution of educational resources. In addition to spontaneous sharing, questioners can put forward their questions, and sharers give their answers, such as Zhihu Live, Zaihang and Fenda. This is an attempt in the field of knowledge liquidation. Questioners need to pay for the answers so the sharers can obtain the material reward. Taking Fenda as an example, the questioner pays for his questions, then the sharer records his answer within 1 min and upload. Other people who are interested in the problem can pay 1 yuan to eavesdrop the answer, and the eavesdropping income is divided between the questioner and the sharer. Through this kind of sharing, people get access to get professional answers and improve the sharing and dissemination of knowledge. Moreover, the pattern that people used to get free knowledge from the Internet is changing. People should get used to paying for intellectual property and skills, which is the only way to a knowledge-based society.

13.4 Linking Linking refers to the means, ability, or license to approach, enter, or use a resource. The Internet provides an interface to the era of large data. No matter it is commercial data, government data, or academic data, people can more and more easily get access to it, which should owe to sharing economy.

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13.4.1 Forms of Linking Different platforms provide linking services in different ways, and they all collect data in line with sharing, offering users ways of obtaining data. The centralized linking platform provides a centralized database by working with other institutions, which is a common way. The distributed linking platforms provide the interface. Each member can collect data through the data interface established by the platform. It will not collect the data together. The distributed database ensures data security, but the speed of data processing will partly be reduced. The importance of big data has been self-evident. How to obtain and organize is the most important part of the use of big data. Through linking, the data scattered in the hands of everyone is integrated and provided to people in need of it to create greater value.

13.4.2 Practice of Linking A successful example of the distributed linking mode is 91 Credit Investigation. In the development of folk microfinance, one of the key issues is the borrower’s credit investigation. In the past, folk microfinance has reduced the risk because of the small amount of money. However, its risk comes from multiple loans. Because the borrower’s information is not open between platforms, it is difficult to carry out reliable credit information. The borrower can get loans at the same time from different platforms, which gives borrowers a lot of risks. Only based on the symmetry of information can the platforms come to rational credit. The traditional solution is to establish a QQ group by a P2P company, but its efficiency is very low. 91 Credit Investigation is to link the database of P2P companies so that every company can access credit data, realize credit sharing, and reduce the risk of private lending. One of its core services is that the multiple liabilities distributed database, which provides standardized data access. Each company does not need to upload data to the central database, so they don’t need to worry about information leaks. Through the data interface of 91 Credit Investigation, P2P platforms can effectively adjust their credit extension. For example, if you want to inquire about a borrower’s credit data, you can send its name and ID card number to other platforms’ servers through 91 Credit Investigation. The relevant data will be fed back to you after the query so you can determine whether the borrower has multiple lending and what is its current status. Besides, by working with Renrendai, a bad asset management company, and 91 Credit Investigation’s brotherhood company, 91 Credit Investigation provide high-risk blacklist to P2P companies, which is another core business of 91 Credit Investigation. In the view of Xue Benchuan, the founder of 91 Credit Investigation, the Internet financial development pattern will experience a process from excess profit to price war than to healthy development, and the key element to the turning point from price war to

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healthy development is credit investigation exactly.1 The linking method provides a way of sharing credit data. Distributed data linking not only ensures data security but also meets the needs of sharing. There are many practices of centralized data lining. The platform integrates data or interfaces and sells. Taking Data Hall as an example, it’s a large data resource service enterprise, which collects and integrates the data of many fields of industry and the government, and then uses these data to provide customers with professional data collection, processing, sharing, trading, and other services. The large data they collect mainly comes from the following two ways: one is through crowd-sourcing, the public carry out data collection or data annotation; the other is to cooperate with other organizations, the purchase of data or APIs.2 There are two ways to earn profits, one is to sell data sets and APIs directly in the data mart, and the other is to provide data customization services and collect data according to customers’ needs. Its success in the field of big data linking comes from the high visibility of the industry’s first-mover advantage and the excellent resources it gains from the government directly. At present, the government is also accelerating the construction of its large data exchanges, such as the Guiyang large data exchange established in 2015. What’s more, the government gradually makes the country’s data more accessible, making enterprises, social groups, and academic institutions more easily to get big government data and fully excavate the potential value of it.

13.5 Crowd-Funding Project founders (fundraisers), such as creative persons or small and micro enterprises, establish their pages on the crowd-funding platform to introduce their projects to the public (sponsors), and raise small funds to the public or seek other material support (Fan, 2013). There are three participants in crowd-funding, fundraisers, platforms, and sponsors. Through this, the right to use funds is transferred from the occupants to the demand side, which promotes the efficiency of money. For the fundraisers, compared with other financing channels, the crowd-funding model has three advantages, namely, a lower threshold of entrepreneurship, precognition of market demand and low-cost market promotion (Zhao, 2015). For sponsors, the amount of money raised is small, and the risk is low, which can be accepted by the public and also satisfy their enthusiasm for participating in innovation and entrepreneurship.

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91 Credit Investigation: Become Didi in the field of credit investigation. http://www.topcfo.net/ index.php/News/index/id/42531/p/2.html, 2016-05-15. 2 APIs (application programming interface) are pre-defined functions that are designed to provide applications and developers with the ability to access a set of routines based on a piece of software or hardware without having to access the source code or understand the details of the internal working mechanism.

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13.5.1 Forms of Crowd-Funding Crowd-funding is generally carried out according to this process: fundraisers submit the material about their companies or projects, and then the platform examines if the fundraisers are authentic and if the projects are reliable. If passed, the material will be publicized on the platform. Sponsors can choose projects to sponsor. If the predetermined amount of money is received at maturity, the project is successful, and the fundraiser will receive the fund. Otherwise, the financing fails, and the platform will return all the investment received. There are also some platforms that allow the fundraisers to use the funds raised no matter how much money they received. According to what is the sponsors’ rewards, crowd-funding can be divided into three types, namely, crowd-funding by-product presale, by donation and by creditors’ or stock rights. Crowd-funding by-product presale is the most popular way at present. The US crowd-funding giant Kickstarter and Chinese Jingdong crowd-funding all adopt this way. Before putting it into production, the product can get not only financial support but also get familiar with the market and invite users to participate in its design and production. Moreover, this mode can achieve product customization and attract young people who pursue new ideas and individuation. Crowd-funding by donation is that the public can select projects on the platform to provide material support for project progress in their capacity. This kind of investment is not rewarded, completely out of interest and enthusiasm, such as Causes and YouCaring. In crowd-funding by creditors’ or stock rights, investors will get some form of material rewards, such as debt or equity right. Under the mode of debt, the investor can get the creditor’s rights of the financing enterprise, obtain interest and the principal in the future, generally through P2P lending platforms. Crowd-funding by stock rights has always been paid much attention to. It upgrades the existing venture capital and absorbs small investment funds for stock purchase, so it is expected to achieve low risk and high profit. Compared with other methods of crowd-funding, crowd-funding by stock rights is riskier, longer, a large amount of investment and a higher threshold, so investors need to do professional research on the field of investment.

13.5.2 Practice of Crowd-Funding At present, leading platforms in China are Jingdong Crowd-funding, Taobao Crowdfunding and Suning Crowd-funding. Although they have been established just a few years, they developed quickly relying on their entrances of electric business which ensures their flow. Their crowd-funding turnover is increasing. The gap between small and medium platforms and has widened. Jingdong Crowd-funding is the most successful one at present. The process is as follows: the fundraisers submit materials, then Jingdong resources support can be obtained after being examined, and

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the project will be launched online. If the fundraising fails, the funds raised will be returned to the sponsors; if the project is successful, Jingdong will first pay 70% of the fund to the fundraiser so that the fundraiser can carry out the project. After the project is completed on time, Jingdong will give the remaining 30% of the fund to the fundraiser, and the fundraiser should repay the sponsors according to their agreement; if the project is not successful on time, the fundraiser has to compensate sponsors; if the project fails, the fundraiser should return all fund to sponsors. This process is representative of crowd-funding by-product presale. Compared with other platforms, Jingdong crowd-funding is unique because of its entrepreneurial ecosystem, which has become a unique Jingdong crowd-funding model. Many entrepreneurial projects choose Jingdong crowd-funding platform not only because of its huge customer traffic but also this unique mode. In 2016, the M1 series of Calf Electric Vehicle set a raising record of 81.76 million yuan. It was difficult to achieve it on another platform. The perfect logistics service of Jingdong ensures the experience of customers. Through the ecosystem, Jingdong can provide four major support systems, namely resources, investment, service and training for its fundraisers. Except for the three platforms, which do not have to worry about the flow of the platform (Jingdong, Taobao and Suning), other small and medium-sized platforms need to attract users. These small and medium-sized platforms are generally small in scale, so being small and vertical specialization is conducive to their survival. On the whole, Chinese crowd-funding platforms, apart from Jingdong crowd-funding mode, have been trying to find a place for development in traffic mode or vertical field. At present, the best practitioner of crowd-funding by stock rights in China is Jingdong Club. It uses the typical lead investment + follows investment model. In each project, an experienced professional investor is responsible for it, and the public follows. The leader is responsible for conducting due diligence on the project and assisting the fundraisers in improving the project and disclosing information. At the same time, the lead investors entrusted by the fundraisers set up a limited partnership, carry out post-investment management and choose the right time to withdraw from the company. Jingdong Club receives commissions according to the agreed terms and has the right to change into their shares. The model of lead investment + follow investment adapts to the characteristics that most investors in China’s capital market are not specialized and have no investment experience. The research cost of each investor is reduced by leading investment, which reduces risk compared with traditional venture investment.

13.6 P2P Lending P2P lending is an innovative financial service that combines traditional lending and Internet technology. The network platform aggregates scattered funds and lends to borrowers with investment goals, and the funds are allocated to those who are more efficient. Its core idea comes from Professor Mohamed Yunus’s Grameen Bank (GB) (Zhang, 2010), its main content includes mutual guarantee payment, small loan, and

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amortization loan. The participation of the Internet has greatly expanded the scope of loans and realized the accumulation of funds in a more efficient way, then it allocated funds openly and transparently. Besides, the flexibility of the model in amount and time is well adapted to short-term financing characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises and provides a way to solve the financing problems under the traditional financing model.

13.6.1 Forms of P2P Lending There are three parties involved in P2P lending, namely, the lender, the investor, and the platform. The general process is that lenders first show their loan demand and the interest will pay. The way to decide the interest rate and match investors is different according to different types of platforms. According to the classification of Xin (2009), the P2P platform can be divided into three types: simple intermediary, compound intermediary, and non-profit type. The platform in Simple intermediary types, such as Prosper and Paipai Loan, plays an only intermediary role. They provide a platform and do not have responsibility for the risk in the process of borrowing. According to the borrower’s information, investors voluntarily evaluate the credit condition of the borrower and give the interest rate. After that, they make a bid by lowering the interest rate. At the end of the auction, a group of the investor with the lowest interest rate will provide loans to the borrower. The compound intermediary platform is more important in the loan process. They need to classify the borrowers to facilitate lenders to make a choice, and establish a contractual relationship with borrowers and investors respectively market makers. The participation of a compound intermediary platform provides a guarantee for borrowing and reduces the risk of lenders. Non-profit platforms, such as the Qifang platform for assisting students, also can earn some profit, mainly from the service fee, advertising revenue, and training tuition income.

13.6.2 Practice of P2P Lending P2P lending platforms are developing rapidly in China, among which Lufax and Paipai Lending are more popular. Taking Paipai Lending as an example, the process is as follows: the platform strictly examines the credit rating of the enterprise or individual borrowers, and judges the comprehensive credit score them through online data collection and offline interview, mainly including identity authentication, mobile phone number, mailbox, and credit scoring in the personal credit information system of banks. The score increases with the number of specific data uploaded, and it serves as the main basis for borrowers to get loan quota. After the examination, the borrower will list the loan application instructions and repayment instructions on the Internet. The investors who are willing to lend money will then bid for them, and those with

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low-interest rates will win the bid. Generally, each lender bears a small loan amount and is lend to not a single borrower to achieve the purpose of risk diversification. The borrower must pay the interest every month. If the borrower does not repay the payment within the prescribed period, he will be imposed a fine by the provisions of the contract. For the loss caused by the borrower in the process of borrowing, Paipai Lending does not bear the liability for compensation. If the borrower does not repay the loan, the platform only returns the service fee. Therefore, the hidden risk in the process of lending is only borne by the lender himself, which is riskier and more profitable for lenders. When the platform assumes more responsibility for supervision and screening and shares the risk of loans with lenders, lenders’ risk is reduced, and their return is also reduced. For example, Lending Club, which not only conducts credit rating, but also fixes the interest rate, and creatively introduces the social platform, so that it can obtain more personal information about borrowers, and improve the success rate of lending.

13.7 Crowd-Sourcing Crowd-sourcing is a new Internet mode that transforms intelligence, knowledge, ability, and experience into income through the Internet (Liu, 2006). Crowd-sourcing under sharing economy is mainly related to three fields, namely computer technology (information), business model, and knowledge creation (Zhang, 2012). First of all, crowd-sourcing under the sharing economy cannot be separated from the support of network technology. The construction of the crowd-sourcing platform depends on the Internet. Secondly, the business model is one of the most concerning areas in the research of crowd-sourcing. Through different models, participants are pursuing more income. Finally, crowd-sourcing is closely related to knowledge creation, so that each job can be completed by the most competent person, making the best use of people’s comparative advantages, to improve sharing efficiency.

13.7.1 Forms of Crowd-Sourcing Whether in living skills or the field of innovation, crowd-sourcing realizes by three parties, namely the employer (the demand side), the contractor (the supplier), and the platform. The employer is the one who seeks to solve the problem. He seeks solutions on the crowd-sourcing platform, to improve efficiency. The platform is the intermediary between the two parties, which allows the contractor to connect with the employer. Sometimes the platform bears greater responsibility, such as protecting information from leaking and supervising both parties to fulfill their obligations. A contractor is a person with wisdom, knowledge, ability, and experience. They choose tasks according to their abilities and interests and gain benefits from the

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transformation of their intangible resources. The classification of crowd-sourcing is also varied. Burger-helmchen and Penin (2010) divide crowd-sourcing into crowdsourcing for daily work, for information and innovation (Lin & Raymond, 2015).

13.7.2 Practice of Crowd-Sourcing Crowd-sourcing for daily work has widespread in all aspects of life. There are TaskRabbit, Instacart, Zhu Bajie and so on. Anything can be done by other people. Take Zhu Bajie as an example. It is the largest service crowd-sourcing platform in China. Crowd-sourcing service requires the contractor to make personalized customization according to the demand. It can provide various types of services for enterprises, including enterprise management, brand creativity, business marketing, product/manufacturing services and software development services, and personal life services, including portrait, photography, decoration, legal consultation, etc. It not only attracts a large number of small and medium enterprises to become their users, but many big enterprises also seek service on it. Some movie posters, such as for Wolf Totem and YeWen2, were all completed through crowd-sourcing. The main trading patterns are the following. The first is by the piece, according to the quantity that the contractor completes the buyer’s demand. A number of contractors can serve one task at the same time. The second is by comparing, that is a large number of contractors take out their plans, the employer chooses one from them; the third is the bidding, after the employer releases the demand, contractors bid for it. The employer selects a contractor to complete the task. The fourth one is by purchase, that is, one-to-one communication to complete a task. In the development, Zhu Bajie also explored a unique development model, called the business model of data ocean and drilling platform by Zhu Mingyue, the founder of Zhu Bajie. “We extend to the intellectual property service and the trademark registration service from the brand design. Following the direction of the whole industry chain, we consider that the enterprise may still need printing, manufacturing services, and others. Therefore, we integrate other elements one by one and link up all the industries in this chain thoroughly. We get massive user data through the transaction of original service items. As the scale of transactions grows, our oceans become bigger. In this ocean, we opened a drilling platform one by one, which is our business model. Zhu Bajie3 provides full process services for enterprises. Every time they drill a well, there is an independent new company or business unit. A comprehensive service system for small and medium-sized enterprises is perfected. In addition, through the online website to the offline incubator, Zhu Bajie guides its online successful service providers to offline and helps them develop. Crowd-sourcing innovation is also an important area in crowd-sourcing practice. It means the enterprise subcontracts the problems that they cannot solve insides to 3

Zhu Bajie, who announced to obtain a 2.6 billion yuan financing, takes what business model. http://www.huxiu.com/article/117836/, 2015-06-15.

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the public, then the public with different professional backgrounds provide solutions, brainstorm, and better solve the problem. In addition, crowd-sourcing is different from long-standing outsourcing. The participants in crowd-sourcing are out of interest than the pursuit of rewards. The motivation makes crowd-sourcing more appropriate for diverting thinking and adapt to the need to solve increasingly complex problems. Taking Innocentive for example, which was founded in 2000 by American Pharmaceutical Company Lilly, it provides enterprises with a platform to get open creativity. After the enterprise is registered as a seeker, his problems can be published on the website. Innocentive will publicize the summary of the problem, the deadline and so on. If the solver is interested in the project, he can get detailed information through the secrecy communication channel of Innocentive after signing legal documents such as the confidentiality clause. The solution chosen by the solver can be rewarded. At present, Innocentive mainly used in academic circles, and solvers are scientists all over the world. Open innovation and internal innovation are complementary, and each of them has its own applicable fields. When innovation requires a large amount of capital and equipment, solvers on the website cannot carry out individual activities, which still requires the internal strength of the enterprise to invest in internal research and development. External innovation is suitable when internal creation hits a bottleneck, which is difficult to break through. The flexibility of the external perspective of other fields brings new ideas to problem-solving.

13.8 Crowd-Creating Unlike crowd-sourcing innovation, which is led by companies to accomplish tasks. In contrast, there are many different forms of crowd-creating, mostly led by the masses, spontaneously based on interest. There is no clear task orientation in crowdcreating (Liu et al., 2015). Crowd-creating mainly includes two layers of meanings. One is innovation; the other is entrepreneurship. Based on this, it contains two core processes. Firstly, the popularization of innovation activities means that the public conducts innovation activities on the platform based on interests. Secondly, it popularizes entrepreneurial activities. The emergence of today’s incubators and crowdcreating spaces has enabled everyone to start a business (Lu et al., 2015). Under closed innovation, the enterprise’s ability to innovate depends on the company’s financial strength and its limited internal scientific research strength, which can easily lead to problems such as closed doors and vehicles. As the boundary of innovation expands, corporate, creative strengths have gone from professional researchers to ordinary employees, and then to the public because of the impact of the Internet, creating a vision of popular entrepreneurship and innovation. This kind of development is closely related to the development of the Internet: the construction of the mobile Internet makes data collection no longer limited by time and space, and user interaction is more convenient; Big data allows sample data to be no longer confined to companies and laboratories. Sharing data comes from the open platform of society.

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13.8.1 Forms of Crowd-Creating According to the two core processes included in the meaning of crowd-creating, the model of crowd-creating can be attributed to two types. The first is an innovative approach. This is the result of the diffusion of internal innovation activities. As opposed to closed innovation, the company will establish a platform outside the enterprise. It can be either on the Internet or in a physical laboratory. It encourages persons outside the company to offer enterprise advice and dedicate contributions to scientific research, such as Intel, Haier, etc., they set up laboratories in colleges and universities. Every year, through crowd-creating, they can harvest a large number of patents. The second is the entrepreneurial approach. Crowd-creating space is a way to achieve, which provides entrepreneurs with office space, investment, and consulting services. It even provides an online community to entrepreneurs to exchange ideas, such as WeWork, Zhu Bajie, and other incubators. The emergence of sharing economy has enabled innovation and entrepreneurship to obtain more convenient conditions. It not only provides the facilities needed for innovation but also gathers innovative thinking and forms the atmosphere of popular innovation and entrepreneurship.

13.8.2 Practice of Crowd-Creating At present, people gradually realize that the power of popular innovation is strong, and many companies obtain crowd-creating support through various means. They establish an open environment supported by platforms and encourage the public to propose ideas or carry out research and development. Many companies have gathered a large number of innovative forces through this channel. Take Starbucks as an example. In 2008, Starbucks created the “Your ideas, your Starbucks” website. Starbucks members can submit their opinions to Starbucks and provide suggestions for their development. Other members can comment on these creative ideas. Starbucks will review these views on time and will implement practical opinions. These ideas have four statuses on the website; that is, they are being evaluated, evaluated, under construction, and implemented. Starbucks personnel will update their progress and publish members’ rankings based on active participation, motivating members to contribute. Starbucks also benefited from it by understanding customer satisfaction, increasing customer stickiness, reducing costs such as R&D operations and creating faster than internal creation. After the website was established 5 years, it received more than 150,000 ideas, of which 277 were put into practice. This is just a simple example of crowd-creating. Many companies’ creative collections do not stop on the website. They rely on university resources, establish laboratories, provide them with hardware support, and encourage researchers to open their minds. Intel invested in the establishment of open laboratories in hundreds of universities, and university researchers and Intel internal researchers formed a research group. With the help of

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universities, the labs can quickly access new knowledge. Intel can obtain thousands of patents through this innovative channel every year. The public entrepreneurship process, which is also a process of creation, is also developing well under the support of crowd-creating space and incubators established everywhere. Taking the example of WeWork, a benchmarking company for crowdcreating space, it rents office buildings at a low price in prosperous city areas with convenient transportation. After professional design and decoration, it leases out with slightly higher rental fees than the surrounding office areas and obtains price difference income. When a company is registered as a member, it can enjoy the office space, online platform resources, various benefits, and participation in community activities provided by WeWork. The operation of the online community platform is the core value of WeWork. Through the community platform, companies from all walks of life are gathered from online to offline, and members can establish links with upstream and downstream companies and facilitate communication. At the same time, online platforms can provide companies with multiple services, such as finance, advertising, brand strategy, design, insurance, legal services, interior design, photography, video, public relations, recruitment, social marketing, etc. What’s more, these services are provided by WeWork members. This not only creates opportunities for members to work but also provides convenience for companies that need these services. In general, WeWork’s revenue comes from two parts, one is the rental spread, and the other is the income from providing online services for members. On the other hand, in China, most of the crowd-creating space is only focused on the rental spread, but it has rarely provided online community services. This may be one of the reasons that led to crowd-creating space gloomy business in China. In contrast, Zhu Bajie has opened up the online to offline operation mode, and space + community crowd-creating space is really needed in China.

13.9 Collaboration According to the definition in Interactive Encyclopedia, collaboration refers to the process of achieving goals in the areas of technology, resources, information, etc. Collaboration can be between individuals or departments. Collaboration can create synergies. In sharing economy, collaboration mainly refers to collaborative creation. It aims to bring together a group of people with common interests to communicate, create, and interact with each other so that everyone in the creative process has the right to edit and modify content. Broadly speaking, it can also include production collaboration, technical collaboration, and resource collaboration. Through collaboration, innovation has become more efficient and has become something that everyone can participate in.

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13.9.1 Forms of Collaboration The participants in the collaboration include collaborative initiators, collaborative participants, and collaboration platforms. Collaborative initiators are responsible for brainstorming, reducing research and development costs, and releasing the creative power of products to the public for efficient and cost-effective innovation. There are several motives for collaborative participants to participate in collaboration: First is the fun of innovation, the second is altruism, and the third is the opportunity to learn from others and win the reputation of peers. In the process of collaboration, they use their knowledge to innovate, regardless of the size of the contribution. A collaboration platform is a place where collaborators gather. Collaboration initiators start projects on the platform, and the participants can participate in the project. Some collaboration projects provide communities where collaborators exchange ideas and share information so that even if collaborators do not have real-life contact, communitybased communication can allow them to achieve high levels of collaboration. The application of open-source ideas is a manifestation of the collaborative approach. Enterprises opening patents and technology can promote not only the rapid development of the industry, but also play a leading role in the industry, and can also encourage the development and disclosure of new technology for other companies.

13.9.2 Practice of Collaboration Take the origin of open-source ideas, software industry as an example. In traditional software development, developers find requirements, write programs, and then push them to the market. However, this often has a big gap with the user’s needs. The developers will continue to modify after discovering problems. The process is cumbersome and lengthy. The open-source software Linux, released in 1991, opened its source code to the public for the first time. Users can use this operating system for free. The access method is also very convenient and can be obtained from the Internet. Users can modify the code according to their needs and publicly release it so that Linux meets the common needs of most users. Programmers all over the world are involved in the revision of this open operating system. Everyone fully expresses their unique insights and makes up for bugs in the program, which overcomes the drawback of software written by a limited number of people. The huge public maintenance team is available 24 h a day, speeding up the maintenance and upgrading of system bugs and improving its robustness. Linux also established an open-source community for programmers. Not only the code is shared there, but also the information collected in the process of code writing is communicated, which facilitates the use and modification of latecomers. Through this software writing, programmers from all over the world are linked together. The idea of collaboration not only succeeded in the software industry but also produced excellent results when it was extended to other industries. More than 200

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patents owned by Tesla were opened, which have promoted the overall improvement of the technology of the electric vehicle industry and the transformation and upgrading of the automotive industry. Wikipedia mobilizes the enthusiasm and creativity of people around the world, allowing people to edit the entries. Through this way, people share the information they have learned with the public and build the people’s encyclopedia. Tens of thousands of citizen reporters participated in the writing of the Huffington Post in the form of distributed news, which increased the efficiency of news and inspired the public’s enthusiasm for social events. As collaboration continues to expand, the future of open technology and open data will become more and more mature. The collaboration will drive more industries to develop faster.

13.10 Trading Trading is an implementation method accompanied by the transfer of ownership of goods, which allows the articles to be transferred from the inefficient use environment to the efficient use environment so that the second-hand goods can be redistributed to those who need them from persons who do not need them. The value of the goods can be fully utilized. This redistribution market encourages people to reuse and sell old items instead of throwing them away. It has changed the traditional relationship between producers, retailers, and consumers, and changed the past ideas to buy more and more updated (Ma, 2015). And from the environmental point of view, it provides a new and effective way for people to deal with unused items, avoiding the waste of resources, and is an environmentally friendly sustainable business model.

13.10.1 Forms of Trading The realization of trading is a call for people to take their unused items to the platform for trading, and demanders to purchase these second-hand items to save resources and protect the environment. According to different platform builders, it can be divided into the enterprise-oriented platform and third party-oriented platform. Some companies establish second-hand commodity trading platforms and encourage their customers to sell their unwanted products on their platforms. Some potential consumers of the brand may purchase second-hand products from the platform. Through this approach, they have established environmental protection image, promoted the flow of goods and increased the purchase of new products. At the same time, due to the speed of upgrading products and the rise of fast fashion, there are also third-party-oriented platforms for the sale of second-hand goods, which is very effective for improving resource utilization efficiency and saving costs. In the process of trading, there are changes in the ownership of goods, while most of the other sharing economy’s realization methods only share the right to use of the products, which distinguish trading from other methods.

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13.10.2 Practice of Trading There are IKEA and Patagonia, the American outdoor brand, who practice the trading method. Patagonia has done a good job in helping customers use second-hand goods in circulation. The brand has always focused on protecting the environment and saving resources during the development process. In September 2011, Patagonia started the Common Threads Partnership project with eBay. Through this project, Patagonia invited consumers to participate in the recyclable process of products and enter into the 5R Covenant. The development of this project made it easier to purchase or sell used Patagonia products. Consumers can purchase used clothing from Patagonia from the Patagonia store, and they can also sell their Patagonia clothing to these stores. The customers participating in this project can earn a good reputation through their good behaviors in the buying and selling process, and they can enjoy a 50% discount when purchasing second-hand products in the store again. Through this activity, Patagonia encourages customers to reduce their damage to the environment by reducing purchases and increasing sharing. Patagonia expressed its concern for sustainable development of the environment and established a good corporate image. At the same time, the convenience of second-hand goods trading has improved the mobility of Patagonia’s products in physical stores and online platforms. Consumers can easily realize the unused Patagonia clothes, which eliminates consumers’ hesitation in the face of brand new products. In 2010, IKEA also developed a second-hand commodity trading website in Sweden to help customers sell used IKEA products. IKEA members can publish and sell used IKEA products on the website for free. This sharing method also helps IKEA establish a corporate image of environmental protection and promote product circulation. Besides, there are many third-party trading platforms to help consumers achieve the circulation of second-hand goods, and its modes are also varied, such as sale, exchange, and multi-person trading. The popularity of fast fashion also makes this model very popular. People also hold dress-up parties, which can be used to buy other people’s items by exchanging clothes to obtain chips based on the status of their items.

13.11 Donation Donation refers to giving valuable things to others for free. When a donation is combined with sharing economy, the range of things that can be donated is expanded. The donation method is also more convenient because of the Internet platform. Compared with other methods of realization, donors cannot obtain material rewards. The material resources and recognition surplus are given for free, mostly out of interests such as hobbies and altruism. If each donor makes a little contribution, there will be great social benefits.

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13.11.1 Forms of Donation According to different donation items, donations can be roughly classified as material resources donations and cognitive surplus donations. Donations of material resources, such as crowd-funding by donation, the sponsors will raise funds publicly on the platform. Interested donors participate in it because of their interest or love for the project. By donating petty cash, they get from this project the success of entrepreneurial success or the spiritual gains from helping others. Cognitive surplus donations are people’s unpaid knowledge-sharing on the Internet platform. For example, the free answer to other people’s problems or involved in a group project. This allows a person’s knowledge to create multiple values and can also be passed. Collaboration achieves things that cannot be accomplished by personal power.

13.11.2 Practice of Donation The practice of donations for material resources is not only mature in foreign countries but also develops in China on the foundation of public donation. For example, the Lancang River Project is a crowd-funding project initiated by the artist Liu Chengrui on June 25, 2014, on the crowd-funding website. It is necessary to raise 20,000 yuan before September 3, aiming to find the blind children in the Tibetan areas of the Lancang River and help them to cure their eye diseases. At the same time, they would search for the 19 unnamed tributaries in the Lancang River and tagged them to Google Earth. The project received the support of citizens, and it eventually reached 115% of the projected target, that is 22,900 yuan from 84 persons. Each person contributes 100–2000 yuan. The amount is small, but they jointly support the successful operation of a valuable project. This is more than a physical reward to give spiritual comfort to the donor. Cognitive surplus donation is also common, such as the voluntary answers to citizens’ questions on Zhihu, the involvement of the public in Wikipedia writing, and the maintenance of Linux by programmers. There is no end in knowledge learning. Everyone can never master all of them. This kind of gratuitous sharing can make up for personal knowledge and use group wisdom to realize value creation. Taking Linux as an example, each programmer’s improvement of Linux cannot obtain material rewards, nor can he gain ownership of the software. However, each piece of code written for Linux makes it a system closer to the user’s appeal. It is more valuable and more popular than a system completed by a single programmer. This is the donation of the cognitive surplus, which embodies the idea of open source collaboration. Although in the era of the knowledge economy, people should gradually become accustomed to paying for knowledge, the donation model can achieve the purpose of pooling the power of the masses, collaborating and sharing, which cannot be achieved by charging.

Chapter 14

Resource Allocation for Sharing Economy

Resource allocation usually refers to the comparison of resources in various uses. The rational allocation of resources determines the labor efficiency, the ability of production and management of goods, and the ability to achieve production and demand docking. In the sharing economy, resources, that is, resources provided by the supplier, include goods and services. In the sharing economy market, the number of both supply and demand sides is huge, and the resources required by the demanders can be matched and matched with the suppliers in a timely and accurate manner, and whether the resource allocation is reasonable is the key to sharing the efficiency of economic operation. Therefore, studying the resource allocation of the sharing economy is very important for analyzing the economic benefits of the sharing economy. The resource allocation of the sharing economy includes de-intermediation and re-intermediation, the formation of ultra-efficient markets, fragmentation of transient transactions, activation of stock resources, the easy formation of scale effects, optimization of supply and demand matching, and intelligent big data drive.

14.1 De-intermediation and Re-mediation The sharing economy is a process of de-intermediation and then intermediary. By establishing a sharing platform that is different from traditional business organizations, combines transactions and obtains commissions to maximize the benefits of both parties. These sharing platforms do not directly own fixed assets but use mobile devices, Internet payment and other technical means to match the demand side and the supply side effectively.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_14

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14.1.1 De-intermediation of Sharing Economy Under the traditional economic model, consumers’ consumption needs must be met by means of goods and services provided by commercial organizations. A business organization is a milestone in the economic development of people. It has made great contributions to reducing transaction costs and meticulous social division of labor to improve economic efficiency. It has become a necessary intermediary organization in market transactions. In market transactions mediated by commercial organizations, workers must rely on commercial organizations to provide labor to obtain labor compensation, while workers as consumers, their consumer needs need to be provided by commercial organizations for goods or services. That is, the supply and demand sides are not directly traded, and they must use the commercial organization as an intermediary organization to conduct transactions indirectly. However, with the further development of the social economy, the modeled and standardized products and services provided by commercial organizations can no longer satisfy consumers’ pursuit of personalized and customized consumer demand. The role of commercial organizations as intermediaries in reducing transaction costs and improving economic efficiency has gradually weakened. De-intermediation of the sharing economy means that the supply and demand sides no longer rely on traditional commercial organizations to meet their supply and consumption needs. The needs of both the supply and demand can be directly matched, and the commercial organization as an intermediary organization no longer works. For example, in the process of fund lending, the fund providers and capital demanders in the sharing economy no longer need to rely on financial institutions such as banks to allocate funds, but directly match the fund suppliers and demanders. Another example is that the taxi software makes it unnecessary for service providers and passengers to rent a commercial organization such as a rental company. The service provider and the passenger can directly match. It is not difficult to see that the de-intermediation of the sharing economy has caused the financial taxis and other industries to disintermediate.

14.1.2 Re-intermediation of Sharing Economy The re-intermediation of the sharing economy refers to the establishment of a sharing platform as a re-intermediation organization. The sharing platform is a market platform composed of hardware (information network) and software (trust) and created by third parties. This platform is the condensation of social capital relations. Each does not need to be a member of an organization. He only needs to join a platform as an individual, in which the entire labor force and the remaining production tools are released. The sharing economy has the characteristics of “emergence”. The sharing economy platform is the innovation of structural capital. It can also be defined as

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“social capital”. The establishment of a sharing platform establishes a framework for the operation of social capital. The third-party platform in the sharing economy is a basic condition for realizing the sharing economy. Imagine that you want to rent an unused car to someone else or want to pick up a passer on the road to get a financial benefit. It is very difficult to rely on a shared label. However, the situation will be different when the basic information is posted to a third-party platform through a third-party network platform. It is this third-party platform that establishes a system of mutual trust and transactions for individuals in the sharing economy. The third-party platform in the sharing economy is a supply and demand trading platform that provides information. The supplier can thereby publish information on the rental item or service, and the demander can also rent the desired item or service. The sharing platform is an intermediary hub. The platform audits all the parties to the transaction and fully utilizes the coordinated deployment function, which reduces the transaction costs between individuals. The platform in the sharing economy differs from previous third-party platforms in that: from personalized trading to non-personalized trading, users and users are strangers, but they are connected through a sharing economy platform, and they know and understand strangers in the process of sharing. An Uber owner will chat with the customer while traveling with the customer and may make new friends. Airbnb has also investigated that people who choose to rent a house tend to choose a homeowner who shares their hobbies. The platform allows people to connect, and interests and hobbies become the glue for this platform. Airbnb has established a connection to the social network Facebook, where users can access Facebook accounts. After people access their Facebook social network in Airbnb, they can see the same friends with their homeowners or their friends who have rented this room. When this product feature went to life, Airbnb quickly announced that it had 16,516,967 friendships and continued to soar.

14.2 Forming an Efficient Market As of December 2016, the number of Chinese netizens reached 731 million, of which 695 million mobile Internet users, the Internet penetration rate reached 53.2%, and the global average was 50.1%. The popularity of the Internet and mobile Internet terminals has broken the time and space restrictions for shared transactions, enabling trading activities to be carried out anytime and anywhere. The virtual Internet space can connect companies, institutions and individuals all over the world, enabling everyone to share and effectively expand the trading range under the sharing economy model. At the same time, the sharing of economic incentives for information sharing and the surge in cognitive surpluses at the entire social level has greatly increased the amount of information in the shared market, providing sufficient information resources for transactions and both parties to the transaction obtained more

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transaction-related information in a short period of time, which reduced the market inefficiency and unsatisfactory resource allocation caused by information asymmetry.

14.2.1 The Connotation of Sharing the Economy’s Ultra-Efficient Market The function of sharing economy allocation resources depends mainly on the market efficiency of the sharing economy. The so-called super-efficiency market refers to a one-to-one transaction corresponding to one seller in a sharing economy, which is different from a traditional market. Many buyers and many sellers can match each other. That is, many-to-many transactions, for a trader to complete a transaction with faster transaction speed and lower transaction cost than the traditional market, it embodies the efficient resource integration ability and resources allocation ability of the sharing economy market. The Internet and mobile Internet terminals provide platform support for the sharing economy to achieve market transactions and form an ultra-efficient market. The high-frequency processing computing power of computers and big data provide technical support for the ultra-efficient transactions of the sharing economy.

14.2.2 Technical Support for the Ultra-Efficient Market The goal of sharing economy’s ultra-efficient market is not only shorter trading hours, but also better matching of trading objects. The shortening of trading hours and the optimization of trade matching depend on the computing power of the computer. Nowadays, the computing power of ordinary computers can reach hundreds of times per second, and the computing power of supercomputers is even trillions of times per second. The latest supercomputer computing speed in the United States can reach 5340 trillion times per second. With the computing power of the computer, the sharing platform can complete multiple transactions at the same time worldwide, ensuring efficient operation of the shared market. The shortening of trading hours and the optimization of trading matching depend on the calculation accuracy of the computer. The audience of the sharing economy is hundreds of millions of people around the world. The market has a transaction volume of more than 10,000 times per second. This requires not only the highfrequency computing power of the computer to guarantee the transaction speed but also the highly accurate calculation. A typical computer can have more than a dozen or even dozens of significant digits, and the accuracy of calculation can be from a few thousandths to a few parts per million, which guarantees the accuracy of computer calculations and provides the necessary prerequisites.

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The computer not only can perform calculations at high speed and accurately, but also has a logic operation function to compare and judge information. In the transaction of the sharing economy, the computer can save the data information, program instructions, intermediate results and final results of the matching operation, and can automatically execute the next instruction according to the result of the judgment for the user to call at any time to complete a quick match between the supply and demand sides. In 2016, Taobao’s “Double Eleven” shopping carnival opened for 52 s. The transaction amount broke through 1 billion yuan, 6 min and 58 s. The transaction volume exceeded 10 billion yuan, and the final transaction volume was 120.7 billion yuan. Such a large number of market transactions can not be separated from computer highfrequency processing computing power and big data support. Completing so many transactions in a short period is a test of the sharing platform information processing and efficient matching ability, and thus shows the superiority of the many-to-many transaction in the sharing economy super-efficiency market, and can meet the needs of a large number of traders in a shorter time. At the same time, Taobao will accurately locate the customer’s consumption needs according to the user’s browsing records, and recommend more related products for customers to choose from, which increases the possibility of effective matching and is beneficial to the further improvement of the efficiency of the sharing economy.

14.3 Fragmented Instant Transaction Unlike the traditional way of trading in a traditional economic model, the sharing economy is characterized by fragmented transient trading. That is to break the limitation of long trading hours in which the traditional economic model must trade complete property rights and sign complete property rights contracts, and fragment the resources and transactions of shared goods or services, thereby signing incomplete property rights contracts for part of the property rights of the transaction and shortening the trading time. The transaction process can be performed instantaneously in a short period.

14.3.1 Fragmentation of the Transaction Contract In the traditional economic society, buyers and sellers pay attention to the integrity of the property rights contract in the process of commodity trading. The pursuit of commodity ownership and the prevalence of consumerism represented by “consumption is existence” have led to serious over-consumption. The increasing demand for various goods and services in the market has prompted producers to manufacture large quantities of goods, and there is a serious excess of production capacity, resulting in unnecessary waste of resources in society. The change of the concept of

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consumption, it is followed by the transformation of the concept of property rights. People have changed from the pursuit of ownership of goods to the pursuit of only part of the rights related to goods, and more emphasis on the transfer of use rights than ownership. Similar to the need for a complete title contract in the previous transaction process, some of the rights related to the transaction also require the signing of the contract. The sharing economy has established a platform on which people can carry out fragmentation of commodity-related rights and fragmentation of related transaction contracts. Fragmentation of resource property rights divides ownership, use rights, dominance rights, disposal rights, and income rights, and only sells use rights and income rights, to achieve fast and efficient transactions. The fragmentation of the relevant transaction contract is compared with the complete transaction contract in the traditional economic model, that is, there is no need to sign a complete transaction contract, and only the relevant contract of the part should be signed for the part of the commodity rights traded. For example, if the buyer and the seller trade the right to use a certain commodity, they only need to sign a contract with the ownership of the product in a certain period. The signing of such a fragmented contract requires the less legal knowledge, and the terms are simple and understandable and highly reproducible and can be accepted and widely used by more people. Whether people rent a car to rent a house or trade goods, the contract signed with the transaction is reflected on the platform in the form of an order, and because the terms are simple and universally applicable, it is not necessary to re-negotiate the contract content every transaction, making trading more convenient and fast while ensuring transaction security. In other words, in the sharing economy, the resources that the suppliers do not fully utilize are shared on the platform, and the right to use the goods is sold. When the demander needs to use certain resources, he only needs to use his free time to purchase the right to use the resource in the sharing platform. If you don’t need ownership of the resource, you can enjoy the satisfaction of using the resource and release the value of the resource.

14.3.2 Instantaneity of the Transaction The popularity of family cars is the direct cause of traffic congestion in today’s cities. Therefore, due to traffic pressure, many people no longer buy cars or choose not to drive when they travel. Uber taxis, Didi, and other sharing platforms are emerging. If you have a travel plan but don’t have a private car, you only need to “Didi it”. You can find the vehicle that suits your mind in the sharing platform anytime and anywhere. You can enjoy high-quality service and satisfaction by paying the same or even lower price than a traditional taxi. Or when you commute to work, don’t want to be crowded in the bus and subway, take a ride and sit back and relax in a spacious car. In the process of using the drop, people did not trade the complete property rights, but only traded the right to use the car in a short time. In this transaction process,

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there is no need to sign a complicated and complete contract between the occupant and the owner of the vehicle. Only a transaction contract is required for the right to use the car in a short period, and the transaction can be completed. On the sharing platform, the successful matching between the owner and the occupant, the delivery of the occupant to the destination by the owner, and the completion of the payment by the occupant are both a complete contract process. The transaction of fragmentation of usage rights saves transaction time and thus reduces transaction costs, which is conducive to the occurrence of transactions.

14.4 Activate Inventory Resources The capitalist economy emphasizes the personal attributes of properties, so it is continuously produced, and the material is greatly enriched, resulting in overcapacity. For example, in China, there is a wealth of real estate stocks, and at night, observing the buildings of the community, many of them are black lights. The black light means that the room is unoccupied, or that there is still a free room, which is a stock resource caused by overcapacity.

14.4.1 Transfer of Stock Resource Usage Rights The sharing economy is the right to transfer stock resources temporarily. By integrating idle goods or service providers offline, and based on a business model in which strangers and temporary use of the right to use goods, providing idle resources to those who need them, creating new value, will become a new impetus for future world economic growth. Through the sharing economy, stock resources are efficiently utilized, and even repetitive transactions can be made. For suppliers, these idle and inefficient use of stock resources are not often used but hope to obtain more economic benefits through leasing. For the demander, these items or services are only their temporary needs, and they are not used often or even just used this time, so there is no need to purchase them. This activates the stock resources in the society, maximizes the efficiency of the use of existing resources, reduces the waste of resources, and increases the personal welfare so that individuals can obtain additional income through their idle resources, and make the entire society more sustainable. Airbnb, a network company based in San Francisco, USA, helps private landlords connect with customers globally through the website, enabling a large number of idle private housing to be effectively utilized. After human society experienced the industrial revolution, the idle assets accumulated by the specialization of labor division and technological progress were enormous. The sharing economy will release the potential of this huge idle asset and make the huge idle assets valued and monetized.

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On the one hand, it will cause all-around changes in production, consumption, distribution and exchange. On the other hand, it reduces the excessive use of resources, environment and ecology.

14.4.2 Efficient Use of Stock Resources Stock resources are expressed in efficient use. Compared with the self-purchasing of resources in the traditional economy, the sharing economy is a repetitive transaction and efficient use of existing stock resources. The scale and frequency of sharing of economic sharing are large, and the boundaries of property rights are relatively clear. The sharing economy is a manifestation of “one-time purchase, multiple-rental” business (model) thinking under the Internet conditions, and the emerging sharing platform establishes a complete business ecosystem in which idle resources and inefficient resources are fully exploited and valued. The sharing economy has also greatly reduced human resource occupation and environmental damage through repeated transactions and efficient use. The industrial revolution has greatly enriched the material products used by human beings, but the consumption methods based on private ownership have also brought about greater idleness and waste, especially the excessive use of resources and environmental damage. If the 6 billion people on Earth lived in the way of the Industrial Revolution, then the life support system of the Earth would soon collapse. In 2008, the earth’s ecological footprint exceeded the global bio-supply capacity by as much as 50%, so humans must change the way the industrial revolution brings us and truly achieve sustainable development. The sharing economy has undoubtedly created a new form for mankind to solve the negative effects brought about by the industrial revolution. The sharing economy has created a new business model for the sustainable development of human society and the economy. The shared part is the part of overcapacity. In the case of cars, the initial users of the sharing economy model have made it possible to reduce the number of cars on the road. Carpooling companies have significantly reduced emissions. The sharing of the car model has reduced the emissions of 1600 tons of carbon dioxide per year in Bremen, Germany. It is estimated that if a car is used for sharing, it will reduce the sales of 8–9 cars. Car sales in the United States have been declining over the years. As of June 2013, US auto sales fell sharply by 18.8% year-on-year. According to a survey conducted by the Tsinghua University Media Research Laboratory’s 2014 Mobile Travel White Paper, With the rapid development of private mobile travel services, China can reduce the number of private cars on the road by 2015. It is estimated that the average daily congestion time of the city is 28.1% lower than that of 2014. The substitution or reduction effect of private cars on private cars is very large. The utilization rate of private cars is relatively low, and the private car mode as a sharing economy is an efficient use of resources. In many areas, cooperative consumption is an alternative to exclusive and inefficient consumption in the past. The more cooperative consumption, the higher

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the utilization of resources by humans, and the less damage to the environment (Lu, 2016). However, the activation of social stock resources is also a process of intense activity, which must overcome institutional obstacles, and the technological changes it causes will also cause socially unsuitable rebound. The innovation of the mass production model brought about by the sharing economy has fundamental contradictions and conflicts with the exclusive property rights system. The latter also suppresses the shared and open Internet environment.

14.5 Easy to Form Scale Effect In the development of enterprises, the term “scale effect” which also be called “scale economy” is often mentioned. The theory of scale economy was first proposed by the famous economist Marshall in 1890 and was developed by the improvement of scholars such as Krugman. The idea of scale economy theory is that if other conditions are the same, in comparison, the larger industries will be more efficient in the production process, which will lead to an increase in the scale of income of the manufacturers in the region, forming an external economy. The external economy means that when the output of the entire industry is expanded due to the increase in the number of enterprises, the average production cost of each of them will be reduced. It can be seen from the above definition of whether an industry has the possibility of generating economies of scale depends on whether there is a sufficient number of companies in the industry. From a more microscopic point of view, the scale effect is closely related to the scale of transactions in the industry. If there are a large enough transaction volume and transaction scale in the industry, it is more likely to achieve the scale effect of the industry as a whole. In the concrete practice of sharing economy, the economic environment meets the above conditions, so it is easy to form a scale effect. For the concrete performance of the scale effect in the sharing field, a detailed explanation will be made from the following three points.

14.5.1 “Many-to-Many” Trading Pattern Regarding the division of transaction modes, there are four modes: one-to-one, oneto-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many. In the first three trading modes, the space for choice for trading partners is relatively small, and the transaction size is limited. In the sharing economy model, most enterprises adopt the “many-to-many” trading model. The supply-side and the demand side can obtain sufficient information. After grasping this information, they can conduct a comprehensive analysis and choose the final transaction object. The “many-to-many” trading model greatly increases the choice of trading partners. Trading participants can choose one of the most suitable

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solutions to suit their needs and achieve transactions. As a result, the transaction model has significantly increased the size of the transaction in the industry, making it easier to produce scale effects in the industry. Among the current sharing economy enterprises, the most familiar implementation of the “many-to-many” trading model is the Didi. On this platform, whether passengers or drivers, the travel information they post can be responsive in many ways. Each time a passenger places a travel order, the platform will dispatch the order information to all drivers near the passenger. Since there will be more than one passenger issuing a travel order at the same time, a driver may receive multiple orders from the platform at the same time, and then the driver makes a quick selection according to his preferences, and finally realizes a transaction match. Such a transaction mode greatly enhances the efficiency of transaction matching, enabling Didi to process more than 20 million orders per day. Such a large transaction scale makes it unnecessary for companies to deal with individual suppliers and demanders but only needs to improve the matching mechanism of the platform to ensure automatic and efficient transaction matching between the two parties. As a result, the company’s operating and management costs will be significantly reduced, thereby achieving the scale effect.

14.5.2 Rich Variety of Trading Resources With its slogan of “everything is sharable”, the sharing economy has created a wave of opportunities in the market in the last few years. Many entrepreneurs seized this opportunity to learn to copy Uber’s operating model. With the concept of sharing and efficiency, many different types of sharing economy companies have been established in various fields. At present, the penetration rate of the sharing economy far exceeds people’s imagination. The following 10 industries are currently the hottest areas in the sharing market. Traffic industry; hotel industry; express industry; home service industry; personal service industry such as haircuts, massages, manicures, etc.; catering services; travel services; automotive services; health services; logistics services. Many things that people once thought could only be owned by themselves can now be shared and made profitable through the sharing platform. The horizontal expansion of the sharing area has enriched the variety of resources available for trading, which is conducive to achieving economies of scale. Also, take Didi as an example, the company only specialized in the taxi market at the very beginning and tried its best to change the habit of taxiing. With the development of the company and the accumulation of users, the company has gradually started a new exploration. It has carried out vehicle sharing services such as special cars, express trains, shuttles, car rental, and test drive, effectively improving the company’s business system. The expansion of the platform business will increase the company’s visibility and attractiveness to users, expand the scope of users, and ultimately achieve economies of scale.

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Most of the ten areas mentioned above belong to the service industry. When it comes to the fields involved in the sharing economy, most people think of the service industry first. However, this economic model does not only exist in the service industry but also gradually penetrates the fields of manufacturing and equipment. The future development trend of the manufacturing industry is closely related to the current sharing economy model popular in the service industry. All kinds of production factors in the service industry will enter the sharing economy mode, and in the manufacturing industry, the pattern of “big platform + many brands” will be gradually built. All supply chain links and various factors such as R&D, production and procurement will also be affected by the sharing economy. The sharing economy in manufacturing is also called “sharing manufacturing”, which means that the resources available for manufacturing are reasonably matched and shared on a fair and transparent basis. The realization of shared manufacturing is the use of the bilateral connectivity role of the Internet platform. By breaking down industry barriers and opening up industry information asymmetry, the supply and demand for manufacturing equipment, technology, and talents are matched and highly efficient. For sharing production capacity, the “Ali Baba Amoy factory” is a typical representative. Amoy Factory is a factory integration platform that serves Taobao sellers. By collecting information such as the idle period of each factory, it integrates collaborative production to meet the individual needs of sellers flexibly. The factory on the platform will publicize the idle period in the past 30 days to realize the commercialization of the production capacity so that the seller can quickly search for the matching factory on the platform, and promote the commissioned production relationship between the Taobao seller and the factory. For a long time, there is a problem of information asymmetry between the supply and demand sides in the manufacturing industry. Sharing manufacturing utilizes the sharing concept to enable companies to achieve collaborative production and integrate production capabilities. While reducing costs and improving efficiency, it also helps customer demand for customized services easier.

14.5.3 Large Scale of Transaction Participants Another necessary condition for achieving economies of scale is a sufficient largescale trading participant. On the one hand, the sharing economy, as a new thing in the market, has its appeal to consumers that have never been exposed to it, plus various advertisements on the Internet and word of mouth among the audience, the sharing economy quickly opened up the market in a short period of time, and it gained a large customer base. On the other hand, sharing economy business model is different from the traditional economy, it is not to produce new products for consumers, but to encourage fully share all available resources, not the pursuit of resource ownership, but the pursuit of resources right of use. This concept fits well with the current popular environmental philosophy and can make people have value-added resources, so it is welcomed by the market and sought after by consumers.

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Due to the above reasons, the scale of the entities participating in the sharing economy transaction has rapidly expanded in a short period. By the end of 2016, the total number of Didi users has reached 400 million, covering more than 400 cities. From 2010, Uber first provided a mobile phone calling service. By the end of 2015, Uber’s global order volume exceeded 1 billion marks, and after only 6 months, Uber achieved a new milestone of 2 billion total orders. Airbnb currently offers a total of 2.3 million houses in the world; the number has exceeded twice the number of rooms in all entities after the merger of Marriott and Starwood Group, the number of users has also shown multiple increases in recent years. From these data, we can see that the sharing economy has a large-scale transaction participation entity, which has an apportioning effect on the transaction cost of the sharing economy enterprise, and it is easier to achieve scale effect.

14.6 Optimize Supply and Demand Matching The optimization process of supply and demand matching refers to the combination of certain information mediation platforms so that the transaction needs of the supply and demand sides in the market can be matched in the shortest time, and the efficiency of transaction matching can be greatly improved. It can be said that in the various economic models linking supply and demand, the sharing economy is an economic model that enables the optimal allocation of resources. Faced with the problem of resource shortages and low utilization rates in real life, the sharing economy based on the Internet can quickly integrate various types of scattered and available resources, accurately discover the diverse needs of different consumers, and improve the speed and efficiency of supply and demand matching.

14.6.1 Sharing Platform to Promote Instant Matching Between Supply and Demand In the traditional economic model, matching between supply and demand sides is a slow process. Without the help of the Internet platform, both the supply and demand sides must first face-to-face contact in the real world, in order to achieve further continuation of the transaction. Before the emergence of the sharing economy model, if people want to take a taxi to travel, they must first come to the streets and wait for an empty car on the roadside. It is believed that everyone suffered the experience of standing by the road and waiting for an empty car. Especially in the peak hours of work, some drivers often refuse to load due to rushing to handover, and the taxis on the road are much less than usual during rain and snow. In some outlying areas such as the suburbs, taxi drivers are often unable to wait for passengers returning to the

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city in a short period, but unfortunately, they can only return empty vehicles, wasting time, fuel and available resources. The birth of the sharing economy model solves these pains. Passengers can make reservations in the taxi APP before going outside. Often there will be a nearby driver responding in a few seconds, so passengers will not need to wait on the roadside. For drivers who come to remote areas sending passengers, they can quickly find the passengers returning to the city through the sharing platform. There is no need to worry about the loss caused by returning empty vehicles. The so-called sharing economy 1.0 era, which refers to the sharing economy, relies on the Internet and computers, showing rapid explosive development. Nowadays, the sharing economy has entered the 2.0 era—in addition to the Internet and computers, and it has joined the mobile Internet, which combines mobile communications with the Internet and derives more innovative platforms, technologies and applications. In the era of the sharing economy 2.0, the instantaneous nature of the supply and demand transactions will be greatly enhanced, and matching between supply and demand will become more efficient. Compared with the traditional Internet platform, the mobile Internet has made breakthroughs in terms of terminals and applications, real-time location, 4G Internet, camera recording, voice input, and other functions have played a significant role in promoting the generation of various types of sharing APP. The biggest advantage of mobile terminals is the convenience for both parties to the transaction. Through mobile terminals such as mobile phones and tablet computers, the demand side can release the demand information anytime and anywhere, and the response from the supplier is more accurate and fast. The difference between the sharing economy 1.0 and 2.0 is a reflection of the differences between the PC Internet era and the mobile Internet era. With the rapid spread of mobile Internet technologies and social platforms, what was previously thought to be difficult to resolve in a short time can now be solved efficiently.

14.6.2 Increasing Supply and Demand Matching Efficiency To better guarantee the real-time nature of the transactions, every sharing economy platform conducts transactions through technical means such as optimization algorithms in the transaction process. Uber is a model for reference in this respect. Uber’s founder originally founded the company precisely because of the idea of improving the matching efficiency of supply and demand. On a snowy day in Paris in the winter of 2008, the two founders Travis Karan Nick and Garrett Kemp stood to shiver in the wind, waiting for a taxi, but can not wait for an empty car. “If a simple operation step can be conducted on the phone, a car can be called, how convenient that this would be!” Two years later, the two founded Uber and continued to optimize the platform of the software. By optimizing the software algorithm, based on road information, traffic congestion, drivers’ route, and other factors, the software assigns the driver with the shortest arrival time to pick up the passenger. This taxi software solves a major pain in people’s choice of traffic mode, while eliminating the user’s driving fatigue and

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the distress of finding a parking space, so in a short time it swept the world. One of the important reasons for Uber’s success is the significant increase in transaction efficiency, which is based on its “centralized scheduling + on-demand distribution” rule. On this basis, the software can make the platform a continuous learning and self-improvement algorithm system. All order matching processes on the system are as reasonable and efficient as possible. At the same time, the software has also established a “floating pricing” mechanism to adjust the balance between supply and demand, which can significantly increase the use of automobiles. Although the measures to raise prices during peak hours may cause dissatisfaction to passenger, they truly reflect the market value laws and are also an important way to ensure the matching efficiency of transactions.

14.7 Transaction Repeatability Transaction repeatability refers to a transaction model with repeatable and cyclical characteristics. Such a transaction model can greatly improve the utilization efficiency of trading objects and promote the sustainable use of resources. In the sharing economy, all sharable resources can be recycled and reused, which is an environmentally sustainable way for the world to develop.

14.7.1 Repeatable Trading of Use Rights In the traditional economic model, the object of the transaction is mostly the owner of the goods. For example, if a person purchases a house or a car, then after the transaction, the ownership of the house or car will be attributed to the buyer, and the purchaser will not transfer its ownership in a short time, so the transaction process ends. The sharing economy model breaks down the traditional trading rules and separates the ownership from the right to use. The object of the transaction is no longer the owner of the goods, but the right to use the goods. The clothes people buy have been one of the representative items that cannot be traded repeatedly. Everyone has a lot of clothes in the closet. Especially for many women, they are very keen to buy various kinds of clothes and can’t wait to buy all the clothes in the store. Even so, ladies’ pain of “ever less a piece of clothing” is still difficult to solve. However, do people need so many clothes? According to the survey, British women spend an average annual cost in the purchase of clothing over ten thousand yuan, but more than 70% of the clothes they never want to wear again. Currently, many women in the workplace adhere to the principle of “do not repeatedly dress every day”, which causes many clothes purchased by people to be idle and wasted. In the sharing economy model, in response to the above issues, many clothessharing enterprises have been born. With this sharing platform, people can lend

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clothes that they don’t wear to others, and people who need to buy clothes have a more money-saving way, which can effectively alleviate the problem of underutilization of resources in the field. In the United States, Japan, and other countries, the fashion line rental has completed the early stages of development, involving various types of clothing available for the daily rental commute, party dresses, and so on, all kinds of people wear demands can be met on the platform. The rental website LE TOTE has achieved nearly nine times the growth in less than five years since its inception, and the total value of rented clothing has exceeded $75 million. The website airCloset has also accumulated 60,000 users in Japan. Considering that Japanese people generally pay attention to cleanliness and privacy, this clothing sharing model can indeed bring a positive user experience. With the sharing platform, a piece of clothing can be reused in the process of multiple leases, greatly improving the efficiency of resource use and contributing to the sustainable development of society.

14.7.2 Can Be Shared by Many Subjects The sharing economy also has a feature in the sharing of usage rights; that is, the right to use can be shared by many subjects at the same time. This feature is widely used in the field of travel. Everyone knows a little about the traffic situation in Beijing. The number of cars in the city is very high, and the situation of long queues of vehicles often occurs. However, if you pay close attention, you will find that there are only one or two people in these cars, and the rest of the seats are resources that can be shared. And if you can make full use of the characteristics of the sharing right in the sharing economy that can be shared by many subjects at the same time, four people sit in a car, and it will save the space occupied by 4 cars on the road, which can further alleviate congestion and pollution. If the public can get used to the way of sharing the economy, then the free seats in the car will be used rationally, and the value will be maximized. At the same time, if such a mode of travel becomes a habit, people’s travel demand for commuting to work will be effectively met, and the growth of automobiles will be correspondingly slowed down. This way is to encourage people to give up the old-style thinking of creating resources and turn to reuse existing resources. In this area, the commute in Didi has a reference value. This travel mode is mainly for commuters who go to work. Workers who drive can find passengers on the same road and can carry multiple passengers at the same time, avoiding the idle waste of empty seats. In the peak of commuting, there are often difficulties in taxiing. Office workers without cars can reserve in advance, so that arrive at the company quickly and comfortably. Moreover, the drivers and passengers on the commute platform have strong fixedness in travel time and route. After the driver and passengers know each other, they are more likely to travel together every day to achieve repeated transactions. The sharing economy adheres to the commercial thinking of “one purchase, multiple leases”. The core concept is “use without possession”, which is very much

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in line with the advanced concepts of sustainable development. The traditional business model is mainly based on the continuous input of resource elements and the creation of new products to obtain income. The sharing economy focuses on the activation of idle resources, as well as the efficient integration and utilization of inefficient resources and quality resources, maximizing the efficiency of resources, reducing the human occupation of resources, alleviating damage to the environment, and promoting economic and socially sustainable development.

14.8 Smart Big Data-Driven The McKinsey Global Institute’s definition of “big data” is a collection of data that is large enough to capture, store, manage, and analyze the capabilities of traditional database software tools. It has a large data scale and fast data flow, diverse data types and low-value density. Victor Meyer-Schonberg, known as the “big data age prophet”, listed a large number of detailed big data application cases in his book “The Big Data Era” and predicted the future trends of big data based on the analysis of the current development status. He highly emphasized the important position of big data. The author believes that “big data has revolutionized a major era”, pointing out that big data will revolutionize people’s lives, work, and ways of thinking. In the area of sharing economy, smart big data has two positive effects on the transaction process. On the one hand, it can promote transaction matching, and on the other hand, it can improve transaction efficiency.

14.8.1 Smart Big Data Facilitates Transaction Matching The operating mechanism of the sharing economy is to “cut” the sharable resources in society through time and space and redistribute these resources. In this process, it is necessary to use big data for smarter transaction matching. It can be seen that intelligent big data driving plays an important role in the sharing economy. The core elements of big data are not “big” but “useful”. Traditional data is mainly to measure, such as measuring the temperature of a certain place at a certain time. Today’s big data pay more attention to the recording of various information. In the process of users using the App, various personal information they fill in will be recorded. The software will also summarize the consumption habits of each user through the consumer’s accumulated consumer behavior. For a certain user, the relevant data collected by an app may be trivial and fragmented, just like a bunch of words that are not sentenced, but there is not much value. But if multiple apps can share data, make these scattered data linked in the process of sharing, and the resulting information network will greatly reduce the cost of establishing connections between people and people in the real world, which will directly affect the transaction matching process.

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14.8.2 Smart Big Data Improve Transaction Efficiency In the process of trading, big data is like a “lubricant”, and intelligent data calculation and processing can greatly increase transaction efficiency. In the practice of sharing economy, big data is the first to apply to the field of travel, and thus a resource revolution that changes the way of human life. Didi CEO Cheng Wei once boldly predicted that “the second half of the Internet competition must occur in the field of artificial intelligence”, and big data is the cornerstone of artificial intelligence development. In the case of Didi, the data generated on the platform exceeds 50 TB per day (the volume is equivalent to 50,000 movies), and the path planning exceeds 9 billion times. Behind the huge order, the volume is the platform’s powerful big data calculation processing ability. Through the new data generated 24 h a day, and the second data generated by the data itself, including ETA, path planning, actual route, matching time, etc., you can finally achieve efficient matching of orders, the driver can get more income, passengers will also travel faster. Through big data calculations, the Didi platform realizes intelligent dispatch and matching of orders is more intelligent and reasonable. In the past, the driver had to drive several kilometers to receive a passenger, but now with the help of the order matching process, it may only need to take hundreds or even tens of meters to receive passengers. By shortening the empty time as much as possible, the number of orders per day has doubled. In China, more than 500 million people have benefited from the sharing economy, and more than 50 million people have participated in the sharing economy. Research institutions predict that the global sharing of economic output in 2025 is expected to reach 230 billion and the areas of accommodation, taxis, and car rentals that use big data to achieve resource allocation will occupy half of the market. The sharing economy is actively and rapidly infiltrating various traditional industries. The development of the sharing economy cannot be separated from the strong support of big data. Big data is becoming the core driving force for the development of the sharing economy. At present, China is actively deploying and implementing big data industry policies, which will effectively promote the development of sharing economy. In the golden age of big data, the development of big data provides a reliable foundation for the sharing economy, improves the processing and analysis capabilities of massive data, and can quickly find out the correlation between things and make decisions.

Chapter 15

Sharing Economy Business Model

The sharing economy business model enables the maximum utilization of products and services by mobilizing social stock resources, which overturned the traditional need to increase new investment to stimulate economic growth continuously. The social effects it brought along with the rapid development of internet big data technology are gradually changing people’s working methods and concepts in various fields of life and consumption. This chapter will compare and analyze the traditional economic business model and the sharing economy business model, summarizing the existing business model and evolutionary business model of the sharing economy, and combining typical cases to elaborate the operating mechanism of multiple sharing economy business models in practical applications. A systematic analysis of the key elements of the sharing economy business model will pave the way for the sharing economy application field, profit model, income distribution value creation, and the creation of income distribution value creation.

15.1 General Business Model The business model outlines the value that a given entity can provide to customers, the internal structure needed to operate the entity, partner networks, and relationship capital to achieve specific value propositions and generate a full-fledged element of sustainable profitable revenue. The system fully describes the basic principles of a particular entity from creating value, passing value, and gaining value. The following will be a thorough analysis of the general business model of the sharing economy through a comparative analysis of the traditional economic business model and the sharing economy business model.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_15

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15.1.1 Traditional Economic Business Model The traditional economic business model mainly involves the following two processes: ➀ Internal processes between companies. The internal processes mainly include different divisions of the upstream and downstream industrial chains and their industrial chains. The upstream and downstream industry chains involve transactions between different companies; the various divisions of the industrial chain involve design, research and development, warehousing and logistics, manufacturing, and sales. In the internal process, the production costs of the downstream companies will increase due to inadequate competition in the market structure, while the different divisions of the industrial chain correspond to different profit values, presenting a “U”-shaped curve characteristic. ➁ External processes between companies and customers. In the external process, there are many intermediaries between the enterprise and the customer, such as distributors, mediators, and channel distributors. The transaction costs between the supply and demand sides will be overweight. From Fig. 15.1, it can be seen that in the traditional economic business model, the cost of

Fig. 15.1 Business model under the traditional economy. Source Zheng (2016a)

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sinking inside the company is huge, the external chain of the company is too long, and the transaction cost is overlaid. Ultimately, all the costs will be passed on to the end consumer, resulting in two kinds of results: good quality, but the price is higher; the price is average, but the quality is not good.

15.1.2 Sharing Economy Business Model It can be found from the study that the traditional economic business model will cause the idleness of social resources and the imbalance between the supply and demand sides, and the sharing economy business model will make a unique contribution to these aspects, and it can integrate and utilize all resources. Through the internet sharing platform for supply and demand matching and supervision, more importantly, individuals can participate in sharing and cooperation from online to offline. Further, the most important change in the business model of the sharing economy is that the owner gives way to the right to use, that is, the supplier who has the available resources or fragmented time, so that the demand side can be given a right to transfer the right to use or provide the service within a certain period of time. The right to use the resources can be obtained through sharing platforms, such as renting, borrowing, etc., eliminating the high price to pay for obtaining ownership. In this regard, the sharing economy’s existing business model can be obtained, as shown in Fig. 15.2. First, the available resources under the line will be aggregated and aggregated to a sharing economy platform based on the O2O model. Second, the sharing economy platform will use the available resources gathered to provide convenient and rapid customized services for the demand side. Finally, the sharing economy platform will rely on the mobile internet, internet of things, cloud computing, big data, LBS and other

Mobile Internet Differentiation and individuation bring Internet of Things

Cloud

O2O mode

external expansion of supply side

Offline resources available

Sharing economy

Dock Online user needs

Big Data The price, experience and other LBS

advantages achieve the demand side extension

Fig. 15.2 The existing business model of the sharing economy

260

15 Sharing Economy Business Model

means to achieve efficient matching of supply and demand sides. It is worth noting that the sharing economy business model mobilizes all available resources in society and expands the extension of the supply side. More and more differentiated and personalized products and services stimulate more consumer desires. The demand side has also been extended. In short, the welfare of the entire society has been improved. Based on the existing business model of the sharing economy, it is not difficult to predict the business model of the future evolution of the sharing economy. Under the call of the whole society to encourage multilateral participation and cross-border innovation, the sharing economy platform will integrate e-commerce and government credit information systems and other organizations to establish a trust relationship for market participants, and use social networking as a medium to integrate all available resources, through the biosphere cycle achieving an efficient match between supply and demand (Zheng, 2016a). The organizational form of the sharing economy business model will also break through the organizational form of the traditional economic business model and achieve greater innovation in multiple forms. At the same time, each consumer in the shared ecosystem can be a constituent of the central demand. Also, it can be converted into a component of the external supply at any time. Figure 15.3 shows the evolutionary business model of the sharing economy.

Fig. 15.3 Evolutionary business model of the sharing economy

15.1 General Business Model

261

With the vigorous development of the Internet of Things, social capital promotes the development of business models from vertical to horizontal. The forces of supply and demand have reached a dynamic balance in the construction of distributed collaborative organizations. The resulting sharing economy business model has shown an unstoppable development speed, and the following will be specifically elaborated through 12 typical sharing economy business models.

15.2 Sharing Community Intelligence Model In the era of the sharing economy, human information communication, intellectual activities, resource accumulation, and social interaction can build a unique and open organization through the Internet. In these organizations, seemingly disorganized individual wisdom automatically follows certain rules and gathers together, and under the interaction of multiple parties involved, it corrects and obtains surprisingly accurate average answers, or creates near-perfect intellectual products. The classic idioms of “grouping and brainstorming, brainstorming, and listening to each other” have shown the charm of group wisdom and have been fully explained in the era of sharing emergency. Specifically, in the shared community intelligence model, groups of individuals can solve problems through a sharing platform. Participants are interconnected through real-time feedback loops to make decisions and actions quickly and reasonably. In the group intelligence model, unity is significantly better than the single body and the sum of simple individuals, i.e., the effect of achieving 1 + 1 > 2. There are four types of sharing community wisdom model, namely multidisciplinary academic research and sharing platform, open crowdsourcing scientific research platform, the professional social network for a subject area, and scientific experiment outsourcing service platform, as shown in Table 15.1. Table 15.1 Representative company of shared community wisdom model Company name

Country

Established time/year

Type

ResearchGate Academia.edu

Germany

2008

United States

2009

Multidisciplinary American Academic Research and Sharing platform

InnoCentive

United States

2001

IdeaConnection

Canada

2007

Open crowdsourcing research platform

YourEncore

United States

2003

Professional social network

Kaggle

Australia

2010

Science exchange

United States

2011

Easy science

China

2012

Scientific Experiment Outsourcing Service platform

262

15 Sharing Economy Business Model

Founded in 2001 by Eli Lilly and Company, InnoCentive is a typical company that features a shared group intelligence model, named after the collection of innovation and incentives. The company is positioned as a docking platform for global companies to solve various scientific problems and facilitate communication with top scientists. It aims to promote seeker and solution providers who need to solve problems. The company has positioned itself as a docking platform for global companies to solve various scientific problems and facilitate communication with top scientists. It aims to promote the need to solve problems (seeker) and provide solutions to match the solution quickly, to help companies with low demand—cost-effective and efficient implementation of innovation activities. The biggest advantage of InnoCentive is open innovation and customized crowdsourcing. At the same time, the site’s safe and efficient protection mechanism and adequate and high-quality dismantling resources have become key resources for the world. In essence, the shared community intelligence model is to realize the collective value of community wisdom and research resources through online social networks and crowdsourcing platforms. This model was created by large technology companies in the early stages of investment. Just as Eli Lilly and Pharmaceuticals founded InnoCentive, the original meaning of the model was mainly to help companies or research institutes to launch crowd-sourcing tasks in a “winning challenge” way, with the participation of registered users solved, and online sharing platform charges commission. With the establishment of more sharing platforms and the entry of venture capital, more diverse services such as technology and market integration consulting, technology and patent transactions, recruitment of human resources, sharing of research equipment, venture capital, etc. have been formed. At the same time, the boundaries of various parties have been continuously broken through, such as more widespread interdisciplinary research, more timely release of scientific research results and evaluation systems, weakened boundaries between full-time scientists and amateur scientists, and more efficient management systems for scientific research resources, resulting in more “The Medici effect”. In general, “decentralization”, open innovation, and diversified businesses have increased the commercial value of the shared community’s wisdom, and the business model has been continuously improved. In the future, the sharing community wisdom model will at least have the following changes: ➀ More and more emerging economies researchers have joined such a model organization, and the sharing platform will continue to grow. ➁ The challenge and reward mechanism of the shared community intelligence model has been continuously improved, and the existing problems of efficiency and equity have been better resolved. ➂ More and more platforms that share community intelligence models can provide more accurate customized and integrated consulting services for companies and other organizations, and business models are more stable. ➃ More venture capital or large-scale enterprises participate in investment in such models, resulting in several listed companies. ➄ The development of the sharing group wisdom model will promote the reform of the scientific research system in various countries to a certain extent.

15.3 Sharing Innovative Resource Model

263

15.3 Sharing Innovative Resource Model At the time of the “double-innovation era” of mass innovation and the creation of a man’s business, the country’s favorable policies have been continuously introduced, and a wave of innovation and entrepreneurship has set off across the country. The rise of the sharing economy has provided an important boost to innovation and entrepreneurship. Sharing the innovative and entrepreneurial resource model as a new development model that can integrate entrepreneurial resources such as science and technology, innovation, and professional services. It can bring together entrepreneurs from different fields who share the spirit of sharing to facilitate their creative exchanges and produce collective endorsements, as well as greater innovation. There are three types of shared innovation and entrepreneurial resources: joint office space, business incubator, and venture accelerator, as shown in Table 15.2. In 2015, Urwork was formally established. As a representative of the shared innovation and entrepreneurial resource model, as of the beginning of 2017, six rounds of financing have been completed, with a valuation of RMB 7 billion in just under two years with its unique business. The model and strong branding effect have initially completed the strategic layout and become the first unicorn enterprise in China’s joint office area. Urwork aims to build an accelerator for innovation and entrepreneurship services, and a platform for transforming and incubating scientific and technological achievements. It gradually forms a networked and sharing office platform, and builds a rich, open, and profitable market from the standpoint of industrial complementarity and resource integration business ecosystem. Unlike traditional real estate leases that earn the price difference, Urwork is O2O’s business social platform, enabling effective connections between people and services in the platform. With a membership system similar to the WeWork model, each desk in the Urwork represents the information of the corresponding customer, which becomes a medium for connecting different subjects of entrepreneurship, and promotes effective communication between customers. Urwork also opened its business school. It collects course topics from settled startup teams, gathers together the problems encountered during its establishment, and recruit tutors based on the topics. At the same time, entrepreneurs outside the factory are also welcome to Table 15.2 Representative companies of sharing innovation and entrepreneurial resources model

Company name

Country

Established time/year

Type

WeWork

United States

2010

Hiwork

China

2015

Co-working space

Mo.ffice

China

2015

SOHO 3Q

China

2015

Rocket Space

United States

2011

Urwork

China

2015

Business incubator Venture accelerator

264

15 Sharing Economy Business Model

share courses and entrepreneurship cases to promote the smooth development of the entrepreneurial process. As a super interface for innovation and entrepreneurial resources, Yoko Factory can provide as many as 200 joint office applications, greatly reducing the information asymmetry costs and time for entrepreneurs. Accumulation of customer resources to a certain amount will bring economies of scale, which will result in lower purchasing costs and higher matching efficiency. In addition, the entire service of Urwork is based on internet operation, which can break through the constraints of space and time, enabling customers to quickly and easily obtain cross-regional services. From the successful practical experience of Urwork, it can be concluded that sharing the model of innovation and entrepreneurship resources is the largest. The feature is to speed up value-added services. Massive financial support and a strong mentor team, as well as an entrepreneurial service ecosystem built on a sharing platform, can greatly enhance the competitiveness of sharing innovative and entrepreneurial resource models. Based on this model, entrepreneurs can not only save the traditional office from the price, contract, decoration, furniture, fire, and other general offices from going through the process but also access to human services, legal services, investment. This series of accelerating value-added services can become a huge force for innovation and entrepreneurial activities, and promote the further development and sharing of shared innovation and entrepreneurial resource models, and bring benefits for the majority of entrepreneurs.

15.4 Sharing Travel Model Under the background of sharing economy, new technologies such as cloud computing, big data, the internet of things, and mobile internet can be combined and superimposed with traditional travel requirements, creating a new travel model of shared transportation. With its innovative resource utilization, rapid demand response, and convenient payment methods, the shared transportation model has become a popular area with a wide range of influence, a high degree of activity, and a highly sought-after consumer and market attention in a short period. This model grew up in a huge stock market, effectively mobilized a large number of available vehicle resources, driver resources, and parking resources in the society. While changing people’s travel models, the exponential level improved the utilization of transportation resources. Shared transportation models include sharing car rentals, sharing driving, sharing bicycles, and sharing parking spaces, as shown in Table 15.3. Didi was established in China in 2012. A wide range of subsidy strategies and ingenious public relations campaigns have created an upsurge of shared transportation modes in China. At present, Didi has grown from a cab taxiing software to a one-stop travel platform covering taxis, special cars, express trains, free rides, driving trips, test drives, and bus services. Specifically, the Didi provided a platform for using idle car resources to increase revenue, and also provided information services and support so that it did not need to “sweep the street” like a taxi driver, reducing the

15.4 Sharing Travel Model Table 15.3 Representative companies of shared travel model

265 Company name

Country

Established time/year

Type

Zipcar

United States

2001

PP Car Rental

Singapore

2012

Sharing car rental

Uber

United States

2009

Didi

China

2012

Spinlister

United States

2011

Mobike

China

2016

Park Tag

Germany

2012

E-mooring

China

2014

Sharing driving Sharing bicycle Sharing parking

cost of finding customers. At the same time, the Didi Platform is different from the previous taxi rush model but uses the precision computing power of big data to automatically match the vehicles that are closest to the vehicle, reducing unnecessary time loss, and realizing optimized allocation of travel and demand parties. Based on improving the efficiency of vehicle use, urban traffic congestion pressure is effectively relieved. In addition, Didi can reduce the information asymmetry between drivers and users through a two-way scoring mechanism, break the trust bottlenecks of both sides of the transaction, guide the chaotic travel market to gradually develop in order to effectively solve the chronic disease of “black car”, and provide users with a convenient and safe way of travel. Big data, cloud computing, Internet platforms, and matching scheduling capabilities are the core competitiveness of Didi. Its business model is mainly innovation on the supply side, that is, through technology breakthroughs, the supply and demand sides are connected to the same platform and converged into one. With the huge supply and demand information database, it can use precise data computing capabilities to achieve an instantaneous match of supply and demand. In point of view, the most characteristic of the shared model of travel represented by the drop-out behavior is the realization of the connection between fragmented demand and fragmented supply, i.e., systematic integration of resources and stability matching of supply and demand. The process of sharing traffic patterns can generally be divided into search, matching, use, payment and scoring. There are also three key elements behind the entire process: scenes, convenience, and service. The scenario is the factor that triggers the user to use the application. The convenience is to use the experience that the application travel can bring to the user, and the service reflects the ultimate value of the platform. The services mentioned here are rich in content. First, from the perspective of supply and demand, idle resources can be fully utilized. Providers can provide services that can be realized to obtain additional benefits. The demand side can obtain diverse services at a lower cost. It can also be seen from the benefits of the entire society that sharing the services provided by travel tools can alleviate traffic congestion in the city. The number of private cars on the road is reduced.

266

15 Sharing Economy Business Model

People are no longer clinging to the ownership of ownership and switching to the right to use. Diversified travel options change the way people travel. The integrated approach of “car + bike + walk” expands people’s life radius; fast and convenient service eliminates waiting time for waiting for cars, searching for parking spaces, and social productivity; the city’s carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced, further promoting the development of the green economy.

15.5 Sharing Space Model Space is a ubiquitous resource that has not only the public nature of services but also has clear attribute characteristics. The traditional space transaction costs are very high. Both in terms of time and money, the acquisition of assets and the signing of formalities require a lot of investment. The shared space model emerging from the Internet boom has provided space demanders with high-quality and cheap product services by creating idle resources for the market, creating additional asset income for space owners. The shared space model mainly includes three product forms of shared accommodation space, shared pet space, and shared retail space, as shown in Table 15.4. The shared space model with a strong humanistic atmosphere can maximize the existence value of a company by grasping users’ pain points. The user’s pain point refers to the psychological gap or dissatisfaction caused when the user’s original expectations are not satisfied during the process of experiencing the product or service. This dissatisfaction gradually builds up in the user’s mental model and causes a negative emotion burst to make the user feel pain. Business models must be able to capture customer pain points, solve customer problems, or meet customer needs. For example, quantitative values such as price and service speed, and qualitative values such as brand/identity status and customer experience. The most outstanding performance of all enterprises is to solve these pain points through their innovations, which has had a huge impact on the entire industry. Airbnb, as the originator of the shared space business model, mainly obtains income by connecting landlords who have real estate and willing to lend them, and visitors Table 15.4 Representative companies of the shared space model Company name

Country

Established time/year

Type

Airbnb

United States

2008

Sharing accommodation

Piglet short rent

China

2012

DogVacay

United States

2014

Pet help

China

2015

StoreFront

United States

2012

Storemates

United Kingdom

2013

Sharing pet space Sharing retail space

15.5 Sharing Space Model

267

who want to obtain economic benefits, thereby facilitating transactions between the supply and demand sides and collecting commissions from them. It mainly has the following outstanding performance in solving the problem of users’ pain points. (1)

(2)

(3)

Personalized personal care. Airbnb not only provides the landlord with a platform to rent idle rooms for revenue but also provides insurance for the landlord and free professional photography for his home, prompting landlords to rent their own personalized homes. On the other hand, tenants on Airbnb are no longer monotonous and boring standardized rooms, but are warm and comfortable, harmonious and harmonious home experiences, and a rich, geographically unique life experience. Complete trust network. Airbnb has opened a social relationship chain to solve security issues, allowing users to access their social accounts such as Facebook and Twitter. At the same time, Airbnb will also connect other social relationships such as alumni relations. Based on these mechanisms, the transparency of information between homeowners and tenants has been enhanced. In addition, landlords and tenants can communicate online through the praise and evaluation function in social networks, establishing mutual trust. Intelligent mobile applications. Airbnb has developed an automated online travel guide centered on “Collaborative Filtering” for users through the application of big data, cloud computing, and other technologies. Through the travel guides, users can enjoy a search service based on geographic location, and select the products and services that they are satisfied with the high-quality recommendation information that is selected by the application. At the same time, mobile applications can also provide homeowners and tenants with an online communication platform to establish instant contact between the parties.

From this point of view, the unique value created by the shared space model represented by Airbnb is to demonstrate individual needs through humanistic care, to promote resource sharing through a trusted network, and to reinforce multilateral services through timely interaction. Humanistic care is the most innovative place in this business model. Enterprises not only provide consumers with cost-effective products and services, but also turn emotional products and services into certain temperatures, emotions, and lives. The highly personalized, involved and selective humanistic care can tap the huge buying potential of the long-tailed market, satisfy the user’s pursuit of individuality, attract more individuals to participate, and convert the available resources of the market into multiple supply options.

15.6 Sharing the Financial Model The shared financial model includes the financial evolution direction and concept of internet finance, financial marketization, inclusive finance, financial service entities, etc. It is a financial model that adapts to the post-industrial era and the sovereign consumer society. This model can directly lend money to individuals or projects through an online financial platform, which saves the intermediate fees that large

268 Table 15.5 Representative companies of shared financial model

15 Sharing Economy Business Model Company name

Country

Established time/year

Type

Lending Club

United States

2007

P2P online loan

Hongling Venture Capital

China

2009

Lu Jinsuo

China

2012

IQianjin

China

2014

Kickstarter

United States

2009

Seedrs

United Kingdom

2009

Everybody Vote China

2012

Taobao Crowdfunding

2014

China

Internet crowdfunding

financial institutions charge to borrowers with high-interest rates. At the same time, the funds accumulated by the platform have diversified investment options, which can be projected investment, fund appreciation, or public welfare donations, that is to say, in addition to profitability, shared finance also has public welfare considerations. While exploiting Internet financial technology innovation, it also expands the breadth and depth of inclusive financial services. The value of the shared financial model is to amplify the horizontal collaborative forces of small competitors, solve the fragility of the financial trading system, and create a new channel for the increase of the entire society’s wealth and the practice of the national inclusive financial concept. At present, there are two main forms of sharing financial model, namely P2P online loan and Internet crowdfunding, as shown in Table 15.5. Lending Club is a typical enterprise sharing the financial model. The core part of its business model comes from the use of advanced technology to directly match the lenders and borrowers and establishes a set of financing platforms outside the banking system to meet the huge consumer credit market in the United States and the current banking system. Much of the borrower’s and investor’s needs cannot be obtained from the sources of borrowing funds. On the Lending Club platform, borrowers, especially small and micro enterprises, can use lower loan thresholds, choose more loan items, and obtain funds at lower interest rates, while investors also obtain lower transaction rates. Better earnings. The credit system plays an important role in this business model, and it smooths the information asymmetry in loan and deposit interest rates through the convenience of the Internet. The essence of the Lending Club platform is its rigorous scoring system. The minimum credit rating of the lender FICO (finance controlling, US credit score) is above 660, and debt/income ratio is below 40% (excluding mortgage). On this basis, Lending Club also designed a set of ratings for a total of 35 rating lenders from A1 to G5, based on information

15.6 Sharing the Financial Model

269

provided by lenders. At first, the company’s lenders were mostly individuals, and now many mutual funds and hedge funds have also joined. The successful operation of Lending Club is a good interpretation of the unique advantages of the shared financial model. The business logic of traditional financial institutions determines that they cannot meet the financial needs of long-tailed customers, that is, long-tailed customers such as small and micro enterprises, farmers, and urban low-income people are difficult to access financial services, and there is serious information asymmetry between capital supply and demand. This leads to the fragility of the traditional financial system, not to mention the supply of diversified and innovative investment channels to the suppliers of funds. The shared financial model made up for the deficiencies of the traditional financial model and improved it based on it. First, the shared financial model can play a platform economic function. The platform economy has typical positive externalities and multi-homing. Positive externalities mean that as more subjects enter the platform of the shared financial model, the greater the value of achieving mutual benefits, the more multi-homing indicates the shared financial model. The platform in China can bring consumers the most multiple choices of utility. Its trading rules are transformed from the maximization of unilateral gains from traditional finance to a win-win situation with the real economy (Zheng, 2016b). Secondly, the Internet industry chain finance sharing reconstruction, sharing the financial model to design personalized, customized financial service products, provide integrated financial services for all enterprises in all aspects of the upstream and downstream of the entire industrial chain, and advocate participation in the sharing of financial resources and mutual aid, and then build different industrial chain financial service ecosystem. The most important thing is that the financial sharing model can realize the integration of industry and finance in the “Internet+ ” environment, eliminate information asymmetry between the industry sector and finance, reduce the moral hazard and adverse selection between the two, thereby reducing transaction costs and achieving. The diversified operation of industry and finance brings financial and physical intrinsic links closer to each other and provides sufficient funding sources for many small and micro enterprises, farmers, individuals and other long-tailed customers, and enables both parties to consider more long-term cooperation and win-win results, in order to realize the vision of national inclusive finance.

15.7 Sharing Food Model The shared cuisine model breaks through the traditional catering industry’s ability to solve customer dining needs and aims to create a platform for cultural exchanges. Through a platform built on a shared cuisine model, chefs with good skills can use their talents in their spare time to provide high-quality food to others and gain corresponding benefits and share their resources to create unexpected values. According to the development situation in recent years at home and abroad, the shared food

270 Table 15.6 Representative companies of shared food model

15 Sharing Economy Business Model Company name

Country

Established time/year

Type

Love Chef

China

2013

Good chef

China

2014

Cook at your door

Eatwith

United States

2012

Private dinner

EWC

China

2014

Kitchit

United States

2011

Go home to China eat

2014

Huang Taiji China

2012

U taste

2015

China

Home Kitchen Sharing Shared kitchen capacity

model can be divided into four types: chefs, private dinners, kitchen sharing, and sharing kitchen productivity, as shown in Table 15.6. As a typical private dining room model, EWC is equivalent to a platform for information release and transaction. It taps and integrates private kitchen resources located in various cities, regularly publishes private kitchen meals and attracts interested diners to participate in consumption. The purpose of the sharing platform set up by private kitchens is to eliminate the information asymmetry in the private kitchen market, and expand the boundaries of the private kitchen market continuously, and tap the resources of the supply side to activate the demand-side potential. EWC follows such a logic: starting from the WeChat public number that is vertical to living food and social communication, it attracts the interest of food lovers through exciting and interesting contents and regularly launches a series of dinners to maintain the attention of specific objects and cultivate them into seed users. Then through the linkage of seed users to expand the user base, to achieve the rapid accumulation of users, spread the brand image, the fuzzy expansion of private kitchen borders. Similarly, several other types of shared cuisine models are based on fun and interesting dining culture, as well as high cost-effectiveness that attracts the majority of participants to support the development of this model more and more enthusiastically. In essence, the biggest selling point of the shared food model is experiencing aesthetics. In the past, people saw food more as a necessity to solve the problem of food and clothing. Now people begin to regard food as an experience, and experiencing aesthetics has become an important requirement for people. People’s quality of life is constantly improving, and the infiltration of aesthetics into daily activities will become a lifestyle that people tend to favor. The local department, the characteristic and original experience brought by the shared cuisine model become the temptation that diners can’t resist, and then infiltrate into the trajectory of modern people. One of the most important features of the shared food model is its spatial connection, which is based on the creation of food space connections that create new experiences. This experience is more about meeting the consumer’s dream of making food by hand in a spacious, fully-equipped kitchen. The traditional dining system

15.7 Sharing Food Model

271

cannot break the constraints of various resources, and the shared food model can realize this dream. Food lovers can connect to personalized restaurants and places through the platform provided by the shared food model, and can use these spaces to create their dream food. Further, spatial connectivity can be extended to cross-border communities. For diners from all over the world, they can use the same hobby and choice to connect with their peers. All the cross-border connections on the shared food model can create a good food scene. Diners can find suitable circles on the sharing platform, continue their connections, and expand their social scope. In this community, diners can do better things because of the touch. The community can connect online and offline, from virtual greetings online to real encounters offline, from food expectation to enjoyment of food, a group of interesting likeminded people gather, listen to a long story, meet an interesting companion, and cultivate a sincere feeling.

15.8 Sharing a Medical Health Model The medical and health industry has always been controversial because of the conflict between supply and demand. On the one hand, many patients lack medical and health resources. On the other hand, the medical and health system still has a lot of resources, including a potential time surplus of 1.94 million doctors and fitness coaches, nearly 60%. The idle primary medical fitness equipment and the most important medical health data (Sun et al., 2016). At present, in the promotion of shared health care model, doctors, fitness coaches, and medical and fitness equipment resources are gradually opening up to the outside world, and demanders can obtain satisfactory products and services at a low cost and high efficiency through a sharing platform. More noticeable are millions of people. People are opening up their medical records. Based on sufficient medical knowledge, patients gradually become their “advocates” through self-directed attempts. This echoes the development laws of the market economy and mobilizes the theory and practice of medicine. The shared medical health model can be divided into three types: online inquiry, doctor’s door, and fitness sharing, as shown in Table 15.7. In the spring of 2011, the doctor was on the line for the first time. As the leading health consulting application in the mobile internet field in China today, more than 45 million users have been activated, and the daily question volume has exceeded 55,000. Chun Yu doctor mainly provides the “self-examination + health consultation” function; the user can enter the search interface, keywords, symptoms, drugs, body parts, etc., to obtain detailed professional content, self-examination for his diagnosis. At the same time, the software platform also provides community services. Users can publish their treatment records in the discussion area and provide reference information for other users. Many patient-driven healthcare websites are by-products of individual cases. They not only provide a variety of treatment options for common minor conditions but also treat intractable diseases that are of little concern and do not even have corresponding

272 Table 15.7 Representative companies of the shared healthcare model

15 Sharing Economy Business Model Company name

Country

Established time/year

Type

Spring Rain Doctor

China

2011

Online consultation

Good doctor for peace

China

2015

Medicast

United States

2013

Pager

United States

2014

Doctors come to the door

Class Pass

United States

2013

Fitness sharing

Citywide refining

China

2015

research and treatment options. Brain Talk, a non-profit website community, founded in the United States, has created more than 300 public welfare online discussion groups for various neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease, more than 70% of discussion posts are exchanges of illness. The community brings together more than 200,000 people from all over the world, including patients, doctors, scientists, researchers, and others who care about these diseases. All community members work together to share and use verifiable information solutions to challenge existing medical authorities and constantly improve and form spontaneous learning and research organizations. Also, patients can also become scientists involved in the diagnosis of the disease, which means that sharing health care patterns changes the balance of power among doctors, scientists, researchers, and patients. In the traditional model, health care is a private area between doctors and patients, fitness coaches, and fitness enthusiasts. Now, driven by the sharing economy, this private field has achieved openness to the outside world, transformed into a distributed, horizontal, and reciprocal social relationship, and gradually promoted the sharing of medical health models. In this mode, patients search the Internet for a description similar to their symptoms, diagnose their condition, or describe their condition to a doctor online, waiting for the doctor’s diagnosis. Patients who have been diagnosed will share their personal medical history information on various medical and health websites, and provide treatment plans for other users on the site. The status boundaries of doctors and patients tend to be blurred. Through the sharing of medical and health models, fitness enthusiasts can search the Internet for a large amount of fitness knowledge and fitness equipment use channels, and they can conduct fitness training without special reports or purchase of fitness equipment. Fitness enthusiasts can also share their fitness experience on the Internet, transforming from a demander to a supplier, and realize the simultaneous operation of production, supply, and marketing.

15.9 Sharing Knowledge Education Model

273

15.9 Sharing Knowledge Education Model Everyone in society is an “expert” that is known in some aspects. A person’s expertise in one aspect may not mean anything to himself, but it may be a very valuable resource for others in society. People are happy to create and share. When sharing surplus recognition, they may feel satisfied and have a sense of accomplishment because they contribute to others. The so-called shared knowledge education model is to gather intellectual resources such as dispersed and surplus knowledge and skills through the Internet platform and share it with specific individuals or institutions to help them improve their professional skills and education levels and maximize the use of the entire society’s intellectual resources. The representative companies sharing the knowledge education model are shown in Table 15.8. In the past, knowledge has always been closed and managed by scientific institutions. It takes a high price to obtain knowledge. Now, this situation has undergone a disruptive change. The seemingly invincible social barriers have been knocked down by the distributed, cooperative, and equal forces of the Internet Revolution. The massive resources of the academic community have been widely spread, releasing a steady stream of potential. The pattern of knowledge education began to shift from the vertical right system mastered by the smart owner to the horizontal collaborative model of the learning community. The learning process also changed from a closed and fixed classroom to a virtual space on the Internet. The isolation of traditional learning is eliminated in the shared knowledge education model. By sharing experience, collaborative experience, and interaction and cooperation, the value of learning knowledge will be infinitely amplified. The founding of Zhihu is a manifestation of the successful promotion of the shared knowledge education model. Its mission is to share people’s own knowledge, experience, and insights on the Internet and achieve organic connections. It strongly satisfies the user’s demand for exploring quality information. Knowing the depth of the Q&A allows users to prove their own insights into a field. It is a new platform to demonstrate personal value. User questions, answers, and likes also fulfill social needs among users. The framework of the Q&A model is an orderly analytical process that is centered on the problem. Its uniqueness from watercress, fruit shells, and paste bars is “the culture of insight”. According to the latest published results, the platform Table 15.8 Representative companies of shared knowledge education model

Company name

Country

Established time/year

Quora

United States

2009

Zhihu

China

2011

Coursera

United States

2012

EdX

United States

2012

Saihu

China

2014

Zaihang

China

2015

274

15 Sharing Economy Business Model

currently has 13 million active users, 5 billion page views per month, 33 min per capita, 10 million questions, and 34 million answers (Chiou, 2016). Known as a treasure trove of knowledge, with a wealth of information and rich resources, users can access a lot of valuable resource information in just a few minutes by browsing the homepage of the website, enhance personal knowledge and skills, and make full use of fragmented time. The accumulation of fragmented knowledge will bring unexpected gains as the quantity increases. The shared knowledge education model upholds the concept of distributed collaborative sharing. Through the establishment of a real-time interactive open platform, the talents of the broad masses of intellectuals are discovered, and the input and output interfaces are created so that information resources can be transmitted hundreds of millions of times and learned. The full use of resources and unlimited magnification. Also, the shared knowledge education model can satisfy the intellectuals’ desires for sharing and authority. According to Maslow’s Demand Theory, advanced needs include respect for needs and self-realization needs. This is the driving factor for intellectuals to export knowledge to the outside world. The sharing of knowledge education model can give intellectuals a platform to publicly display their professional knowledge and obtain outside attention and appreciation, and then establish their authority in the professional field. This model greatly satisfies the intellectuals’ desire to share and authoritative needs, and it encourages them to be more confident in their intelligence. On the other hand, it can meet the needs of ordinary netizens for learning and novelty. Like a window, it provides a wide range of users with a channel for learning and novelty, so that they can raise their questions and follow the answers through questioning.

15.10 Sharing Public Resource Model Under the trend of sharing economy, large-scale social production that “creates by one person, benefits everyone, no one is monopolized” is gradually recognized by the public. The use of Internet technology has reduced the opacity of information and the time and space constraints of communication, creating a new economic model for sharing public resources. This model creates a “world is flat” form that allows many dispersed users and data to become available resources instantly, creating a more economical, energy-efficient, and efficient society. Relying on the support and matching of Internet technology, data, and information, enterprises in the shared public resource model can break through the limitations of space and time, provide practical content according to specific scenarios, achieve information exchange, and reach users’ hearts. Shared public resource models can be divided into WiFi sharing, network sharing, and solar energy sharing, as shown in Table 15.9. In the gradual development of the sharing economy, the common shared public resources are solar energy resources. SolarCity was established in the United States in 2006. Its main business is to lease unused solar PV systems to users and provide peripheral services such as installation and maintenance. With the development of

15.10 Sharing Public Resource Model Table 15.9 Representative companies of the shared public resource model

275

Company name

Country

Established time/year

Type

Fon

Spain

2006

WiFi sharing

Peace-WiFi

China

2015

Open Garden United States

2011

Openwrt

United States

2012

Solar City

United States

2006

Solar Power

United States

2015

Network sharing Solar energy sharing

big data on the Internet, network resources have begun to share. Open Garden was founded in the United States in 2011. Its goal is to establish a network where users can share WiFi. Devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and computers will be installed after the software is installed. At the same time, each device can be connected to form a larger WiFi network to achieve the effect of scale network sharing. Up to now, the sharing of WiFi resources is maturing. In 2015, Ping’an WiFi was founded in China. Its basic and core are to securely and conveniently seamlessly access the Internet, through the purchase of wireless networks and directing traffic of communication carriers, and a comprehensive supervision mechanism for users, and provide secure free internet access. Ping’an Group backs ping’an WiFi, and it also provides users with value-added financial services. It uses its advantages of WiFi and its property insurance to realize multi-business cross-border linkage. The earliest development of the shared public resource model can be traced back to the hypothesis of the ecologist Hardin (1968) that when the ranch is open to everyone, everyone will overgraze to maximize private interests. It will undermine the normal ecosystem of grassland and form a “tragedy of the commons”. Hardin believes that people are selfish. When people share public resources without ownership, they will not refrain from overusing resources that are not related to their interests. This will ultimately lead to the exhaustion of resources, and it is impossible to share public resources. By 1990, the economist Ostrom (1990) proposed the “common pond resource theory”. The common pond resource is a way for people to use the entire resource system together but enjoy the resource units separately. This theory contains a premise that the corresponding system will be established for shared users. Ostrom believes that the reason why individuals break the rules and pursue personal interests is that the system is imperfect, and sharing itself is a powerful management mechanism. People can recognize that the long-term protection of public resources is better than personal interests. As the technologies of cloud computing, big data, the Internet of things, and the mobile Internet become more and more mature, the social credit system gradually improves. The concept of self-discipline and self-discipline between the public has been greatly improved, and people can use public resources fairly and reasonably under invisible constraints. This also ensures the normal operation of the shared public resource model. Correspondingly, through the sharing of platforms, public

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resources can be used by the public in a wider range and in a deeper way, their potential value can be fully explored, and a higher level leaps forward for the improvement of the entire social welfare.

15.11 Sharing Task Service Model With the development of e-commerce, online trading platforms are no longer limited to the trading of physical goods, and the proportion of service-type goods has gradually increased. The rise of the sharing economy has prompted several innovative online outsourcing platforms in the e-commerce market. Customers from all over the world and from all walks of life can publish tasks on this platform, and then they can choose suitable talents among many candidates to reach an agreement to conduct service transactions. This kind of new business model that publishes tasks receives tasks, and receives rewards after completing tasks on the website is a shared task service model. For the task issuer, the service cost of the task is low, and the solution speed is fast, and the task recipient can use his time resources to exert his talent and earn corresponding income. The shared task service model can be divided into two types: sharing service skills and sharing logistics, as shown in Table 15.10. With the rapid development of the market economy, the “28 law” can be applied not only to wealth distribution and income models but also to important values in commercial operations and operations. For example, 20% of demand in today’s society has reached saturation supply, and 80% of the demand has not been satisfied. This 80% niche market provides fertile ground for the growth of shared mission service models. On the sharing platform of service skills, creative service providers will not lose opportunities for the use of resources and labor due to insufficient guest tickets. Creative demanders, especially small, medium, and micro enterprises, will not give up business activities because they do not have low-cost, diversified service Table 15.10 Representative companies of shared task service model

Company name

Country

Established time/year

Type Service skill sharing

Pig net

China

2006

TaskRabbit

United States

2008

You say I do

China

2014

Jingdong home

China

2015

Instacart

United States

2012

Postmates

United States

2012

Dada

China

2013

Luoji Logistics

China

2014

Distribution sharing

15.11 Sharing Task Service Model

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programs. On the sharing platform of logistics and distribution, the peer-to-peer delivery method enables demanding users and service providers to achieve seamless identity conversion, which not only uses people’s fragmented time but also reduces the waste of social resources. In this model, commercial centralized command and control concessions give distributed horizontal extension of peer-to-peer production, and buyers and sellers concede to the producers. In 2006, the founder of Pig BaJiao.net issued a reward for the establishment of the original website of HogBauk.com of RMB 500, and the site’s valuation has reached over RMB 10 billion to date. As a leading company in China’s shared mission service model, the pig network connects tens of thousands of service providers and small, medium, and micro-enterprises. The business model of the pigskin network has a value proposition of aggregating features—creative sharing of the “Matthew effect”. In the economic field, there is a common phenomenon, the “Matthew effect”, which refers to the polarization problem of the stronger and the weaker. For example, in Taobao, Tmall platform, the vast majority of traffic, orders, and revenue are gathered in a small number of deep-rooted large businesses, while the profitability of many small businesses is constantly compressed, and eventually withdraw from the market. In contrast, because of the characteristics of the sharing economy and the use of non-physical assets such as transaction service skills, the Pig is a typical “anti-Matthew effect” business case. Small businesses maintain a certain amount of customer traffic with flexible, customized services, which also reflects the shared mission service model to meet the basic needs of the niche market 80% of the characteristics. In the shared mission service model, the public can publish tasks or receive tasks through a sharing platform. There are no fixed producers and no fixed consumers. As long as there are demand and supply, all people can conduct transactions, which means a new type of social participation subject-producer in the classification of producers and consumers. The emergence of the role of the consumer and consumer has promoted the distributed and horizontally expanded peer-to-peer production. The public’s talents and demands can be more perfectly released. The circulation and use of social capital will create unlimited value on a broader and more active platform.

15.12 Sharing Technologies and Solution Models Since the 1990s, network technology, e-commerce, and sharing economy have developed rapidly. Based on basic resource theory, dynamic capability theory, and value chain theory, the core elements of competition among enterprises have changed to pursue the “speed” of the supply chain, and the key to improving “speed” is how to integrate resources efficiently. The core of the sharing technology and solution model is to rely on the “Internet+ ” sharing platform, using technology and solutions as strategic elements, integrating all the resources of the entire supply chain, and realizing the real-time matching of supply and demand sides. It can be seen that the shared technology and program model is an inevitable requirement for scientific and

278 Table 15.11 Representative companies of sharing technologies and solutions model

15 Sharing Economy Business Model Company name

Country

Established time/year

Type

Wen Group

China

1983

Hongxuan Agriculture

China

2008

Applicable technology sharing

Erie Dairy School

China

2010

Stratasys

United States

1989

Fab Lab

United States

2002

OpenAI

United States

2015

Open source program sharing

technological progress and economic transformation. The sharing technology and solution model can be divided into two types: application sharing and open source program sharing, as shown in Table 15.11. Sharing technology and solution models are often used in the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing industries. Their initial application forms can be traced back to the OEM (original equipment manufacturer), which is also known as OEM production, the basic implication is that producers with strong brands are not responsible for the production of products, but rather control the development, design, and sales channels of products. Specific production and processing tasks are entrusted to other manufacturers in the same industry. The key to achieving a win-win for OEM lies in the fact that the producers of strong brands will share the key core technologies they have mastered with other manufacturers that they contract with by opening training courses or on-site guidance by experts, increase the stickiness of customers while realizing the large-scale production and asset-light operations of their own companies. Wenshi is one of the earliest companies in China to explore the sharing technology and program model and realize large-scale farming. This earliest enterprise corresponds to the OEM. Wenshi, as the owner of a strong brand, controls the aspects of breed propagation, seedling production, feeding and management, epidemic prevention and control, and product sales in the industrial chain. The cooperative farmer is mainly responsible for breeding. Compared to the traditional aquaculture companies that control the entire industrial chain, Wenshi has taken another approach. Its pioneering application sharing technology and program model has led to a smallscale operation of distributed small-scale “breeding workshops” in small assets and achieved cost-effectiveness. According to Liang Houzhe, president of Cargill’s China Animal Protein Division, the cost of each chicken is 10% higher than the shared technology and program model for traditional farming (Hu, 2015). From this, it can be seen that the shared technology and program model will save huge costs for the manufacturing industry. Hongxuan agriculture, as a rising star, began to introduce the new concept of “Internet+ ” after experiencing the initial sharing technology and scheme model. The company has just launched an Internet sharing platform called “Small Fresh

15.12 Sharing Technologies and Solution Models

279

Eggs Trip” this year. Through this sharing platform, thousands of households of egg farmers can be automatically integrated into their OEMs to achieve instant docking between supply and demand. Customers and consumers can receive a timely response from suppliers regardless of their needs in the industry chain. At present, the founder of the company, Xu Hongfei, is trying to create a sharing technology and solution model based on the Internet platform from two aspects: First of all, integrate the company’s own resources, and integrate the previously scattered brands into one major brand, “Xu Hongfei’s Little Egg”, and supply the original channels and Internet platforms directly to focus and enhance the brand’s recognition. Secondly, integrate social resources, unite with OEMs and existing competitors across the country, and concentrate all supply resources on the “small egg travel” Internet sharing platform; at the same time, the company’s promotional media promoted marketing to the consumer market, attracted the attention of customers and consumers, and sought to open up the entire industry chain. According to this idea, the founder, Xu Hongfei, predicts that under the “Internet+ ” sharing technology and program model, the company’s output value will double again based on last year, approaching 1 billion yuan (Shen, 2015). In other words, this model will bring tremendous explosive economics in the future. The sharing mentioned above technology and solution model is mainly for the sharing of applicable technologies in the manufacturing industry. Another opensource program sharing is rooted in a shared, co-creative, and win-win open-source culture, which aims to encourage product design documents, that is, source code, to be open and shared within a shared community of hardware designers, software developers, manufacturers, and consumers. For example, 3D printing technology, from prototyping to product customization, continues to innovate, and has so far achieved integration of all ideological resources and has become an example of “ultimate productivity”. People can use materials that are within easy reach or use special materials that are manufactured according to their needs as raw materials. They can use the 3D printer to create whatever they want, such as chairs, cars, and glasses. Also, the design and instruction of the 3D printer will be made public on the website of the sharing community. This open-source technology can be shared globally and truly mass-produce. Whether it is the sharing of applicable technologies or the sharing of opensource programs, the sharing technologies and program models aim at integrating the socially available resources and strive to create a unified structure of the entire industry chain, striving to improve the economic welfare of the general public and promote the development of a more advanced, distributed, collaborative, peer-to-peer, and horizontally expanding production model.

15.13 Sharing Production Capability Model Under the background of the Internet, the model of shared production capacity sprouted under the general trend of the sharing economy. This is a new production

280

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model that quickly integrates the production capabilities available to different companies through the Internet platform and effectively matches the supply and demand sides of the product. The feature of shared production capacity model compared to outsourced production is that the main trading entity is no longer a single cooperative customer, but a many-to-many eco-industry circle. Product demanders may place orders with multiple producers for the production requirements of different accessories, and product suppliers may receive multiple orders within the scope of their production capacity. The core of production capacity sharing lies in the integration of resources, providing more flexible product selection at a lower cost, and achieving full utilization of production capacity. According to different production leaders, the shared production capacity model can be divided into two types, namely, business collaboration and crowdsourcing production. Business collaboration is generally dominated by production-oriented companies, crowdsourcing some of their production lines, and cooperating with other companies to improve their operational efficiency and achieve time and cost savings. Crowdsourcing production is generally dominated by sales-oriented companies, crowdsourcing all production processes of products, and by the requirements of product demanders, individualized, and innovative products are realized based on lower costs. At present, the typical domestic shared production capacity model includes the i5 intelligent system of Shenyang Machine Tool and the Alibaba Amoy Factory. In 2012, Shenyang Machine Tool Plant successfully developed the “i5 Intelligent Numerical Control System” as the world’s first system with network intelligence capabilities, which can integrate the operating status of intelligent machine tools through the Internet platform and big data technology. This system can realize the sharing of the idle time of the machine tool, use the full life cycle of value-driven products, and achieve the purpose of on-demand sales. Alibaba’s Amoy factory was formally launched on the Alibaba Group’s website 1688.com in 2013. It is committed to opening the production capacity of high-quality factories to Taobao sellers. The specific operation is to organically integrate the idle time of each factory to achieve multi-cooperative production, and provide customized services for Taobao sellers’ small single demand. The “Amoy Factory” also forcibly promoted the transformation of the manufacturing plant’s e-commercialization, creating an ecosystem that links the entire online clothing supply chain, and solved the problem of small singlemeasurement models, inventory, and factory account periods. In general, the shared production capability model can integrate production resources, increase production efficiency, and reduce production costs. Through the sharing of the available production capacity to achieve collaborative production, companies can no longer independently produce, but also make customized, personalized products more flexible and convenient production. On the one hand, for the demand side of the product, the search cost, production cost, and management cost of the company can be greatly reduced under the advantages of full docking of information in the shared production model, flexible production of the factory, and the realization of low-risk production. On the other hand, for the suppliers of production capacity, the schedules in the shared production capacity model can be flexibly

15.13 Sharing Production Capability Model

281

arranged, which can significantly reduce production risks and order receipt costs, and at the same time facilitate the promotion of product innovation and accelerate enterprise transformation. At present, China’s shared production capacity model is still in its infancy, and the scale of development needs to be further expanded. It can be speculated that the shared production capacity model will have the following trends: ➀ The importance of sharing production capacity models will become increasingly prominent, and applications in areas such as engineering construction, equipment production, energy development, and production capacity integration will become increasingly common. The use of new models will greatly promote the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry and realize industrial value-added; ➁ The platform for production capacity sharing will gradually form an integrated system structure in the rapid and iterative updating of technology, and the production and manufacturing methods of society will undergo tremendous changes. The increase in the level of informatization will prompt the advent of the era of intelligent manufacturing, and large-scale production networks will be established with the features of coordinated equivalence, flexibility, and openness; ➂ The shared production capacity model will attract more and more individuals and small, medium and micro enterprises to participate and create unlimited value for participants.

Chapter 16

Application of Sharing Economy

In the future economic life, all resources can be shared. In this context, people’s lives and work methods will also undergo profound changes. The scope of the sharing economy is rapidly expanding at a speed unexpected to people. The global sharing economy has entered a period of rapid expansion. From the initial sharing of cars and houses, it has rapidly infiltrated creative design, innovative R&D, finance, life services, expression, knowledge, skills, and cultural media. At the same time, sharing economy is accelerating its expansion into many other areas such as manufacturing and government management. The concept of sharing will be accepted in more fields and undergo great changes under its influence.

16.1 Creativity and Maker The sharing of resources advocated by the sharing economy is not limited to tangible resources such as housing and automobiles. Creative resources such as personal wisdom and thinking can also be shared and enhance value. In this section, the Creative Maker will explain how this abstract resource can be used more efficiently in a sharing economy.

16.1.1 Creative Sharing and Maker Creative sharing is the integration of resources such as individual and institutional decentralized and surplus wisdom, thinking, and innovation awareness on the Internet platform. It can be shared with specific individuals or institutions through free or paid forms to maximize the use of creative thinking in society as a whole. Resources to complete creative work more efficiently.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_16

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The word “maker” was originated from the DIY (do it yourself) culture, which was popular in early European and American countries. With the development of information and communication technology and the emergence of a variety of new production tools, DIY enthusiasts can use the Internet, 3D printers and various desktop processing equipment to turn their ideas into real products. These are designed according to one’s own ideas and made original things. The person who creates and shares ideas and turns them into reality is called the “creator”. Under the background of the sharing economy, on the one hand, creative-minded people implement creative activities based on internet platforms built by enterprises or spontaneously formed and display or sell creative results through the Internet; on the other hand, other enterprises or individuals (demanders) can search and get creative results through the Internet and use them.

16.1.2 Forms of Creative Sharing and Maker Space The service platform set up to achieve the sharing of ideas includes both online and offline maker space, and through creative intelligence resource integration and information sharing, a lower start-up cost and more efficient entrepreneurship practices maximize the satisfaction of society’s need for creativity. 1.

Creative Sharing Platform

From the concept of creative sharing, we can see that the main way for creative sharing is through the Internet platform. The demanders and providers of creative products can realize transactions on the platform. The creativity itself also realizes sharing and benefits, while the creative products providers are the ones who are willing to share ideas and make profits in the process. Product trading in the creative field is characterized by low frequency, high unit price, and non-standardization. Therefore, this kind of transaction is prone to disputes, and there are also a series of problems such as intellectual property protection. For small and medium-sized micro-enterprises, the difficulty of trading products in the creative field is particularly obvious. These companies have limited funds and cannot normally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to invite top design teams to design or provide related services. For these companies, there are not many options available. In the same way, service providers in the creative sector are also faced with many difficulties. They often face shortages of orders and idle resources and labor. What is even more important is that there are a large number of people with creative and idle time in the private sector who cannot make their ideas because of a lack of opportunities. To solve the trading of products in the creative field, relevant internet platforms have emerged as the venue for trading. Taking Pigs as an example, the current platform business includes 420 categories including creative design, marketing, and technology development, covering almost every aspect of the creative field. This

16.1 Creativity and Maker

285

website brings together a large number of creative demanders and sharers. The platform is based on the specific needs of the demanders and the timing of the sharers (creative product providers), space scale, knowledge and skills, production efficiency, and service attitudes—matching so that demanders find the right partner as soon as possible to facilitate the transaction. The value of such platforms is not only reflected in providing a platform for creative transactions, but also provides opportunities for a large number of creative personnel to start a business. With the development of the platform and the increase of business, a team of creative professionals is gradually emerging. In the studio, this is the birth of the maker, and the platform for creating creative ideas for sharing customers has formed a space for creating passengers. 2.

Maker space

“Makers” use the Internet platform to share their ideas with individuals or organizations that need them, and through this process realize the value of creativity. At the same time, there is also creative sharing among makers. The Makers gather on one occasion and share their knowledge and ideas, so as to create more effectively. This place is called the “Makerspace”. The “Makerspace” is derived from the combination of English “Maker” and “Space”. Makerspace is a place for guest activities, work and cooperation. It is a laboratory, studio and product processing room for open communication. As a carrier of maker activity, Makerspace can be seen as a physical laboratory where people can gather to create new things by sharing knowledge, sharing ideas, and working together. Makerspace is essentially an integrated form of creativity and entrepreneurship, and it is designed to stimulate creativity and service to complete the purpose of entrepreneurship. The garage coffee in Zhongguancun, Beijing is a typical recreation space. After the entrepreneur or entrepreneurial team has passed the certification of the garage to become a member, the garage provides the client with resources for sharing office space, entrepreneurship consulting, etc., and obtains site fees, advertising fees, and consulting fees and meals from it.

16.1.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Creative Industries and Makers There are a lot of creative people in society. They come from all walks of life and have different skills and knowledge. They also have their own creative thinking that is different from others. It can be said that everyone has their own ideas. However, limited by the limited capacity of the creative field, not everyone in the traditional economy can enter the value of realizing creativity, or there are differences in the creative resources of different individuals. This field cannot be the best choice for all individuals. Therefore, many scattered ideas or inefficient creative resources

286

16 Application of Sharing Economy

are easily overlooked. However, in the sharing economy environment, all valuable creative resources can be integrated to form a resource of great value. Firstly, the open creative space breaks the limits of the traditional creative field capacity and can meet the needs of mass participation. This is the basic condition for the integration of creative resources. Internet platforms such as the Pigand-Pine Network serve this role, and the threshold for individual participation in creative creation is greatly reduced. Individuals can easily access the platform, receive demand information at any time and place, and create their own conditions, greatly promoting the role of sharing in the creative field. Secondly, the sharing of the maker space realizes the free flow and creative interaction of intellectual resources such as knowledge and skills and satisfies the needs of learning-led social activities. Individuals’ creative ability is limited after all, and creative activities are becoming more and more complex and require a variety of knowledge and skills. The formation of a passenger space enables the makers to share resources and collaborate to complete the creative process. Finally, the emergence of platform companies to a certain extent eased the problem of intellectual property protection for creative product transactions. From the actual situation, many entrepreneurs have a high degree of rigid demand for intellectual property, and traditional offline channels are difficult to satisfy everyone’s entrepreneurial environment. The Internet platform has already taken a step in this aspect. For example, the “Pig Bid” of Pigkey Online provides trademark registration application services for companies in a platform trading model. In the future, other property rights services are in urgent need of development. This is not only a protection for the makers but also a new profit point for the platform.

16.2 Entrepreneurship and Innovation In 2014–2015, Premier Li Keqiang repeatedly put forward the concept of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” and proposed to turn it into a new engine of growth engine for the economy and stimulate market vitality. The sharing economy can awaken people’s entrepreneurial potential and innovation consciousness, increase the resources required by entrepreneurs, and lower the threshold for entrepreneurship, which will form a huge impetus in the field of entrepreneurial innovation.

16.2.1 Innovation Sharing and Mass Entrepreneurship Innovation sharing is an innovative model implemented by an organization or individual for innovation, with basic features such as openness and sharing. It is a model that utilizes advanced technologies such as the Internet and modern communication to integrate innovative resources such as knowledge and talents effectively. It is managed and operated scientifically. The public participates in this model

16.2 Entrepreneurship and Innovation

287

which transcends the size of the general organization and breaks through regional restrictions. The sharing of a series of innovative resources, such as huge, autonomous and dynamic information, spontaneous innovations and related institutional policies, has created conditions for public entrepreneurship. The sharing economy provides a new way of thinking for mass entrepreneurship, that is, making full use of the functions of the Internet, providing a channel for entrepreneurs to trade through shared platforms directly. Small and micro-enterprises and even individuals can access innovative resources conveniently, quickly, and effectively. The original investment cost of innovation is reduced, and each entrepreneur has the opportunity to create unique corporate advantages, innovate more new business models and lifestyles, increase the chances of successful entrepreneurship, and lower the threshold for entrepreneurship.

16.2.2 The Development Process of Innovative and Entrepreneurial Shared Space The concept of “sharing” is deepening in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. With the development of information and communication technologies, the links between innovation and entrepreneurial behavior and technologies such as the Internet are gradually deepened. With these emerging tools, entrepreneurs can more effectively do their own innovative thinking into a real product and achieve the purpose of starting a business. From the process of development, the entrepreneurial sharing space has gone through three stages: “hackerspace”, “innovation lab” to “maker space”. 1

Hackerspace

The act of entrepreneurs gathering in a place to innovate and create can be traced back to the hackerspace of the 1990s. Different from the decentralized independence of early entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs in this space began to spontaneously share and cooperate in the form of creative behavior, which was very close to the current sharing economy. 2.

Innovation Lab

With the rapid development of Internet technology, various innovative and entrepreneurial resources of “hackerspace” have gradually entered the social field. The narrow scope of “hackerspace” can no longer meet the innovation and creative activities of entrepreneurs, and the “innovative labs” in various physical space forms became the production and sharing platform for the new entrepreneurial innovation movement. Entrepreneurs gathered in the lab for innovation, sharing resources, and collaboration. The innovation lab has the characteristics of open borders, relying on materialized space operations, and expanding the main body of innovation and entrepreneurship to the public.

288

3.

16 Application of Sharing Economy

Makerspace

Makerspace is a socialized maker space. It is a collective name for entrepreneurial project development with features of open-source, all-factor, low-cost, and convenience. The characteristics conform to the trend of mass innovation and innovation in the sharing economy era, providing ideal creative space and professional services for mass entrepreneurs. The Makerspace is generally open to all the public, adopting a system of partial fees or membership services, promoting communication between entrepreneurs through various activities. As the entrepreneurs work in a commonplace, they can help each other and share resources.

16.2.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Entrepreneurship and Innovation Under the background of the sharing economy, the resource constraints of entrepreneurs are broken, the pace of entrepreneurship and innovation is accelerating, and many entrepreneurs can gather resources and collaborate in an open environment. The concept of sharing has had a huge impact on the field. (1) Under the sharing economy, various forms of entrepreneurial space provide entrepreneurs with an open and innovative entrepreneurial environment and sufficient resources for innovation. Various infrastructures in the space, such as office supplies, equipment, machine tools, electronic instruments, raw materials are the basic resources for entrepreneurs to complete creative activities. Entrepreneurs can acquire innovative resources for free or at low prices, thereby reducing the initial input cost of innovative entrepreneurial activities. (2) Entrepreneur’s innovation and entrepreneurship activities are shared within the entrepreneurial space, and collaborative creation is realized. Entrepreneurs share intellectual resources such as their own knowledge and skills through joint learning and discussion. This kind of creating an environment that shares and cooperates can improve the creative efficiency of entrepreneurs, and at the same time, it can also enjoy the fun of jointly developing products. (3) One of the most important functions of maker space is to incubate new companies by establishing incubators online and offline, and providing innovative services and an entrepreneurial environment. This is an ideal entrepreneurial space for new entrepreneurs. Starting with the registration of enterprises, maker space provides a more convenient way for entrepreneurs. The “cluster registration” model solves the problem of insufficient funds and registration difficulties for entrepreneurs. This sharing platform can integrate various advantageous resources to create a creative model of entrepreneurial incubation, which makes it easier and more efficient for entrepreneurs to access. By bringing various types of entrepreneurs together, increasing policy guidance and support and building a good environment for entrepreneurial innovation, a culture of sharing will be created for entrepreneurship.

16.3 Technology Research and Development

289

16.3 Technology Research and Development In the previous section, the sharing economy has had a huge impact on the entrepreneurial and innovative areas of public participation. Enterprise technology research and development, which is closely related to innovation, also benefits from the concept of sharing. Sharing turns technology research and development from a closed individual business behavior to an open innovation activity, which reduces R&D costs, shortens R&D cycles, and promotes industrial upgrading.

16.3.1 Sharing Economy and Technology Research and Development Technology R&D is a systematic activity with clear objectives for companies to apply new knowledge of science and technology, or to substantially improve technology, products and services. It generally refers to the research and development of products and technologies. Technology R&D is an innovative activity. To achieve the purpose of R&D activities, it requires various qualifications such as capital, talents, sufficient technical support, R&D experience and understanding of the market. In the context of the sharing economy, enterprise technology research and development activities have also achieved new forms of realization. Enterprises use self-built or third-party platforms to publish issues that need to be solved in enterprise R&D. Individuals or organizations use their knowledge and skills to solve problems. All available and decentralized resources are integrated and the wisdom of the public is used to complete the technology research and development of the enterprise. Problem solvers share their own resources in the process, and the company completes R&D activities more quickly and effectively through public sharing behavior.

16.3.2 Forms of Sharing in Technology R&D According to the different internal operation modes of sharing enterprise technology R&D activities, there are mainly three forms: physical space, enterprise technology research and development platform and open technology research and development platform. 1.

Physical space

Physical space for technology research and development is a collection of individuals or entrepreneurs concentrated in a fixed physical space, using physical space facilities, resources and services for research and development activities. The business incubator is the most representative form of physical space, such as Fab Lab, TechShop and new Shanghai workshops. The most obvious feature of physical space

290

16 Application of Sharing Economy

is face-to-face interaction. This kind of communication enables members to share knowledge and skills more directly. Collaborative behavior is more convenient and straightforward. However, due to the limited scope of physical space, it is not acceptable to all the public. There will be a partial access system to provide income from resources such as workplaces and services. 2.

Enterprise technology research and development platform

The enterprise technology research and development platform is a research and development sharing model based on the Internet platform. The platform for such research and development sharing is generally created by enterprises with technical research and development needs. The most typical example in China is Haier Open Partnership Ecosystem (HOPE), which is also the largest technology R&D innovation platform in China. The HOPE platform can be used for enterprises to propose innovation requirements and users submit technical solutions according to their needs. Enterprises will give certain incentives for some technical problems. At the same time, users can also publish technical requirements or the problems encountered in life on the platform. Other users and professional technical staff will provide experience and solutions. The enterprise technology research and development platform is to effectively utilize the wisdom of the network, reduce the cost of innovation, and improve the efficiency of innovation. 3.

Open technology research and development platform

The two forms of research and development mentioned above have already crossed the boundaries of closed research and development and pushed the main force of technology research and development to the public. Different forms have their own characteristics. The capacity of the venue limits the physical space, and the number of participants is limited. The enterprise innovation platform is a “one-to-many” innovation model, and the enterprise demand is the purpose of innovation. The open technology R&D platform, as a sharing platform for the “many-to-many” form of the Internet, extends the boundaries of innovation sharing. The most obvious feature of the open technology R&D platform is that the public is distributed online on a global scale. In this way, all participants can propose R&D needs, and they can also provide solutions for other participants on the platforms such as Nine Sigma, Your Encore, InnoCentive. The open technology R&D platform is a “many-to-many” sharing R&D model. The demand for technology R&D comes from different industries. The questions raised also involve different fields. Other participants can find problems according to the areas they are good at. The form can maximize the use of the innovation capabilities of all participants, achieving a higher level of sharing in technology research and development.

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16.3.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Technology Research and Development The sharing economy turns technology research and development activity from the closed mode of the enterprise to the open behavior, which changes the links and processes of enterprise technology research and development and improved efficiency at the same time. (1) Under the sharing economy, there is a higher requirement for the speed of enterprise transformation and upgrading. To keep up with the economic development trend, enterprises should accelerate innovation and research. However, relying on its own closed research and development form can no longer meet this demand. The sharing economy promotes enterprises to rely on group wisdom for R&D and form a sense of sharing R&D. (2) The sharing economy emphasizes the concept of “sharing”. The resources on the sharing platform are shared and utilized by all parties, emphasizing the right to use resources rather than ownership. Enterprises have technical research and development needs, and they need other individuals’ R&D technology sharing. At the same time, enterprises also need to provide R&D sites, infrastructure, necessary R&D materials and technical support resources. To achieve R&D sharing, it is necessary to achieve resource exchange. (3) The design, process, and implementation of the enterprise technology R&D program under the sharing economy can utilize the public’s innovative resources, reduce the investment in the enterprise exploration stage, and reduce the R&D risk. At the same time, the sharing behavior makes the enterprise resources and public innovation resources reasonable. The waste of resources is reduced, and the income of enterprises is improved, which makes the enthusiasm of enterprise R&D improve, which is conducive to the upgrading and transformation of enterprises.

16.4 Culture Media The integration model of “resources + sharing platform + mass subject” in the various sectors of the sharing economy is also redefining the traditional understanding of the society in the field of cultural media. As a medium of cultural communication, cultural media itself is a platform for information sharing. The rapid development and innovation of the sharing economy have in turn brought about a huge impact on the cultural media field, making cultural media far beyond simple information transmission, providing a new way of thinking for the field.

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16.4.1 Cultural Media Sharing Cultural media uses modern means of communication to communicate culturally and communicate between different cultures through the media. The cultural media field has shown a new form in a sharing economic environment. Various cultural media resources can be effectively integrated to achieve more effective allocation and to share with groups in need. Through the optimal allocation and rational use of various resources in the cultural media industry (such as cultural products, personnel, equipment, information, creativity and data), higher cultural benefits and more new value will be created. The business model in the context of sharing economy reconstructs the cultural media industry. Cultural media companies can share tangible resources such as equipment and employees. The public, as the main body of sharing economic participation, can communicate and share with other people through mobile Internet devices and spread data, ideas, information, content, and other intangible resources and services to each other. It can be said that the change of the sharing economy to the field of cultural media is not only the way of dissemination of information, but all the links and details of its industrial chain such as content production, data mining, information transmission, creative presentation, entertainment consumption, public opinion monitoring, and public relations.

16.4.2 Forms of Cultural Media Sharing There are many forms of the field of cultural media sharing, including infrastructure sharing, intangible asset sharing, and higher levels of public participation in cultural communication. 1.

Material resources sharing of cultural media enterprises

Cultural media companies can increase their tangible material foundation through integrating resources such as media system equipment and office space to rent out. Large-scale cultural media companies have a large number of fixed assets. These tangible resources cannot be fully utilized under their own use. Enterprises share their compensation, which not only makes the resources available to obtain additional benefits but also makes it possible for companies that can not afford those expensive assets to operate. 2.

Using intangible assets to increase value

The sharing economy has brought about a new form of cultural communication. The sharing economy can be practiced as a cultural and economic innovation economy, tapping the media capital with certain influence, and using the media database

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to develop social relations resources effectively. Through incorporating advertisements for various commodities and companies, the economic value of cultural communication will increase. The cultural media field under the sharing economy has become a new type of service format. In commercial operation, the media industry has served as a platform for resource integration. The business idea is to integrate and allocate resources on platforms, and make full use of the resources in the field, with the advertisements, channels, and service extensions as the basic means of operation and integrate the quality products and service resources of the whole society. The cultural media sharing provides convenient and comprehensive channels and marketing services for the supply side of the resources and provides the demand side with the products that are in contact with the channels, thereby improving the resource allocation efficiency of the cultural business units and obtaining higher levels of income. 3.

Public participation in cultural communication

In the era of sharing economy, a large number of digital media means represented by the mobile Internet provide a very convenient access channel. Through mobile devices, individuals can instantly exchange, spread, interact, trade and other content. Decentration makes every individual become the main body of cultural communication, thus greatly weakening the problem of information asymmetry. New communication technologies are connecting all smart devices and all the individuals, using them into the global Internet, thus reducing the cost of cultural communication, production, acquisition, processing and other processes. The convenient access channel makes it easy for cultural media to have a large number of users who are willing to communicate with each other. Users can spread almost everything from pictures to music, from logs to news, from videos to books on social media. Although most of the information sharing on the Internet is free, it fosters and forms the habit of individuals sharing cultural products with the global human being through a new Internet medium. Thus, participants in the field of information communication in the cultural media field become the public, and the spread of culture has reached an unprecedented height both in scale and speed.

16.4.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on the Field of Cultural Media The rapid spread of the sharing economy in the cultural media has brought about tremendous changes in the operating models and participants in the field. Under the current state of development of the industry, the sharing of cultural and media resources is still dominated by free, and the participants are transferred from the enterprise to the public.

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(1) The current stage of cultural media sharing still needs to implement a free-touse model. The free model has created more wealth without destroying the existing industry. The so-called free mode here mainly refers to cultural media companies as a platform for sharing cultural resources, providing users with free communication and receiving channels, and supplemented with various services to continuously enhance the user experience. When the cultural media field absorbs enough consumers, the basic purpose of cultural communication can be realized, the scope of influence of the field can be expanded, and value can be created by various forms of value-added means. (2) One of the elements of the sharing economy model is the participation of everyone, following the rules of the public to create value, and promoting the development of sharing economic society. Each individual has resources and can also become a distribution channel for resources. Sharing can integrate the ability of individual dispersion to make efficient use of various resources of each individual or organization. Individual resources have the advantages of specialization and personalization. Under the background of rapid development and upgrading of the Internet, the public can easily access the cultural communication platform. Everyone is a recipient of cultural products. At the same time, it has become the main body of cultural communication and production, improving the efficiency of cultural resource allocation and making the cultural media industry more efficient.

16.5 Knowledge and Skills In the knowledge society, knowledge has become the most important production factor, and knowledge and skill-sharing is also an important part of the sharing economy. In the concept of “coordination” of the sharing economy, we mentioned that the sharing of knowledge and skills is a higher form of sharing economy model than the sharing of car and house. This section will explain the sharing of such abstract resources.

16.5.1 Knowledge and Skill-Sharing The sharing of knowledge and skills is to use the Internet platform to integrate the publicly dispersed knowledge and skills resources, open them to individuals or institutions in need, or to match the knowledge and skills between the supply and demand sides to realize the transaction and effective use of such abstract resources. In this way, the production and living needs of all parties are met. Before sharing economy, knowledge and skill resources can only be transmitted or used at specific times, in specific places, and for specific subjects. For example, teachers can only impart knowledge to students in schools, doctors only treat patients

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in hospitals, and chefs can only cook for customers in restaurants. Such limited use of knowledge and skills greatly reduces the efficiency of resource utilization. Under the concept of sharing, knowledge and skill resources can be used efficiently to create more value.

16.5.2 Forms of Knowledge and Skill Sharing According to the different ways of providing knowledge and skills, the sharing forms are divided into B2C, C2C and O2O. Some platforms operate with a single model, and some are compatible with several sharing modes. (1) B2C. The B2C model refers to the huge amount of knowledge involved in many fields of platform integration, which is provided to users for free or for a fee. Taking Baidu Encyclopedia and Baidu Library as an example, Baidu Encyclopedia is a platform open on the Internet for multi-person collaborative knowledge creation. The public can apply for accounts on the platform and edit the entries of Baidu Encyclopedia. Baidu Encyclopedia acts as a platform that integrates popular knowledge and frees it to other users for reading and citation. Baidu Library is a collection of valuable articles from various industries, which are provided to users for reading and downloading and adopt a partial charging system. The providers of the articles can also obtain certain rewards (such as virtual currency). Other examples like online education, education institutions organize lecturers to teach on the Internet platform, users pay a certain fee for learning, such as “Hujiang Network School” and other online education platforms. (2) C2C. Due to the complexity and diversity of knowledge and skills, as well as the subdivision and professionalism of user needs, the C2C model has developed rapidly. That is, the public publishes information about their own knowledge and skills on the platform, and users use the platform according to their own needs. The communication tools are in contact with these “experts” who have knowledge and skills. The experts conduct knowledge transfer, counseling and Q&A online. In addition to the online education given by the lecturers of the educational institutions mentioned above, there are also individual teachers of traditional offline education institutions to teach and trade through online platforms. “Sanhao Network” is the platform of the C2C model, which matches the teachers and the students, so that individual knowledge and skills can be shared. The online medical industry is currently dominated by the C2C model, such as “Good Doctor Online”. The platform brings together doctors from all over the country and from different fields to provide online medical treatment, medicine, and drug purchase. (3) O2O. That is, online matching knowledge and skills between the supply and demand sides, to reach a trading intention, offline to provide knowledge transfer or skills service model. “Who to learn” is a typical O2O model learning service platform that matches teachers and students online and completes the teaching process offline. The private kitchen door-to-door and kitchen sharing in the catering industry is also the knowledge and skill-sharing of the O2O model. The private kitchen chef can

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make full use of their fragmentation time. “Love chef”, “Dining” operate in the form of sharing the chefs in each household, and individuals can use the free family kitchen to earn income.

16.5.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on the Field of Knowledge and Skills The sharing economy breaks the space and time constraints of the knowledge and skills field, and the sharing subject also changes from a fixed professional to the public, which greatly promotes the process of communication, dissemination, and transaction, reduces the acquisition and use cost, improves the efficiency, makes knowledge and skills create greater value. (1) Before sharing economy, owners can only rely on institutions (schools, hospitals, restaurants, etc.) to transfer and trade their knowledge and skills in a fixed time, and obtain income from the organization. Under the sharing economy, with the help of the Internet platform, the process can be completed directly between the owner and the demander. This de-intermediation trend makes the service process of knowledge and skills more convenient and faster, and also reduces the cost of resource acquisition. (2) The sharing economy enables the sharing of knowledge and skills to be extended from fixed professional personnel to the public. Each individual with certain professional knowledge or special skills can become a supplier of resources, and the expansion of the scope of resource owners has greatly increased the amount of knowledge and skills resources. (3) The reduction of the cost and the increase of sharing subjects make the use of knowledge and skills more efficient and create greater value.

16.6 Financial Services China’s financial industry is huge, but at present, the real economy still has financing difficulties and high financing costs. Financing difficulties have made the development of industries that need financial support, especially SMEs. The high cost of financing has increased the overall cost of the real economy, making the economic transformation more difficult. In this context, Internet finance broke into the financial world. As an emerging financial model, it has revolutionized the traditional financial system and concepts. Due to its influence, traditional financial institutions have also used Internet technology to transform their businesses to meet the challenge, known as the “financial Internet”. In essence, Internet finance is the expression of the sharing economy in the field of financial services.

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16.6.1 Sharing Economic and Financial Services In the financial field, through modern information technology such as cloud computing and the Internet, the supply and demand sides of financial resources can be effectively connected, so that financial resources and services can be directly traded and be more effectively allocated. Then the public can enjoy financial services. The sharing economy drives economic and social development and makes significant changes in the financial sector. Emerging financial models such as third-party payment, P2P, crowdfunding, and e-commerce finance are typical representatives of Internet finance. Traditional financial institutions have launched e-banking, mobile banking and other businesses, and insurance, securities and trust industries have also launched online businesses. Some large banks relying on a large number of customers even start cross-border e-commerce. Such as ICBC makes huge e-commerce transactions in a short period of time, and thereby drives the rapid growth of the banking business, creating a new ecosystem of financial integration and the Internet. These financial models are all concepts of sharing in the financial services field.

16.6.2 Forms of Financial Services Sharing In the context of the sharing economy, the combination of the financial industry and the Internet has made financial services more participatory, easier to operate, and lower entry costs. Internet platform companies have become an important way for the public to enter the financial sector by relying on their own capital and credit advantages. At present, the financial service platform mainly includes third-party payment platforms, P2P, crowdfunding platforms and e-commerce platforms. 1.

Third-party payment platform

The third-party online payment platform is an Internet payment intermediary channel for the exchange of funds and the payment instructions for the two parties to the transaction. It is based on an independent agency with certain financial strength and credit guarantee, using the Internet as a technical means, integrating card-based payment tools such as various bank cards, or using third-party online payment tools (virtual accounts, virtual currency). Alipay and WeChat payment are third-party payment platforms, providing a simple, fast, and secure online payment channel for e-commerce. In the third-party payment mode, after the buyer purchases the goods online and concludes the transaction intention with the seller, the account provided by the thirdparty platform is used to pay the payment to the platform, and the platform notifies the seller of the payment and requests the delivery. After the buyer receives and inspects the goods, the platform is notified to make the payment, and the platform transfers the money to the seller’s account (as shown in Fig. 16.1).In this mode, the

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Fig. 16.1 Process of third party payment

third-party payment platform shares its own credit, the buyer avoids the risk of not receiving the goods, and the seller avoids the risk of not receiving the payment. At the same time, the platform also shares the interface with the bank’s payment settlement system, making it easier and faster for buyers and sellers to pay for transactions. 2.

P2P and crowdfunding

P2P network loans, that is, peer-to-peer lending through the Internet platform. The P2P network loan platform combines borrowers who have capital needs with investors who are eager to increase capital and collects processing fees as platform revenue. At present, P2P mainly has three modes of operation. One is a purely online model. Qualification review and fund lending activities are carried out online. The second is a combination of online and offline modes. The borrower is strictly qualified for offline review and then financed online. The third type is the pure offline trading mode, which only provides information online. Platform companies and customers do the specific lending business face-to-face. Crowdfunding refers to the mode of raising fundraising projects to raise funds for the public through the Internet. The operation mode of crowdfunding generally is that the project originators who need funds provide the project information to the crowdfunding platform. The platform evaluates the project. The evaluation results show that the project is feasible, and the originator can introduce the project to the public and raise funds on the platform. Both P2P and crowdfunding are models for raising project funds from the public through the Internet platform. Investors share funds and support the realization of borrower projects. They also receive capital appreciation or other benefits, gain more investment opportunities and reduce the cost of the project. The time for financing can be shortened, and the chances of success in the project will be greatly improved. 3.

E-commerce platform

The e-commerce platform is that e-commerce companies form big data based on the e-commerce transaction information and other external data, and use advanced

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technologies such as cloud computing. When consumers and suppliers have insufficient funds and have financing needs, the e-commerce platform raises funds from the public and provides guarantees to the demand side, lending the funds to the demand side. For example, the wealth management business of e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba and Jingdong, relying on the advantages of its huge customer data, provides a convenient matching channel for both the supply and demand sides.

16.6.3 The Impact of Sharing on Financial Services In the traditional economic-financial service field, the channels for individual participation are greatly limited, and the risks are high. The main participants are institutions. However, under the concept of sharing economy, the public can participate in the financial field more conveniently, and the characteristics of fragmentation also greatly reduce the risk of each participant. Under the shared economic environment, resources have the characteristics of “fragmentation”. Fragmentation of funds is the primary manifestation of fragmentation in the financial sector. The funds required by the capital demand side, looking for a small number of investors according to the traditional financial model, often require a long period of negotiation. But in the sharing economy, the platform gathers funds of a small amount but a large number, which can quickly raise funds needed and accelerate the flow and efficiency of the funds. Secondly, the more important fragmentation is the fragmentation of risks. In the case of failure, funds are difficult to return. In the past, investors often faced great risks. In the sharing economy, as each investor has a small amount of capital, the risk is relatively reduced. The role and rights of the public are valued. The public is the starting point of the financial resource transaction chain. Under the traditional financial operation mode, most of the personal funds can only enter the entire financial system through channels such as banks, stocks, bonds, and some complex securitization products. In the process, individuals often only serve as “raw material” providers for financial institutions. In the sharing economy, as the public in the upper reaches of the financial sector, it has played a greater role in the provision of financial products and services and has a higher status. As new modes reduce the barriers for individuals to enter the field, they can directly become suppliers to the financial sector through the Internet and capital sharing platforms.

16.7 Life Services People’s understanding of the sharing economy first came from the field of life services. Zipcar, the car rental company founded by Robin Chase, the originator of the sharing economy, was an early successful sharing economy case. After the trip sharing, Airbnb, established in 2008, successfully shared the unused accommodation

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space with the tenants. In 2009, Uber further improved Zipcar’s shared travel mode, attracting owners to join the platform rather than the company to purchase vehicles, which greatly increased the supply of travel resources and reduced transaction costs. After transportation and housing rental, the sharing economy quickly spread to other life services such as catering and housekeeping. Sharing behavior can be seen everywhere.

16.7.1 Life Service Sharing Sharing in the field of life services refers to an economic activity that relies on the Internet platform to integrate the resources, skills and services of life service organizations or individuals to meet people’s various needs more conveniently. Life services contain more content. At present, the main life service sharing is mainly concentrated but not limited to the following areas: (1) Traveling areas. The Internet platforms integrate the transportation resources owned by the company or integrate social vehicles, driving skills or idle seats, and calculate and match the travel supply and demand through big data. (2) The field of housing rental. Through the Internet platform, the platform information of the platform enterprises’ own or socially dispersed accommodations is collected and provided to users in need. The Internet quickly matches people with vacant rooms and those who can’t find temporary accommodation. The idle houses are used to the maximum extent, the tenant needs are met, and revenue is generated for homeowners. (3) Catering area. In addition to the most common takeaway food delivery services, the catering sector also includes chefs, home kitchens, and shared kitchen capacity. For example, the “Star Chef” service provided by “Love Chef”, “Huang Tai Ji” factory store sharing production, logistics and terminal distribution. (4) The field of domestic service. Through the Internet, laundry, cleaning, pet fostering, student after-school custody and many other housekeeping services achieve one-to-one efficient matching.

16.7.2 Forms of Life Services Sharing The sharing in the field of life services is mainly in two forms. One is that the platform enterprise has the service resources and the service is provided to the users, and the other is that the Internet platform integrates the offline public service resources and matches the supply and demand sides.

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Ways of sharing travel

There are three main modes of operation in the transportation sector. The first one is the platform to collect supply and demand information, the user and the vehicle are matched through the platform, and the platform provides docking services for both parties. DiDi and Uber, the most common travel platform in China, are in this mode. The second mode is that the platform enterprise owns the vehicle and the professional driver. The user sends out the travel information on the platform to find the vehicle. After receiving the information, the platform informs the vehicles nearby. This mode is most representative of Zipcar. The third one is that platform companies provide vehicle resources for users to use, and both Mobike and ofo are in this form. In 2015, the number of vehicles connected to the mainstream traffic sharing platform exceeded 10 million, accounting for more than 6.5% of the national total, covering 250 million users, accounting for 18.3% of the national population, covering 60% of the country’s cities. 2.

Housing rental sharing method

Housing sharing is most typical of an online short-term rental. The main modes are C2C platform mode, B2C platform mode and vacation equity exchange. The C2C platform model, represented by Airbnb, is a travel rental community where users connect with destination homeowners via Airbnb and complete lease transactions, renting a home from an individual rather than entering the hotel. The B2C platform model means that the enterprise owns the house or controls the house, and the house is uniformly renovated and managed. The income is divided by the platform and the landlord. This model, such as “Tujia Network”, can control the quality and safety of accommodation, but it also results in limited housing and increased costs. “Weshare” introduces a new model of vacation equity exchange. On the Weshare platform, consumers purchase the property rights of the holiday property in proportion, and all buyers share the ownership of the property according to the purchase share, and the owner can be transferred and inherited. 3.

Catering industry

The sharing mode of the catering sector is currently mainly the shared kitchen capacity of the B2B2C model. The “Huang Taiji” shared take-out factory store has created a new B2B2C model for the catering industry. The factory store has standardized equipment and processes to process food raw materials into take-away products and factories. The production capacity is also available to other brands. 4.

Housekeeping services

The main modes of housekeeping service sharing are C2C mode, B2P2C mode, B2B2C mode and a mixture of these modes. The C2C model is the same as in other areas, matching the service requirements and suppliers through the platform and completing the transaction. The B2P2C mode (shown in Fig. 16.2) is a broker-

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service

Look for work

Look for

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i

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provider

service demande

assign match

task

match

broker

Fig. 16.2 B2P2C mode

provider

B2B2C platform Look for work

provider

Look for service Agency

demander

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Fig. 16.3 B2B2Cmode

style direct mode. The professional brokers sent by the service platform provide matching services for the service demanders. Although the labor cost is increased, the efficiency can be accelerated and the time can be saved. It is often used in medium and high-end services, which can better meet the requirements of demanders, and has “Guanjiabang” on behalf of enterprises. The B2B2C mode (as shown in Fig. 16.3) means that there are many intermediaries on the platform. Intermediaries rather than platforms match users. On behalf of enterprises, there is “Yunjiazheng”.

16.7.3 Sharing the Impact on the Field of Life Services In the field of life service, affected by the sharing economy, the main body of the service provider has become the public, and the service content has become more and more. The standardization of services, industry access and regulatory policies, and changes in the profit model have become issues that cannot be ignored in this field. (1) The transaction objects in the field of life service are various types of services. The quality and quantity of services are not standardized as the products of the manufacturing enterprises, and the standardization of services cannot be effectively guaranteed. The variety of services varies widely, and service providers are also more

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complicated. For example, vehicles have different skills, drivers have different skills, and the level of chefs on-site services is uneven, and there is a lack of uniform training and assessment. It is difficult to guarantee that service providers have qualified skills and qualities. The sharing economy has accelerated all kinds of services to become trading objects. To meet the needs of most users, service standardization will become a major trend in this field. (2) The party providing the service under the sharing economy changes from the enterprise in the traditional mode to the individual, and the individual uses the platform to provide services through the platform. Then the business license system of the enterprise under the traditional business model is not applicable under the sharing mode. Due to the lack of a series of systems for individuals to serve through the platform, the platform will gradually introduce corresponding access and regulatory measures to ensure the rights and interests of both parties. (3) The barriers to entry in this field are relatively low, so the homogenization competition between the platforms is serious.”Shaofanfan”, that was once invested by IDG and Lei Jun was shut down because the chef’s door-to-door model is difficult to profit and expand the scale effectively. The shared bicycles chased by big capital, ofo and Mobike are also searching for-profit models. As a new economic model, the sharing economy will guide enterprises to find new profit points and innovate more ways of doing business.

16.8 Express and Logistics The sharing economy not only integrates resources such as accommodation, transportation, capital, living services, and knowledge and skills on the supply side, but also creates new models in various fields, and spreads to the field of express and logistics, which is more convenient for users at the demand side.

16.8.1 Express and Logistics Sharing Express and logistics sharing refers to the integration of express logistics resources through the platform, shared with other parties in the industry to obtain and use, thereby improving the operating efficiency of the entire express logistics system, reducing logistics costs, and achieving optimal allocation of express logistics resources. Because the express logistics resources under the traditional form cannot be shared and the process is not coordinated, serious resource waste is caused. Advancing the sharing concept in the field of express logistics can bring many new forms, reduce logistics costs and improve logistics efficiency.

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Express logistics resources not only refer to the logistics resources of logistics. In the complex logistics system, various resources such as logistics information resources, machinery, equipment, storage facilities, and human resources can be shared, laying a foundation for promoting the development of sharing in the field of express logistics.

16.8.2 Forms of Express and Logistics Sharing Due to the diversity of express logistics resources, the sharing economy also has many different modes in this field. In summary, it can be divided into freight resource sharing, logistics information sharing, facility equipment sharing and warehouse sharing. 1.

Freight resource sharing

The sharing of freight resources is mainly the sharing of vehicles. The main mode is joint distribution. Different brands or different customers have the same destinations to share the distribution resources and use freight vehicles to the greatest extent to avoid waste of resources. There is also another mode such as UberRush service in the same city that Uber opened in the United States. Individuals with idle vehicles can carry out cargo distribution and solve the problem of short-distance transportation in the city. 2.

Logistics information sharing

The main mode of logistics information sharing is to build a freight Internet or to share freight information and freight resources through a public information platform to achieve cargo matching. The realization of O2O innovation in the logistics industry through information technology can reduce the return of empty vehicles. This model is currently the hottest logistics innovation. 3.

Facilities and equipment sharing

By sharing idle facilities and facilities, express logistics companies can make full use of their own resources, create more value, and avoid waste of resources. At present, the most important facilities and equipment sharing in the industry is forklift leasing. The forklift rental platform integrates the forklift supply chain to enable efficient forklift equipment sharing. This model dominates the international forklift market, and the development of domestic forklift rental is also very rapid. As the sharing economy develops, more resources will be shared. 4.

Warehousing sharing

With the rapid development of e-commerce logistics and the innovation brought by the application of warehousing Internet, cloud computing and big data technology

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in the logistics industry shared warehousing resources can be realized. Companies can choose to ship storage facilities nearby, reduce transportation time and storage costs, and improve supply chain efficiency.

16.8.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Express and Logistics The development of the sharing economy has brought about tremendous changes in the field of express logistics. The logistics industry is rethinking itself under the influence of the Internet. The traditional point-to-point and central-radiation transportation of the logistics industry should give way to distributed joint transportation, thus transforming global logistics. (1) Due to the sharing of freight resources and logistics information resources, the delivery of goods can be distributed. The driver who transports the goods does not have to reach the final destination. He can choose the center point to deliver and load the goods back. The other drivers are responsible for sending the goods to the next location. The distributed transportation solves the low loading rate of the logistics industry and will surely become the development trend in this field. (2) The sharing economy promotes the generation of common standards and agreements in the field of express logistics. Since the entire logistics system consists of many different types and sizes of enterprises, there is no uniform standard and Internet technology cannot be used for collaborative sharing. In order to reduce operating costs and improve operational efficiency, it is necessary to form fairly authoritative standards in the industry to regulate each enterprise to achieve effective sharing of logistics resources. (3) Warehousing sharing shortens the delivery time of the enterprise and the cost is also reduced. If the inventory of the enterprise can be distributed in the storage location near each final market, the customer can easily arrive and take the goods, then the delivery of the enterprise time and outbound costs will be close to zero.

16.9 Manufacturing At present, the sharing concept is mostly used in the field of consumption and service. However, the manufacturing field also has great potential in the sharing economy. It will show new solutions to the overcapacity of the traditional industry and the pressure of industrial upgrading.

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16.9.1 Manufacturing Sharing Sharing in the manufacturing sector refers to the integration of enterprise R&D, manufacturing, and sales of the entire manufacturing process, relying on open and shared enterprise platforms or Internet platforms so that all participating companies on the platform even individuals, can use the platform to share the resources they own, and they can also get the resources they need. With the help of the platform, the manufacturing industry can achieve matching of production and demand through oneto-many, many-to-many and other modes, and the company can produce according to customer needs. The sharing economy has transformed the manufacturing process of the manufacturing industry from internal behavior to cooperative production. With the function of platform matching, the manufacturing industry has achieved on-demand production. It can be seen that the sharing economy increases the production capacity of the manufacturing industry. And the combination of production and sales has improved operational efficiency.

16.9.2 Forms of Manufacturing Sharing According to the nature of the resources, there are three different sharing modes: platform enterprises share resources, shared resources among enterprises, and resources shared by all parties in the entire industry chain. (1) Platform enterprises share resources that they own. This kind of platform is a platform for resource aggregation. It is the most common form of manufacturing sharing. Taking the “Gongyeyun” as an example, enterprises can not only rent or purchase from this platform. A large number of office software and other resources can also order a full range of value-added services related to enterprise operation, such as product R&D and design, manufacturing, personnel training and organizational structure. With these resources and services, enterprises can continuously improve their operational level, discover problems and improve business efficiency. (2) Resources are shared among enterprises through platforms. This platform acts as a resource integration, gathering production capacity or various intellectual resources in social enterprises, and establishing an open enterprise social platform across industries and regions. Various resources on the platform can be quickly connected with the demand side to form a socialized production model. The resource supplier provides the production, design and creative innovation services of the products to the enterprises in need through the platform to realize the effective allocation of resources and the maximization of value. (3) The sharing platform links information, business, and funds between upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry chain and between enterprises and consumers. Enterprises in the entire industrial chain from the R&D design, manufacturing to consumer services collaborative sharing, to achieve cross-organizational,

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cross-regional industrial chain collaboration. For example, computer design companies can publish a large number of computer component design tasks through the platform. The individual designers in the society can collaborate on the platform and on-demand according to the requirements. After the design task is completed, the product can be quickly manufactured through online 3D printing, which greatly shortens the cycle and cost of design and production, and improves the operation efficiency.

16.9.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Manufacturing The optimal allocation and efficient use of social resources is the core issue of economic research, and the sharing economy is an emerging model for the efficient allocation and utilization of social resources in the Internet age. The sharing economy will accelerate the transformation and sustainable development of the industry and the entire economic society. (1) The sharing economy advocates the concept of “collaboration”. Collaborative innovation is the core driving force for the development of enterprise production. The manufacturing industry has also stepped out of the traditional closed operation mode. Enterprises share resources such as production and innovation with other enterprises in the same industry or upstream and downstream enterprises to achieve socialized production, improve production efficiency and use efficiency of resources, reduce production costs, and achieve win–win cooperation. (2) Manufacturing production sharing solves the problem of uneven distribution of manufacturing capacity and unsatisfied customer’s individual needs. The biggest advantage is that it only needs a unique design, and does not need to have production and processing equipment. The problem of a lack of funds can be partially solved. At present, the domestic production capacity representative enterprises include Alibaba Amoy Factory and Shenyang Machine Tool i5 Intelligent Machine Tool. The sharing of production equipment has just started, and there will be broad prospects for development in the future. Robin Chase, the originator of the sharing economy, believes that equipment, machine tools, precision instruments and other industries will be an important area for future sharing of the economy. These industries all belong to the field of heavy assets. The heavy assets field requires a large amount of capital investment. The cost is high but the efficiency is usually low. The production resources are greatly wasted. Capacity sharing can improve the efficiency of resource allocation and has greater utilization value. The sustainable development of China’s economy is inseparable from the manufacturing industry. Sharing production capacity can find the optimal enterprise for production through the platform, which is in line with the thinking of China’s supply-side reform. (3) The sharing economy will effectively alleviate the problem of overcapacity in the manufacturing industry. The existence of excess capacity is often not due to insufficient demand, but to the lack of suitable demand side due to information asymmetry. The sharing economy, through matching production and demand, makes the

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market more efficient, thus reducing the waste of resources. At present, China has overcapacity problems in many industries such as steel, cement, glass, and infrastructure. However, infrastructure construction in many areas is still seriously inadequate. At the national level, it can provide a large sharing platform based on the concept of sharing economy, allowing domestic overcapacity enterprises and relevant demand enterprises to establish contacts to solve information asymmetry. On the one hand, it can strengthen infrastructure construction in backward areas and bring benefits to local people. On the other hand, it can solve the problem of overcapacity in traditional industries and play a very important role in the success of China’s economic transformation.

16.10 Government Management Public wisdom sharing can be applied not only to individuals or institutions in the creative field for product design, production and trading but also to public decisionmaking and supervision of public utilities. The typical area is information disclosure and group decision-making in government management. Government management often involves a very wide range of fields. It is difficult to ensure the applicability and effective implementation of decision-making by relying on internal government personnel. The wisdom of the group can be used to achieve better results. Through the supervision of the public, it can also ensure the implementation and improvement of decision-making more effectively.

16.10.1 Sharing in Government Management The government is the carrier of the state’s public administration power. In order to ensure the government’s management work and improve the efficiency of government operations, the government must actively promote its own government innovation. The concept of sharing economy has also been fully reflected in government management. Its application has played a very significant role in improving the scientific nature of decision-making, realizing the positive interaction between government and society, improving the ability of government management innovation, and building a harmonious society. The sharing of government management refers to the government sharing social information resources to the public through the establishment of portals and other platforms. The public participates in social management activities through certain procedures and channels, absorbing public opinions on policy formulation and implementation, and concentrating public wisdom. That will enhance the transparency of government work, so as to achieve the purpose of reducing management costs and improving management efficiency.

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16.10.2 Forms of Government Information Sharing At present, the sharing method in the field of public affairs is mainly to build an Internet information disclosure platform by the government, to disclose relevant project or policy information on the platform, and the public to participate in decisionmaking or supervision by consulting public information. For the disclosure of information by government agencies, the law stipulates that the administrative agency shall publicly disclose government information that meets one of the following basic requirements: (1) involving the vital interests of citizens, legal persons or other organizations; (2) requiring extensive knowledge or participation by the public; (3) the establishment, functions, procedures, etc. of the administrative organ; (4) other shall be open to the public in accordance with laws, regulations and relevant state regulations. E-government is currently the main form of government management. With the support of modern Internet technology, the daily office, information collection and distribution, and public management of government agencies can be managed in a digital and networked environment. E-government has realized the sharing of resources such as the sharing of information between government departments, the release and sharing of government information to the public, and the participation of the public in decision-making and supervision through e-government platforms. Take the US government as an example. The United States is the first country in the world to propose the concept of e-government, which provides a reference for other governments. The US federal government and local governments have established government websites to share resources with their citizens. Citizens can view government information on the website, handle various matters on the website and view relevant information, as well as use the government’s information database resources. In order to ensure the effective operation of e-government, the United States has introduced a series of comprehensive laws and regulations concerning egovernment implementation, information disclosure, privacy and computer security. Under the premise of technical support and legal protection, citizens can make good use of government shared resources to supervise government behavior and participate in improving government management.

16.10.3 The Impact of Sharing Economy on Government Management Activities Under a series of new modes, such as open government affairs and e-government, government management activities have undergone new changes in their decisionmaking and implementation processes. These are the transformation and innovation processes of traditional management activities. (1) Under the sharing economy, government management activities make full use of the basic element of “everyone’s participation”. Government management

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involves many fields and requires the comprehensive use of various knowledge and skills. Only internal decision-making by government departments is unrealistic and untrustworthy. Group wisdom, joint decision-making and public supervision are the guarantees for the effective implementation of decision-making. Government departments should follow the trend of sharing economy and share information. The public’s sharing of knowledge and skills and participation in government affairs decision-making and supervision will be a trend in government management activities. (2) Compared with the information disclosure system of other countries, the construction of the information disclosure system of government units in China still needs to be improved. The guarantee of the rapid development of e-government in the United States is a powerful legal and regulatory system. In order to promote the construction of information disclosure in China, the public has the right to know. Relevant laws and regulations such as privacy protection will be gradually improved. The relevant administrative departments will strengthen the coordination, management and supervision of information disclosure. Self-regulatory mechanisms, internal supervision and industry supervision mechanisms will be established accordingly. (3) Due to the sharing of government information, government regulations are open and transparent, and public participation and social management also ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of government policies and improve the credibility of the government. At the same time, public participation in decision-making and management also reduces government decision-making and implementation costs.

Chapter 17

Profit Model of Sharing Economy

The sharing economy provides greater choices for trading entities, forms new trading relationships, saves resources and protects the environment, reduces costs, enhances the efficiency of the use of resources, and serves multiple parties to obtain high profits. It is a brand-new way to gain profit. The sharing economy acquires physical resources and flows resources provided by producers and consumers by creating value for demanders. The platform uses resources for redistribution to obtain remuneration, that is, creates surpluses. Through surplus creation, it is possible to make the sharing economy profitable. The profit-sharing model of the sharing economy can be divided into the following nine types: The supply-side demand-side platform provides the platform to exchange surplus-value to obtain revenue through evacuation; the platform fully taps customer resources to extend the service value by providing low-price and high-quality services; cooperating with third-party agencies to indirectly make profits; the improvement of customer stickiness and the increase of customer base make the platform have advertising value, so the advertisement and bidding position increase the profitability space for the platform; the continuous development of the platform’s flow and the interface can not only bring investment to the platform but also bring new ways to obtain resources and realize the superposition of resources.

17.1 Connotation of the Profit Model of the Sharing Economy The profit model is important for enterprises to obtain profits, and is the core content of the company’s value creation. From the point of profit model, as mentioned by Timmers P. (1998), the profit model is an architecture that integrates products, services, and information flow. Under the sharing economy, the profit model is to use the resources owned to recreate the value after satisfying the needs of suppliers, demanders, and platform owners, and obtain returns by providing information, services, and platform cooperation. Based on the changes in the value chain © Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_17

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at different stages in the sharing economy, it is necessary to innovate the traditional business model of the enterprise. To realize the effective allocation of value benefits, how the sharing economy model achieves profitability and long-term operation has become the key. Under the traditional profit model, revenue comes from customer-oriented sales, while costs come from external suppliers and internal operations. In the sharing economy model, the marginal cost of many goods and services is almost zero with the development of the Internet and the expansion of the scale. It is the sharing through the platform that greatly improves resource utilization, reduces the cost of products and services, and makes it possible to obtain profitability at low prices. Also, the sharing economy model has a wide range of income sources, not only from the demanders of goods and services but also come from suppliers of suppliers and users of platform resources. Companies can not only obtain a ratio of supply and demand but also use value-added services such as investment in precipitation and big data analysis. Its cost mainly comes from the operation and maintenance of the platform, the input of information technology and research and development costs. As can be seen in Fig. 17.1, within a certain range, as the number of products provided increases, the cost of sharing gradually approaches zero. “Sharing” is to build a platform for connecting various nodes through the ever-growing communication technology, and to increase the efficiency of production while at the same time shifting the “exchange value” to “shared value” so that it can also be profitable at low cost and low price. In addition, the sharing economy has a wide range of applications. It has infiltrated all aspects of our lives. The sharing economy has seen the emergence of many unicorn enterprises. Among them, Uber and Airbnb, the leading companies in the sharing economy, have far higher valuations than similar traditional services. For enterprises, this chapter first builds the framework of the O2O profit model based on the profit models of these two companies. In addition to the basic participants in the sharing economy model of the architecture, the extension of the platform and the resources of the platform have multiple

Fig. 17.1 Cost and price of sharing economy

17.1 Connotation of the Profit Model of the Sharing Economy

Individuals,

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Social networks, credit agencies, Individuals,

government agencies

corporations, etc.

corporations, etc. Third party charge extraction

extraction Idle resources

Platform

Differentiated services deliver personal brand and reputation

Traffic and interfaces add value to resources by providing extended services

Demand

Long tail users extend to the mainstream users

Fig. 17.2 O2O Profit model in sharing economy

forms. Therefore, the profit model of the sharing economy is also diversified. It can not only earn income by providing services for consumers and consumers. It is also possible to use services such as traffic to provide services for other interest demanders so as to obtain income, so that “wool in sheep” has more forms of transformation. In fact, in different modes, companies pay different ways to obtain income. However, technologies such as resource integration, big data matching, etc. can significantly reduce the costs of hiring, time, and transactions, and ultimately use the multiple revenue models to achieve high profits, as shown in Fig. 17.2.

17.2 Nine Profit Models for Sharing Economy 17.2.1 Pumping Mode Sampling both sides of supply is one of the most common ways for third-party platforms to directly obtain revenue by providing services. Just as Uber collects commissions from each one-way customer, it provides subsidies to the supply side to increase user stickiness; Beijing Run Technology Co., Ltd. gains proceeds by drawing income from the landlord. The sharing economy provides a platform for both parties to provide direct communication, to meditate and meet the needs of both parties, and greatly reduce transaction costs. In pricing, carpools, taxis, private cars, and riders are taken as examples. They vary in price due to service differences. But the common denominator is to calculate the price before the user gets in the car so that the user’s travel cost is greatly reduced and the experience is no different from the traditional taxi, even higher, so that the “buyer”, “seller” and “platform” in the

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transaction gains in the process. Besides, the mode of sharing trips has also enabled the deployment of environmentally-friendly resources, potentially reducing the cost of environmental governance, and it is also an aspect of sharing economic enterprises that reflects social responsibility. Most of the sharing platforms rely on trading commissions to obtain revenue. According to the sources of commissions, they can be divided into the following three types: The first is to charge the service fee to the supplier, that is, whenever the platform trades a transaction, the company will draw a certain percentage of the commission from it. This is what most platforms use. For example, the Didi platform will draw a 5% service fee per order, the Beijing Run Technology Co., Ltd will charge 10% of the total order amount as a service fee, and everyone will receive 20% of the delivery fee as a service fee. The chef will collect 9 yuan for each chef, etc. The second is to charge the buyer for the service fee. For example, the doctor’s surgeon platform draws 10% of each of the consultation fee and hospitalization fee as a commission. The third is that the platform collects fees from both parties, such as Airbnb, which charges 6–12% of the rent from the lessee and 3% of the homeowner’s surcharge. Taking the current domestic online short-term rental platform as an example, the main way to make a profit is to collect a commission from the landlord. For example, in the case of Airizu, the platform extracts the commission from the transaction amount by 5%. The pricing is based on the landlord’s pricing and a certain percentage of it is rented as a short-term rental price. In addition, Tujia is responsible for the cost of the pricing and the property fee through the landlord, and the income is divided according to the ratio of 55 or 64. Similarly, the short-term rental profits of ants also come mainly from the transaction commission, which is charged to the landlord according to 10%. The houses are mainly from individuals, and the types include apartments, houses, villas, etc. The Beijing Run Technology Co., Ltd. is also the same as 10% of the transaction amount. Charged to the landlord, there is a certain difference between the type of housing and short-term ants, including the main house, inn, farmhouse and so on. However, in the early stage of operation of such a short-term rental market, the collection of listing information and customer information is more important, and the zero-commissioning model often appears. In addition, the advent of the mobile internet era not only affects people’s clothing, food, housing, and mobility. In terms of knowledge acquisition, mobile phone reading gradually occupies part of the reading market with its abundant resources and low prices. Taking Cloudary as an example, we use the “store-in-shop” model to open cloud bookstores in the platform, and the stores are priced independently. Currently, out of the market development stage, only 5% of books are charged at a low price, and charge models are gradually developed. Taking the APP Store of IPAD and iPhone series products as an example, the mobile terminal serves as a “third-party platform” and cooperates with the operator to protect the digital copyright of mobile reading content, enabling the content provider to sell the content through the platform. Apple and traditional content The provider’s revenue share of the content sold was 3:7, which basically achieved the continuous profitability of mobile reading services. Finally, taking China Mobile as an example, the classic old book was promoted

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Products and The supply side

The demand side

Pay extracti

extracti

Platform

Fig. 17.3 Pumping mode

twice through the mobile reading platform, and the “long-tailed” effect of secondary distribution formed the second wave of considerable revenue growth. It can be seen that the profit model of mobile reading in China is mainly based on the user’s fee for reading. The function of the platform under the sharing economy is to provide a match for both parties. The real product service is to supply both parties to conduct transactions directly across the platform. This process not only saves costs, but also enables the platform to obtain tangible benefits by satisfying the value of all parties, and accumulates potential producers and consumers for the platform, laying the foundation for other profit-making methods and providing resources, as shown in Fig. 17.3.

17.2.2 Customer Resource Value Mining Mode The customer resource value mining is a trade-off between the effort and the gains felt in the relationship between the company and the customer. The customer resources here include not only monetary but also non-monetary. With the continuous development of the market economy, science and technology continue to innovate and products are becoming more and more abundant. The supply and demand relationship in the current market makes customer competition become the focus of market competition. The importance of customer resources is self-evident, and it is not only the guarantee of corporate profits, but also the cornerstone of corporate longevity. From this perspective, the exploration of the value of customer resources is particularly important. It can not only guide the development strategy of the company, but also analyze the characteristics of the customer’s attributes to classify and mine the potential needs of customers and customers. In order to achieve the maximum value of customer resources and the maintenance of customer resources under the business unit transaction costs. The sharing economy platform is based on the interests mentioned above of the enterprise, and data mining is conducted through the accumulated data such as customer resources, customer clicks, and customer browsing time.

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It can be said that the effective use of customer resources has played a key role in the allocation of resources for enterprises. The customer resource itself has strong value, and the value of customer resources can be more fully utilized through technologies such as cloud computing and big data mining. Taking Alibaba as an example, it has become China’s largest B2B, B2C, and C2C platform. After more than ten years of accumulation, Alibaba has established an ecological circle, that is, multiple collections of interests, such as channel providers, manufacturers, and consumers. Its trading process can be briefly described as follows: The company’s trading platform supplies, consumers and other transactions through the personal trading platform, middlemen can feedback the consumer’s personalized needs to the manufacturer to provide guidance, supporting cloud computing, financial services and payment tools can provide value-added services for SMEs by tapping into the value of the aforementioned customer resources. It can be said that Alibaba has built a “new business ecosystem”, which is the “CBBS” big market system. We can also call it Ali’s shared platform. It is this system that allows it to provide derivative services (value-added services) by grasping customer data resources. According to the Alibaba Annual Report, 8% of its revenue comes from its value-added services. Such customer data mining can also make full use of Alibaba’s financial operations. We can divide the business of Ali Group into three modules: “E-commerce platform”, “Ali Financial” and “Data Services”. Alibaba Group’s e-commerce platform provides a wealth of resources for Ali’s data services. Strong customer support and a large amount of transaction information provide the data foundation for data services. These data and information have subsequently become Alibaba’s credit rating resources. We can look at the complementarity of the three modules as a shared platform. The “e-commerce platform” and “Ali-finance” are nodes that link goals or potential customer groups. One can provide a strong customer base and the other can be the customer base provides lending services. At the same time, powerful data services can analyze the credit level of the “Ali Financial” target customer group, thus providing user transaction information for the “Ali Financial” microfinance business and virtual credit payment business. In return, “e-commerce platform” and “Ali-finance” will provide information services such as credit conditions and transaction status for data services, which in turn can provide value-added services through such big data analysis. This is an interlocking linkand mutual support for sharing mode, as shown in Fig. 17.4.

17.2.3 Platform Resource Extension Service Mode The reason why a sharing economy enterprise can make profits is based on meeting the demand value of both supply and demand. Therefore, the platform also grasps a large number of customer resources from the supply and demand sides, uses customer resources for data analysis to achieve a win–win profit model, and at the same time

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Customer support and a lot of

E-commerce platform

transaction information

Data services

Ali-finance

Information Base of Data Service Provided by

Customer resource is the core resource of

Customer Resources and Transaction

micro-credit technology. Data information

Information

provides customer credit rating.

Fig. 17.4 Three business modules of Ali group

provides customers with extended services, so that “wool in the sheep” has more forms. Fragmentation such as LBS and UGC reduces people’s reliance on a single platform and enhances their initiative. At this time, the platform is no longer simply pursuing a simple increase in the number of users. Instead, it increases user interaction by increasing the interaction between users. For example, WeChat public number provides a way for enterprises to release information to users for free to get users’ attention and information dissemination, and the platform itself has also enriched the service content of the platform in the interaction between enterprises and users and realized the value increase. In this platform, service numbers, enterprise numbers, and subscription numbers act as different communication roles. In reality, they share platform resources and share them through customer resources. The roles of enterprises change from simple customer roles to content creation. Internet merchants or individuals built by users through the platform can switch between single-dimensional and multi-dimensional identities. It is through such a user transformation process that the WeChat platform extends its own service value through customer resources, and realizes the free exercise of limited manpower. It is a joint mode of mutual trust and mutual benefit under the trust economy. From a business perspective, the platform provides the foundation for establishing its own brand, content distribution, advertising, and access to user data. It also provides individual user users with access to and distribution of useful information. This is based on customer resources. Based on the foundation, such value-added services will drive fee collection for free, and will gradually realize the corresponding profit model by training fee-collecting users, so as to obtain cash flow. In addition, mobile phone APPs such as the China Internet Plus Group also use the platform resources to provide customers with various extended services. We can think of a group buying the app as a platform. This platform can acquire the user’s address and business address through positioning technology. It not only provides users with nearby businesses, but also cooperates with merchants to make profits for users and forms a mutually beneficial relationship; in turn, the platform can also give feedback to merchants through the number of users’ purchases and reviews. Through

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positioning technology, big data analysis and other means, the platform provides customers with convenient, inexpensive and high-quality products and services. On the other hand, it attracts customers, provides transaction data such as user spending habits and user feedback. Similarly, mobile reading platforms can also use mobile reading bases and content providers to provide predictive services for sales of physical books and profitability of digital distribution in advance, that is, use customer resources for data mining value-added services. Taking the China Mobile platform as an example, the mobile reader will first publish the new book through the mobile reading service platform, and then the traditional publisher will timely adjust the issuing quantity and pricing strategy of the physical book according to the market response data provided by the mobile reading terminal. In order to solve the traditional publishing industry, high inventory and piracy and other issues. The profit composition is based on the first subsidy, and then divided into the actual proportion of digital distribution revenue, not only for its platform to obtain content guarantees, but also through the platform’s resources to achieve value-added services and drawn from digital distribution. In addition, platform resources have also injected vitality into the development of the media. We often refer to self-media as a semi-UGC platform. UGC refers to user-generated content, or user-generated content. The common self-media platforms include vertical UGC media, represented by Huxiu and 36Kr, and the other is a self-media platform represented by Headlines. These media platforms will have professional reviewers, professional editors, and reporters. Besides, these platforms will also have non-professional writers, which will increase the flow of the platform through user acquisition and provision of content and give full play to “masters in the private sector”, enhance the richness of content from the media platform. As Rifkin said: Information needs freedom, big data also needs to be spread. It is precise because of the analysis of individual sources of millions or even tens of millions that you can find a model by taking an inverse look and use the content and data shared by everyone to solve the problem, making the data of great value. As shown in Fig. 17.5, the platform can use data such as user views to analyze, not only providing users with quick access to relevant content that meets their needs, but also using keywords to double the benefits of merchant marketing. This use of platform extension service value can make the platform indirectly gain.

17.2.4 The Platform Charges the Use Fee Model The sharing platform can earn profits by directly collecting usage fees, which is also an important profit model in the sharing platform. In the case of HomeAway, which is relatively mature in the overseas online short-term rental industry, the main profit model is the housing information display fee. HomeAway’s services are free of charge in providing services to tourists, including information search services, listing information review services, and listing information rating services. For sellers, HomeAway will provide free services such as process management, form consulting, and

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Add value to resources by providing extended services through traffic and interfaces

UserA1 UserA2

User stickiness

UserA3 Platform UserA4

User B

Value-added

Value-added

UserA5 UserA6

LBS positioning, big data mining, cloud computing and other technologies realize supply and demand matching.

Fig. 17.5 Platform resource extension service mode

spam filtering. However, landlords or real estate managers who have a listing need to pay for the opportunity and location to display their rental information on the website platform. The cost, when visitors use the HomeAway website to search for rental housing, the listing information is presented in the corresponding result location. According to the SEC filing submitted by HomeAway, its 2010 information display fee income accounted for 91% of the total revenue. In addition, JD Mall will also charge the platform directly for the use of shops. The fee is based on a monthly cycle, and the platform will be used to pay the platform monthly fees. The seller system of Taobao automatically deducts fees. Whether it is Tmall or Taobao, the use of an ant flower platform will also charge a certain fee. In addition to the usual fees, the platform can also be profitable by providing services such as establishing a personal brand reputation. Taking microblogging users as an example, its users include not only individual netizens, but also various types of companies. However, individuals and enterprises have the desire to use microblog platforms to establish brands, and this demand is also a microblog business. The extension of value laid the foundation. The Weibo platform provides powerful support for online marketing through user interaction and a powerful operating promotion platform. The Big V certification service launched by Weibo for celebrities and certain institutions can be applied to the enterprise area completely: based on the company’s payment, the real name certification of the company is similar to that

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Collect fee according to the time Sharing platform

User Get user stickiness in low cost

Fig. 17.6 Mobike profit model

of a VIP service. Twitter also has begun to try to provide similar services to some merchants. In addition, Mobike that are currently developing rapidly in China’s shared economically developed cities is also directly charged through platforms for profit. Unlike Uber, Mobike model is B2C. It also has the platform and the ability to mobilize existing social bicycle resources. However, due to practical problems in product specifications and high difficulty in identification, Mobike is self-produced. In addition to sharing cases on the Internet platform, manufacturing sharing is a new type of integration of production capabilities and a development trend of the sharing economy in the future. Typical representatives of the manufacturing industry in Shenyang Machine tool factory and AliTM. In 2012, Shenyang Machine tool factory successfully developed the “i5 Intelligent Numerical Control System”, which is the world’s first machine tool and platform system with network intelligence. It uses the Internet platform to use a variety of financial leasing methods and means to realize idle time leasing of machine tools, and even if the payment is paid according to user needs, this not only realizes the integration of the intelligent machine tool operating status but also realizes a shared platform with supply and demand matching, which is connected to the platform of intelligent machine tools. The shared platform of Shenyang Machine tool factory is to provide direct charges through the provision of customized services and intelligent machine tool idle time to obtain usage fees, as shown in Fig. 17.6.

17.2.5 Third-Party Charging Mode The sharing platform can provide valuable services for both parties, but such services are provided only through the resources that the platform can obtain. In the end, there are limitations. With the development of the platform, the platform will cooperate with third-party agencies to cater to the needs of users to solve problems such as user credit mechanism and insurance mechanism in the sharing economy environment, or to form a strategic structure with each of the third parties for mutual benefit and mutual benefit. Some of the future share the development trend of the economic

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platform. It is also the platform that relies on a large number of supply and demandside user groups in trading commissions and cooperates with third parties to provide profit-making models for value-added services. To realize the value of the Internet, it is necessary to improve relevant institutional mechanisms and credit mechanisms. Only mutual trust can truly improve the efficiency of resource allocation. On the one hand, the platform can evaluate the user’s credit according to the user’s evaluation and rule compliance. This is a mechanism based on platform credit evaluation; but on the other hand, the relevant information provided by the platform may not be convinced. Third parties need to be introduced to evaluate the prices of houses, vehicles and provide insurance. For example, Tujia will use the comprehensive pricing conditions of the house to be priced by the professional pricing agencies. Another example is the overseas HomeAway. Its profit model is more diversified. This point has also been mentioned before. In addition to some basic information such as home listing information, HomeAway has also set up value-added service projects. Value-added profitability includes travel insurance and damaged housing insurance. The partners of the short-term rental platform, in addition to the insurance company, also have property management and travel websites, the first two are for the maintenance of the housing, protecting the interests of the landlord, the latter can form a mutually beneficial relationship with the short-term rental platform: one can bring rich, the other source is to attract customers by offering a variety of short-term rentals. In addition, the JD home Internet platform is cooperating with a chain supermarket, Beijing Huaguan. After the cooperation, there are approximately 6000–7000 orders placed daily in JD, and 80% of the orders are JD members. They can buy offline. Then through JD to crowdsourced express delivery and enjoy the door-todoor service, JD is profitable by dividing it with Huaguan. It can be said that this is the development path for the transformation and upgrading of the traditional retail industry and represents the industry trend in the future. Retailers can upgrade their services through JD.com while they do not have to pay for the cost of an expensive delivery staff or build complex and expensive Internet marketing. JD Home uses its own advantages to achieve integration of online and offline resources, and through cooperation with various entity operators. After getting a share between them, JD.com provided a convenient service to Hua Guan’s customers. Hua Guan brought a new profit growth point to JD.com, and the two parties benefited from each other and achieved win–win cooperation as shown in Fig. 17.7.

17.2.6 Advertising Expense Model The fierce market competition and the ever-changing market demand make suppliers, sellers and other different economic entities move toward the pursuit of high efficiency and low-cost advertising. The sharing economy platform attracts a large number of traditional manufacturers and other enterprises with its strong customer traffic. It can be said that if a platform accumulates enough users and traffic, it will

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Fig. 17.7 JD home-sharing model

Crowdsourcing

The consumer

logistics

terminal

Business

have advertising value. This is also a profit model common to almost all Internet sharing economic platforms. Take the social platform Twitter as an example, in November 2009, the number of global independent users visited was 60.30 million. This kind of traffic has enough advertising value. In addition, Internet platforms, search, portals, forums, and other websites provide users with free search engines, video downloads, and other functions. The website uses its rich user resources to realize the advertising profit model, and realizes a user-free and user-charged platform-sharing model. This mode of using the platform for sharing is also the primary form of the sharing economy and is a cross-subsidy. Taking China’s domestic portal site as an example, the four most influential portal websites in China are Tencent, Weibo, NetEase, and Sohu. Weibo ranked second in terms of traffic. According to the 2003–2012 financial statements of the four portals, the highest percentage of advertising revenue in total revenue is Weibo and Sohu, and the proportion of advertising revenue is increasing year by year. For example, the advertising strategies of Weibo and Sohu can be described as “free content + advertising”. The platform also uses the “media platform” as the main model. The cost input is mainly in news editing, and the revenue is mainly in advertising. Its advertising methods are also varied, such as mandatory pop-up advertisements, button advertisements, banner advertisements, video advertisements, etc. Advertising costs are extremely low but profitable. Weibo uses advertising revenue streams to deliver customer value through promotions and products. NetEase enriched the way advertisements are delivered through free e-mail and NetEase games while ensuring a strong customer base. NetEase and Tencent can be said to be models of “relational platforms”. Their main feature is to shift “platform production content” to “user production content”. Such an interactive sharing platform meets the needs of the development of shared information in the current era will have more powerful customer resources, become the basis for advertising profits.

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Another example is the one-stop advertising platform, Spread Ease, which has achieved rapid growth for a large number of users by creating an online transaction model, using third-party guarantees to improve credit and improve after-sales services, and dissemination as an all-around comprehensive advertisement. The platform saves marketing, operation, and other costs and directly captures advertising revenue. The method of using advertising to obtain income is also varied, for example, according to the advertising price basis, according to the number of clicks, according to the number of product sales, according to company performance and other methods to obtain advertising revenue. It is precise because of the diversification of advertising methods, low cost, high returns and other advantages. That advertising revenue is one of the profit-sharing methods shared by many shared platforms. In addition to the above-mentioned common advertising model for sharing platforms, there is a mode of sharing advertisements. The resources such as massive customers owned by the sharing platform are not only the target groups of advertising distributors, but also can be the main body of advertisement dissemination, in addition to sharing advertising revenue, we can cultivate a loyal customer base, and we think this will also be a new model for the profitability of sharing platform advertising in the future.

17.2.7 Traffic Mode There are two main channels for gaining profits through traffic. One is the sharing of traffic expenses with mobile operators in our narrow sense, and the other is the use of platform views to earn profits, and the latter’s approach to gaining profit is obviously more extensive. The pattern of using the profit from traffic charges in a narrow sense is well understood, and it is mainly divided directly into cooperation with mobile operators. For example, the development of communication technology has motivated more and more users to access the APP through the mobile phone. In the process of reading or downloading content, the user will inevitably generate corresponding traffic expenses, which will accompany the gradual accumulation of users. The cost of traffic generated will be more and more, when APP developers can discuss and share with mobile operators. Besides, some mobile operators will also actively collaborate with some enterprises to develop APPs and sign flow-sharing agreements, but this profit model is not the mainstream model. The flow in the broad sense refers to the number of users on the website and the number of views. Through the sharing of resources, there will be an additive effect of participants, and the participation of some participants will attract a large number of participants. These may be viewed as a form of traffic. But in terms of traffic itself, it does not have high value, and more value comes from the value-added value it achieves through artificial intelligence or data mining. In addition, there are many ways to increase value as the traffic on the website grows. For example, when we log

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in to a website more frequently every day, this site has something we need. There are mainly three ways we can obtain this: free access, paid access, and freedom to get resources exchanged, etc. In the process of obtaining the necessary resources, we have increased the website traffic to realize the added value of the website. At a deeper level, the website uses user data to identify the needs of keywords and browsing history accurately and matches the user’s consumption habits and other characteristics, thereby enabling accurate push. Taking Taobao as an example, sometimes we buy things because we see what we want, or want to buy in a certain scene, or through the target search, Taobao achieves an increase in traffic, a large amount of data is precipitated, through the data analysis can infer what you might want to buy and push it accordingly. When the flow realizes value-added, it can not only help the platform provide valuable services through data analysis and mining, but also can obtain huge financing. This is also the reason why it is difficult for the sharing economy to make profits through the platform in the early stages of the sharing economy, but it is still possible to use wind funds to support the operations of the platform and other reasons. Taking Tujia.com as an example, it leverages the traffic resources of the relevant platforms to enable the promotion of business and the spread of business value, for example, by allowing OTA (Online Travel Agent) to participate in shares and share a large number of resources to establish a partnership. Tujia used to be both an entity and a platform. After accumulating vast amounts of resources through the platform, Tujia obtained shares on this basis to realize the vertical integration of the entire house-sharing and leasing industry. The sharing of resources has made this platform bigger and bigger. Besides, Tujia also attracts apartments to join partners through its own traffic, brand, quality management and service advantages. While guaranteeing the quality of listings, it can also directly charge franchisees the franchise fee, and achieve horizontal expansion of the platform and a variety of benefits. Taking the “Zaixing” and “Fenda” as an example, this type of restriction that breaks time and space and social environment and received academic quibbles. At present, more than 10,000 enterprising individuals have daily transactions of up to 800 transactions and have won huge amounts of financing; “partnerships” have received the highest annual hot-spot in one month, attracting many superstars, and they have been “online”. The advantage of the shared platform is the diversification of its main elements. It attracts different types of users in all aspects and thus gains traffic advantages. With the flow, there will be value. Today, with the development of communications, there is too much information that needs to be disseminated and too much content needs to be promoted. However, the exponential communication of information can be achieved by linking multiple nodes through a shared platform.

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17.2.8 Interface Mode An interface is an abstraction that provides itself to the outside world and is a form that can modify the interior without affecting the interaction of external entities with it. Taking the API (Application Programming Interface) interface as an example, this is an application programming interface. Its purpose is to provide a capability to access routines through certain software or hardware, without the need to access the source code or understand the internal working mechanism detail. With the increasing popularity of the Internet, Internet-based applications are becoming more popular. In this process, more sites open their own resources, enhance the relevance of sites, and enrich the diversity of content provided by sites. Sexuality increases the user base of the site and the number of visits to the service. At the same time, it brings value to the user. The site officially passed the open-source API, which not only reduced the cost of its marketing, but also stimulated the creation of more creative services. For example, some microblogs have implemented open-source APIs, mainly represented by Twitter. According to statistics, more than 3000 applications in Twitter are developed by users based on open source APIs. At the same time, these applications have enhanced the attractiveness of Twitter’s original platform. In addition, the open management of copyright is also the use of open API media to allow the final consumer to make copies of copyright rights after the first release of copyright works, such as operating system Linux, encyclopedia Wikipedia, etc., are all using the open management model of copyright. It can be said that it is a challenge to traditional copyright management. Copyright open is to grant users the right to copy, modify, and publish works through a special license while retaining only the right of authorship. Some mainstream international media also began to explore the opening of content in the newspaper industry through open APIs. After opening the API, the content of the website will be “programmable”. From the perspective of third-party developers, he does not need huge hardware and technical resources, and platform providers can gain more market share and traffic. Two well-known newspapers, The New York Daily and The Guardian, are now taking the lead in opening up API. Taking Linux open-source software as an example, the open-source version of the software has led to the sale of commercial licenses of software. In addition, it can also find new market positioning through technical services and receive revenue through technical support such as technical documentation, training, and secondary development. Finally, open source can quickly seize the market through low-cost investment and conduct brand communication. For another example, we now use mobile phones to open word files. Basically, WPS is used by default. In fact, if WPS works with WeChat, QQ, or some browsers, the jump between APPs can also be viewed as an interface. Through open interfaces, increase user traffic. And this source of charge can be a few seconds of advertising during use. Therefore, widening traffic through the interface is also a way to gain profit, thereby attracting investment, advertising, and income.

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But even an API interface is just a common application in SAAS (Software as a service). SAAS is an on-demand software. Through the delivery model provided by the Internet, vendors configure the software on their own servers to provide customers with remote functional service interfaces through the Internet. Customers do not need to purchase software licenses to obtain the services they need online in accordance with the volume of services ordered. It is through such a model that customers reduce the cost of their one-time purchases of software, platform setup, maintenance, and upgrades, and software providers can also realize more profits by renting and selling. For example, 800app. Com not only sells product-based software such as CRM online, but also provides platform-based SAAS for application development platform services for ISVs. In addition, Alisoft.Com also provides platform-based SAAS for online delivery services for ISVs. In fact, the current delivery of software products to customers via the Internet has become a trend, and providing platform-based SAAS products will become mainstream. Compared with the traditional software, the software client does not need to be deployed and installed in the SAAS mode. You only need to use the service interface in the Internet platform to enjoy the software service. And usually can be a free trial run for a few weeks, which is a common operating model of SAAS. Providing remote services through platforms and interfaces greatly reduces costs, and makes this sharing model have unlimited development prospects.

17.2.9 PPC Mode PPC is based on search engine advertising. PPC is also referred to as sponsored search advertising, location paid advertising, and keyword auction advertising. It refers to the use of auctions to assign merchants a limited number of advertising spaces on the search engine and prioritize successful bids, thereby significantly improving the promotion mode in which the information is viewed. The advantages of PPC are the ability to segment customers, match ads, and often pay for PPC ads at a low cost per click. It can be seen that, compared with the traditional promotion methods, the bidding ranking has the features of high accuracy, low threshold, and transparent effects. Although current search engine websites have different bid rankings, the profitability mechanism is very similar. In general, PPC is a method in which advertisers promote their own websites by purchasing keyword rankings from search engines. Search engines, on the other hand, use clicks and periods to bill them. A lot of empirical data shows that the ranking of advertisers’ links in web search results has a decisive influence on the number of clicks and page views. Therefore, the bid ranking is very attractive to advertisers and search engine website parties. Under the sharing economy model, a large amount of traffic was obtained. As mentioned above, it has its own advertising value, and therefore has the advantages and resources of competitive bidding. The Yahoo subsidiary, Overture was used for the first time, and it gradually became mainstream. It was the first promotion method

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adopted by Baidu in China, and later became the profit model of many search engine companies. The main idea is to charge according to the number of clicks, that is, in the search results, the enterprise information that obtains the ranking will be displayed preferentially, and the search engine company will directly charge by clicking the number of times. Baidu can be said to be the most successful search engine for bids. According to “Quarterly Testing of the Search Engine Market in the Third Quarter of 2008,” Baidu’s share of Chinese search engines reached 63.4% in the third quarter of 2008. The latest data also states that Baidu’s share still exceeds 50%, and its profitability mainly depends on the bid ranking. As the name implies, PPC ranks the highest-priority location for the highest-priced merchants based on the index of keywords. This is a per-paid network promotion model. This model can be run precisely because Baidu has the most extensive sharing platform in China. Whether it is Baidu Encyclopedia, Baidu Library, or Baidu Academic, they are Baidu’s ways of accumulating user stickiness to increase coverage. These will eventually become its resources. Taking Taobao as an example, it uses the position on the bottom and right of the search results page as an advertising space for merchants to bid. After the advertiser selects a product to be promoted, a series of keyword settings can be made according to the product attributes. When the consumer searches for the keyword, in addition to the natural search results, the product links that obtain the ranking of the bidding will be displayed in the order of the bid on the right and the bottom of the page order from top to bottom and from left to the right arrangement. After the consumer clicks on the page of the product, the click can be recorded as the number of valid clicks. This is also the most common PPC advertising in electronic malls. Here Taobao is a sharing platform, which obtains information from both sides through a platform for merchants and customers to provide transactions, thereby deriving new services—bid rankings (web promotion) to obtain revenue. It can be seen that, based on the massive information resources of the shared platform and its all-around, full-time, and full-open features, the profit model of competitive rankings is a model in which the Internet sharing platform in the sharing economy can operate effectively. In this chapter, we mainly talk about nine profit models. In fact, the sharing economy’s profit model is rich and varied, with multiple forms of expression. This is because the resources brought by sharing are rich and far exceed the basic products and services brought by the consumers. Sharing the economy is to provide customers with a variety of forms of consumption to bring convenience, reduce costs, and realize the creation of surplus-value. Profits through various forms are based on the superposition of resources and the sharing, resulting in a variety of profitable ways, which is superior to the simple solidified profit model under traditional business. However, on the other hand, the model of multiple platforms for the profitability of such a platform is based on the accumulation of platform users. Therefore, under the premise of pursuing profitability, realizing the value of users is the most important thing.

Chapter 18

Benefits and Distribution of Sharing Economy

All along, enterprises in the traditional economic model are all in the condition of exclusive income. They undergo a chain-like operation process among procurement, production, and sales, and gain self-sufficient profits. Their ultimate goal is to get more profits in the market or even monopolistic profits. However, the emergence of a sharing economy has broken this single process. The sharing economy completes fragmentation and reorganization of the traditional chain-like economic model, and organically integrates the matching between decentralized demand and decentralized supply that makes the operation of the economy more low-power and more efficient. The sharing economy also optimizes and supplements the traditional revenue model. On the basis of traditional economic benefits, more diversified income category has been developed, such as Big data analysis benefit, flow resources benefit and so on. The variable benefits reflect the non-uniqueness of the sharing economy’s income and form the unique income framework of the sharing economy.

18.1 Performance Gains of Sharing Economy As a new economic model, the most important and fundamental benefit of the sharing economy model is its gains in improving enterprise performance. In the sharing economy model, participating entities, including individual subjects, enterprise subjects, informal organizations, formal organizations, and national subjects, will gain more or fewer returns in performance different from traditional economic return. The efficiency will be greatly improved. It can be said that performance gains are the most basic income category of the sharing economy. The enterprise subjects have the most significant response to the improvement of performance gains, and can also reflect the response of the other four major entities to the improvement of performance gains. Thus, in this section, the enterprise subjects with the most desired income are the object to study the performance gains under the sharing economy model. © Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_18

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18.1.1 The Connotation of Sharing Economy Performance Gains The sharing economy will bring performance gains to enterprises. This is due to the features of the sharing economy. As an economic model, the income created by it must have a certain percentage of cash income. The existence of this kind of cash income is the basis for the normal turnover and safe operation of enterprises. This kind of cash income belongs to the tangible benefits and is of considerable value and significance to the business owner and its employees. They are visible and tangible in the process of specific sharing economy practice. Zhang Xiaoqin points out that this part of the income generally comes from the platform supplier or demand side, mainly including income from value-added services such as proportioning, precipitation investment benefit, and big data analysis benefit. The interactive sharing network established by the sharing economy through the Internet also brings about a significant boost to enterprise efficiency. According to the previous chapter, the participants in the sharing economy model include individuals, enterprises, formal organizations, informal organizations, national entities, and some other entities. For performance, these major entities have their corresponding pursuits. Individual entities pursuit of individual’s emotional and material needs through the improvement of performance, the company obtains more lucrative profits by improving performance, informal organizations improve the impact and expand the scope of the organization by improving performance, the nation subjects ensure the development of the country and the stabilization of society by improving performance. Among the pursuit of performance by these entities, the pursuit of performance by corporate entities is undoubtedly the most typical, while the company contains different individuals and organizations. The performance of individuals and organizations is pursued and reflected in enterprise performance. Therefore, the latter part focuses on the performance gains of enterprises in the sharing economy model. Performance is, literally speaking, the combination of achievements and effectiveness. Performance is the result of the company’s output and operations, which reflects the company’s profit goals; efficiency refers to the efficiency or effectiveness, that is the company’s comprehensive consideration of speed, completion, resource consumption and other factors in the process of completing the target and reflects the management maturity of a company. In the process of performance management, its target management object is human, while for human management, because of the self-awareness of human beings, there is a clear distinction between human management practices and machine management, and people will be affected by their own emotions. It means that performance management is the most difficult part of enterprise management. At the same time, because people’s performance is subject to great fluctuations, despite the great risks in business management, the potential benefits embodied in performance management cannot be ignored, that is, good performance management can be improved the benefit more than other aspects. Good performance management can enhance the company’s revenue and value, and bad performance

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management can also result in companies’ failure. Due to the characteristics of highrisk and high-return, how to optimize and innovate performance management has always been one of the focuses of managers. The emergence of the sharing economy has provided enterprises with opportunities on improving performance and profiting from the performance.

18.1.2 Performance of Sharing Economy Performance Gains The definition of achievements and efficiency in performance shows that achievements and effectiveness are complementary to each other. For enterprises in sharing economy model, achievements and effectiveness are also indispensable, while it is precisely through these two changes and updates that the increase in performance gains is achieved in sharing economy. 1.

Achievements

The part of the achievements, that is, the result of the operation and the profit target part is achieved through both increasing income and reducing costs in the sharing economy. Firstly, in terms of increasing revenue, the sharing economy model achieves a more stable and sustained return than the traditional economic model. This is mainly due to the changes in key resource management and business operation models of the enterprises in the sharing economy model. In the economic model, the enterprise adopts an asset-light operating model. The so-called asset-light operating model refers to the contracting of non-core projects such as procurement and logistics based on maintaining their core values and core business. The use of resources but not possessions enables effective deployment of existing idle and inefficient resources, increases resource utilization, and ensures the company’s revenue. American Robinson Logistics is a typical light-asset logistics company under the sharing economy model. “The two major information platforms integrate idle vehicle resources, allowing owners and shippers to share various transportation services.” According to statistics from 1994 to 2014, the annual gross profit and operating profit of Robinson Logistics rose by 14.4% and 15.7% respectively which was much higher than the growth rate of the industry. The light asset model brought continuous value growth to Robinson. In terms of reducing costs, the value concept of “being used and whoever it is owned by” advocated by the sharing economy has enhanced the generation of consumer surplus in a wider range, and has reduced the high costs and social losses caused by monopoly to some extent. This effective allocation of resources has greatly improved resource efficiency. The marginal cost brought by the use of resources by enterprises is also greatly reduced. It also reduces the waste of resources in the course of operation of enterprises and reduces unnecessary losses in many distribution processes.

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Efficiency

For the part of efficiency, the sharing economy has made it even more obvious for companies to improve their work efficiency and process. In modern society, the Internet has become more and more integrated with people’s daily lives, and the Internet’s functions have become more powerful. Through the Internet, people can not only get the information and knowledge they need to meet their own needs. You can also use the Internet to communicate, share, and interact with people all over the world in the part of their feelings, inventions, things they are doing, or everything. Sharing economy rooting on the Internet has inherited these advantages. In the sharing economy, people participating in the sharing platform which is more conveniently and accurately to procure material than the traditional economic make their own choice of materials they need, and through the Internet sharing platform’s rapid connection mode between the supplier and the demand side saves a lot of time for communication and selection. It is also a way to increase the efficiency of the supply of idle resources or suppliers of inefficient resources. Also, in sharing economy, employees can get more pleasure in their work than in the traditional economy. With the pleasure and sense of trust, employees play a more interactive and autonomous role in the daily work of the sharing economy than in the traditional economy, not just a nail in the enterprise machine. For example, in Uber, after private car owners joining Uber, they can not only take advantage of passengers and shortterm rental of private cars to obtain benefits, but also in the process of carrying passengers, they can communicate with a wide variety of people so that they can enjoy the pleasure of communicating with others and make new friends. Owners are more interested in short-term rentals and passengers. They increase their sense of pleasure and satisfaction during the process, thereby increasing their willingness to work on this kind of work. When people are willing to do something or a job, efficiency will be greatly improved. Of course, Uber’s joining a private car driver can’t be regarded as a real employee. However, for the employees of the sharing economy in the true sense, the job satisfaction provided by the sharing economy model is also of significance for improving work efficiency. For performance, its main influencing factors include employees’ skills, internal environment, external environment, and corporate incentives. Employee skills refer to the skills that the employees have to adapt to the work. It can be acquired and improved through acquired training and practice. The external environment refers to the external factors faced by the company and its employees. It is an objective factor that can’t be controlled and changed by enterprise and employees. Internal conditions refer to various resources that enterprises and employees need in the daily operation of the enterprise, they can be changed to some extent. Incentive effects refer to the initiative and enthusiasm of the employees and enterprise to achieve their goals. It reflects the positive degree of the company and employees for the promotion of the company, and the incentive effect is a subjective factor. In the sharing economy model, the sharing economy concept can promote the performance of the enterprise through the influence of the internal environment and incentives. As mentioned earlier, among the four factors, the incentives’ effects are the most

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important. The initiative and initiative factors increase people’s initiative enthusiasm. Companies and employees will try their best to gain support from internal resources. At the same time, the skills level of the company and its employees will gradually be improved. The incentives effects have a positive effect on the employees’ own quality factors. From this point of view, the sharing economy model’s improvement in the level of corporate performance can directly affect the internal environment and incentives, that is, making full use of the company’s own and external resources to bring satisfaction and comfort to the employees emotions. Besides, it indirectly enhances the quality of the employees themselves. In a word, sharing economy is beneficial to the performance of the enterprises in three parts.

18.2 Strategic Benefits of Sharing Economy Similar to performance gains, strategic gains are also a revenue approach that exists in the traditional economic model. The difference is that due to the extensive and effective use of the Internet and the high-efficiency linkages of the sharing platform in the sharing economy model, the scale and diversification of the trading market grow tremendously. The increasing participation of resource owners and participants in resource allocation has made the sharing market have amazing potential. This has created a potential strategic return value. In the process of participating in the sharing economy, the five major entities can gain corresponding strategic benefits by joining the market. Of course, as the organization that pursues profit maximization, the enterprise’s desire for the potential cake of strategic benefits is most intense. Its performance can reflect the response of the other four major entities. So in this section, the strategic benefits of the enterprise in the shared economy model are the main topics.

18.2.1 The Connotation of Strategic Benefits of Sharing Economy The second form of income in sharing economy is manifested in the huge market revenues which are implicit in potential customers and can be said to be a strategic benefit. There are four participating entities in the operating mode of the sharing economy, resources owner, resources demander, sharing platform, and other entities such as supervision organizations, security organizations, etc. The four parties form a model of a highly efficient and low-cost operating mode in the sharing economy model, as well as numerous huge markets for participants. Among them, the supply side and the demand side form a supply-side market and a demand-side with the sharing platform respectively, it is different from the single supply–demand in the traditional economic model. With the widespread use of the Internet, there are

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hundreds of millions or even billions of demanders and suppliers available in the supply and demand markets. Huge flows will bring in huge amounts of capital, and a capital market with amazing potential will be formed soon. Under the traditional corporate economic profit standard, the cash profits created during the operation of the company are expressed in the form of amounts in the accounting statements, and the accounting statements are the most important way to provide business information to the outside. People’s views of current profits and operation status will also be influenced by the values reflected in the accounting statements. At the same time, people’s grasp of the prospects for the development of the enterprise and its future direction is therefore lacking and inaccurate. When one enterprise has high profits and the cash flow is also very high, can we say that this company has a better development prospect? The answer is “of course we can’t”. There are many ways to increase profits and cash flow, such as increasing income and trying to reduce the cost of the enterprise. If the company reduces costs and reduces investment to improve profits in the business process without paying attention to the innovation and promotion of the company’s products and services, without paying attention to the development of new business areas, under the circumstances, even if the final calculated profit figures are enviable, in today’s fierce corporate competitive environment, companies will soon be squeezed to close, and to the last bleak ending. All along, many visionary economists have already understood this principle and are looking for an economic model that can effectively improve the company’s current profits and prospects and then display them appropriately. Now, the sharing economy gets it. In the previous chapters, we have explained the efficient, high-return economic benefits and performance gains brought about by the sharing economy. Similar to the previous two benefits, the strategic benefits of the sharing economy also have the characteristics of high returns and high efficiency. The characteristics are inseparable from the two core elements of the sharing economy, that are, the effective allocation of resources and the effective reduction of costs.

18.2.2 The Performance of Sharing Economic Strategy Benefit The so-called strategic benefit refers to the income which is different from the profit and cash flow income that the company directly obtains. It has an impact on the company’s future development prospects and direction, as well as the impact on the company’s strategic position in the industry, such as obtaining reputation from highquality products in the industry, business innovation or new business ideas gained in the course of business operations, etc. In the sharing economy, strategic benefit not only improves the efficiency and effectiveness of revenues based on traditional economic returns, but also helps enterprise gain two important types of benefits for future development: research support and establishment of industry standards.

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In the sharing economy, due to the rational allocation of idle resources and inefficient resources, the potential of the company’s operations can be fully explored. In any enterprise, there are more or less idle and inefficient resources. Sharing economy models can make full use of the company’s total production capacity as much as possible, so that the efficiency and effectiveness of the company’s operations can be improved, and the company’s costs can also be reduced as the scale increases, thus further enhancing the company’s profits and development capabilities and enhancing the competitiveness and influence of companies in the industry. All this has happened based on the sharing economy model in which market boundaries are infinitely enlarged and market participants are numerous. When the competitiveness of enterprises in the market increases and the market share of enterprises increases, the company will become the object of learning and imitating by other participants in the same industry. At this time, every move of the company has an impact on the development of the industry. With great influence, the establishment of a reasonable, legal and effective industry standard is beneficial to the development of the company itself and even the industry. In addition to idle and inefficient resources occupied by enterprises, high-quality resources of enterprises can also be shared. The sharing of these resources will also bring substantial strategic benefits. For example, open-source software, the software itself is advanced and convenient. Based on the advantages, through the sharing of the source to meet the requirements of demanders, it can also promote software innovation and upgrade, and even attract investors to invest in the software. This is a kind of sharing of quality resources. It can be seen that by the sharing of high-efficiency resources, enterprises and individuals can obtain support for researches and operations. This support is not only through the mobilization of group thinking but also through the use of “sharing wisdom” to bring about the technology and direction of research and development in enterprise operations. With the support, enterprises can also show the value and future development potential through the good use and sharing of high-quality resources to achieve the goal of attracting capitalists to invest and obtain operational support for research and development. The sharing economy model exists two markets with infinite potential: supply-side market and demand-side market, adding the sheer volume of flow generated by the innumerable global market players that exist in the market, that allow capitalists to see a bigger cake than the ones in the traditional economy. Capitalists are paying more attention to the sharing economy. Enterprises with high-quality resources have the opportunity to obtain more capital investment. For example, Mobi Bicycle announced the completion of a D round of 215 million US dollars (about 1.5 billion yuan) financing which was led by Tencent and Warburg on January 4, 2017, together with China Life, TPG, Sequoia, Gaochun Capital and some old shareholders. The manifestation of the huge market value of the sharing economy model implemented by Mobike, and the strategic value and benefits brought by the shared economy model to the enterprise are enormous, as evident from the huge sum of $215 million.

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18.3 Other Important Benefits of Sharing Economy Differentiated from the income category of the traditional economic model, in the sharing economy model, there are some special categories of benefits that are equal to economic benefits, performance gains, and strategic benefits, such as data, reputation, experience, and emotional satisfaction, opportunities, socialization, etc. they are not the traditional means of income, and are also difficult to bring about an immediate improvement in the operation of the enterprise like money, performance, strategy. Significantly they are the indispensable elements for participants and enterprises in sharing economic model. The occurrence of sharing is also derived from these unique benefits and experiences. It is the existence of these different benefits that enable people to have the motivation to participate in the sharing economy model.

18.3.1 Data The third income of the sharing economy model is the data that is most valued in the information age, and it also can be called big data. Big data refers to the huge information that cannot be acquired by system analysis through the human brain or general information analysis tools. With the rapid and large-scale development of Internet technology and information technology, people’s demand for information acquisition and analysis in economic life has also increased significantly, and the data also has guiding and predictive significance for economic behavior. As an important platform for hosting big data, the quantity and quality of data stored in the sharing economy model are unmatched by the traditional economy. This is due to a large number of participants in the sharing economy model and the daily large-scale transaction activities of the sharing economy. In the sharing economy, the number of participating parties made possible more directionality in the trading activities that occurred. In these sharing economic networks compiled by these entities and trading activities, vast amounts of data are stored and contained. The analysis of these data can make the statistical and explicit analysis of the needs and resource distribution of various industries, and even further predict the development trend of a specific industry. In the information age, people’s pursuit of information and data far exceeds that of the past. In political, economic, and all human social activities, people will do everything possible to collect the information they need and select useful ones before they take action. The information will have a great impact on people’s planning, organization, decision-making activities. The Internet-based sharing economic model has huge advantages that the traditional economy does not have in the collection of data. It is mainly based on the feature of globalization and instantaneous. The sharing economy has greatly expanded the scope of economic activities, and at the same time reducing the time required for the exchanges. It allows more transactions to take place in an orderly manner under the sharing economy model. The scope of

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more and wider economic activities means that it generates more information, and the existence of a sharing platform allows people to collect and organize this huge amount of data. Then through analysis, not only can useful information be obtained, but also analysis of the data can reveal the regularity and direction of different industry development in the sharing economy, even forecasting the tendencies. This kind of data income is even more important than the economic benefits for the participants in the sharing economy. As the so-called money is good to make and the data is difficult to accumulate, big data income has become one of the important unique benefits of the sharing economy model.

18.3.2 Reputation The so-called reputation income, as the name implies, is the personal reputation or corporate reputation gained by a company or individual in the sharing economy model. For individuals, it is reflected in the improvement of personal popularity. For the enterprises, it refers to the recognized company’s public recognition has been recognized by the people, society, and other enterprises. It is one of the special benefits of companies and individuals in the sharing economy model. Different from the reputation gained by enterprises in the traditional economy through the improvement of production and management, in the sharing economy, reputation can be obtained through the sharing of resources. Through the sharing of idles and inefficient resources, not only can the company’s performance be improved, but it can also provide a broader social identity by providing a resource to demanders with the resources they need; and for the sharing of quality resources, it can be the display of good operating conditions and future prospects of the company in the market. This will increase the company’s reputation and, at the same time, it will attract more and more frequent investment by showing and enhancing the potential value of the company. This kind of attraction to capital is also a help to the future development prospects. For individuals, the reputation gained through the sharing economy model is similar to the enterprises. For example, a private car owner who joins Uber can improve customers’ satisfaction by providing a great rider service and good communication so that in the demand circle, he obtained the public’s approval. When talking about Uber private car owners, passengers will think of him firstly. In other words, individuals participating in the sharing economy model can gain the recognition of the demand side through their good attitude and the sharing of quality resources. Moreover, due to the huge number of participants in the sharing economic model, individuals can access different people from different walks of life, different jobs, and different ages. Such a connection model allows the owners to spread the quality of service better, and it also allows individuals to gain more recognition and welcome.

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18.3.3 Experience The third special income of the sharing economy is the experience. The so-called experience benefit refers to the sharing of resource providers, and the sharing economic participation can obtain the right to use certain resources that they do not have. Thus, the demand for resources can gain using the experience of resources without changing ownership and with low cost. This experience benefit is unique to the sharing economy model. In the sharing economy, apart from the typical Uber’s sharing right to use private cars and Airbnb’s sharing the right to use buildings, there are also some sharing of skills, time, and knowledge. For example, The app named “bread hunters” which went online in August 2016, is a typical sharing platform for the sharing of skills, knowledge, or some new things that are not touched daily. On the platform, the sharing provided by the supplier is divided into some portions, such as online activities, experience sharing, photography, handmade production, and cultural experiences. Specifically, there are DIY toys, avatar signature customization, skills learning, and more. Through the experience provided by the suppliers on the platform, the users select an experience based on their interests to realize the operation. Participants can choose what they want to experience and interest, and gain experience with little cost. This is the experience benefit for people in the sharing economy. With the development of the economy and the progress of society, people’s pursuit of quality of life continues to increase. It is no longer just a matter of pursuing more money. Instead, constantly trying new experiences has become one of the criteria for people’s quality of life. The emerging attitudes towards life and the quest for various experiences and challenges are in perfect harmony with the sharing of resources under the sharing economy model. In the sharing economic model, the sharing of resource use rights enables people to experience new things more abundantly and the process has more fun with less spending, and the people’s pursuit of this experience has become a unique part of the sharing economy.

18.3.4 Emotion By the Hawthorne test, Mayo believes that in modern society, everyone is a “social person”. It means that people are the ones with thoughts, emotions, personalities, and are members of the complex society. Interpersonal relationships are of great significance to people. This assumption has become one of the basic preconditions for the study of humanities in modern society, and it is also applied to sharing economy. In sharing economy, it is assumed that people are “ultra-rational”. Therefore, in addition to pursuing wealth, performance, and reputation, people are more concerned with being a social person with the personal emotion satisfaction of social interaction, trust and respect. What the sharing economic model provides is such a living environment that is more humane and harmonious than the traditional economy.

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In the sharing economy model, the role played by the Internet is not only the connection among supply side, demand sides and sharing platform side, but also provides people with a wide range of social interaction possibilities. With the Internet, people share their own resources with other people and directly establish an interactive relationship between the supplies and demands. One demand can simultaneously face multiple suppliers, and one supply can simultaneously share resources to multiple demands. A large number of instant trades establish a huge trading network, which also breaks the traditional one-to-one chain trading pattern, allows economic activities to have broader and more flexible trading directions, and also makes trading activities more efficient. In this network-based model, based on the full and effective interaction among the suppliers, the demands, the sharing platforms, and other participants in the sharing economy, the people who participate in these four sectors have more opportunities to socialize with familiars, unfamiliar people or even other participants who have never met. Their social interaction scope expands with the development of the sharing economy and meets their needs for socializing and communicating with people. In addition, in the process of communication, people can also obtain more widespread recognition, trust, respect, and emotional satisfaction than in the traditional economy through the resonation of people’s interests in hobbies, regional customs, and personality worldviews. It likes a worldwide social interaction app in economic activities, which makes economic life more lively.

18.3.5 Opportunity and Entrance In addition, the benefits brought about by the opportunities and entrances in the sharing economy model are also important to the participants. The opportunities and entrances mentioned here refer to kinds of paths, refer to methods for the participants to obtain value and income enhancement. The emergence and development of the sharing economic model, provide more diverse types of participation methods and attitudes for participants. The globalized market in the sharing economic model brings more frequent trading activities and a wider market scale than the traditional economy. The so-called opportunities and entrances refer to the opportunities and approaches for participants to participate in economic activities. The huge number of instantaneous transactions brings more participation opportunities for economic participants, while the global market size brings more entrances to capitalists and economic participants into the economic model. These increased opportunities and entrances are no longer limited to the original opportunities and entrances in the traditional economic model. On the one hand, varieties of new entrances have been added on this basis, such as Uber, Airbnb. Uber, Airbnb and other well-known sharing economic model companies have never been seen in the traditional economy. On the other hand, traditional industries such as manufacturing and agriculture can also be rejuvenated in the sharing economy model. In other words, the sharing economic model brings new benefits to industries and markets while updating and enhancing traditional industries and traditional

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markets. Sharing economic model brings new industry categories and development directions, and injects fresh blood into the traditional economy. What comes along with it is the new value created by new things and new opportunities. If the opportunities and entrances brought about by economic activities are compared to the books provided by libraries to scholars, the sharing economy is compared to basing on the books owned by the traditional economy, adding new kinds of books that are called the entrances, increased the number of previously classified books that are called opportunities.

18.4 On-Demand Distribution in Sharing Economy Since its introduction in 1875, on-demand distribution has been pursued by people as the ultimate method of social distribution. However, in the traditional economic model, due to the problems in part of technology and resource, the distribution according to demand has always existed only as an ideal state. The emergence of the sharing economic model changes the situation. In the sharing economic model, ondemand distribution is the most basic distribution method. The emergence and development of the sharing platforms effectively link the supplies and demands among participants. Different from the on-demand distribution described in the traditional economic model, due to the extensive use of the Internet and the unique use rights transfer model that makes the on-demand distribution in the sharing economy more widespread and efficient, the sharing economy forms its own unique on-demand distribution model.

18.4.1 The Meaning The distribution method of the sharing economy model and the ideal distribution method of the traditional economic model belongs to the on-demand distribution model, but there are differences between them in terms of specific distribution objects and methods. On-demand distribution refers to the orderly distribution of production materials, products, services, and benefits according to the level of productivity and people’s needs. Marx firstly proposed its concept in 1875. Since then distribution according to needs has become the principle of the advanced stage of communism. In China, it also has earlier practices, such as compulsory education and free open access to public facilities. In the traditional economy, due to the limitation of the level of technology and social development, the distribution according to need isn’t fully realized. The distribution according to work always occupies the main body of the distribution method. During the ideal state of the traditional socialist economy, social production materials, products, services, and benefits will be allocated according to the development

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of the productive forces and the needs of the people, and the resources will be allocated to those who need it most. In the sharing economy, the distribution method followed is still distribution on demand, but this method of on-demand distribution has been updated and upgraded. The on-demand distribution of the sharing economy has more performance on the part of the resource. Since the emergence of the sharing economy, many successful cases such as Uber and Airbnb have shown that they all use the Internet technology to closely link suppliers, demands, and platforms in their operations that organically integrate information, inventories and services. In this way, they establish the “central platform + on-demand distribution” institutional mechanism. With the connection through the central sharing platform and the distribution of usage rights, they can efficiently allocate the use rights on-demand on the premise of no changing the ownership of resources, that is the subversive character of the sharing economy, and it gives traditional ownership with new meaning.

18.4.2 The Object Specifically, in the sharing economy, the objects and categories allocated on demand are broader and more comprehensive. It not only refers to the distribution of production materials, products, services, and money but also includes the sharing of information, ideas, even time, knowledge and emotions that can be shared with other people through the sharing platforms. For traditional resources such as products and services, in the sharing economic mode, efficient matching of suppliers and demands can be achieved through the sharing platforms, that satisfies the needs of participating parties to the greatest extent and maximize the benefits. For other special resources, such as knowledge, skills, thoughts, feelings, information and time, different sharing platforms can realize their on-demand distribution, meet the interactions and exchanges required by each, and complete the flexible exchange of the positions of the suppliers and demands. The special needs in the sharing economy, reputation, respect, trust, experience, pleasure, etc. that satisfy people’s increasingly diverse needs in a more comprehensive context and broaden the content of on-demand distribution. For example, some people are outgoing and like to make more friends, but in a repetitive daily life, there is no way to get in touch with more new friends. In this case, the sharing economy provides an ability to meet the needs effectively. Through the participation of sharing platforms, they meet new friends based on sharing. It reflects the bi-directional and more comprehensive features of on-demand allocation in the sharing economy model. In addition to this, the increase of the distribution of on-demand categories in the sharing economy model is also reflected in the fact that the distribution scope for on-demand distribution greatly increases. The widespread use and rapid development of the Internet shortens the distance of people. People who do not know each other can also communicate instantaneously through the Internet. This makes the ondemand distribution of the sharing economic model more efficient and more widely distributed. In this way, the scope of the distribution object can also be extended

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to abstract resources such as time, knowledge, skills, emotions, etc., so that the geographical and span of on-demand distribution in sharing economic model has been greatly increased. Based on the increase in the span of these two aspects, the phenomenon that one plus one over two takes place. Therefore, the scope of ondemand allocation in sharing economic models is extremely broad. It can be said that all things can be included in this category within the scope permitted by law.

18.4.3 The Approach Concerning the choice of distribution methods, the on-demand distribution in the sharing economy seems to be more flexible and diversified. With the development of the Internet, it is cheaper and more popular, and the development of social concepts is more open. On-demand allocation of sharing economy with shared platforms as the core is more efficient in handling supplies and demands linkages and completing distribution connections. It is easier to find resource supplies that meet the demands. For example, in the Uber model, there are currently 60 million transit trips daily, and taxis can meet about 30 million trips. There is a huge market for the remaining 30 million travel needs. Most private cars only take 1–2 passengers while driving. The spare seats are free resources. With the views that people take strangers on the way are more open, more people joined the car-sharing, and to fill the 30 million trip demands becomes easier. Besides, Uber goes further in its on-demand distribution, adjusting supplies and demands balance through “floating pricing” to maximize the use of the car. Uber takes real-time monitoring and monitoring of vehicle use demand in different regions. When demands increase, it increases the price, and attracts more suppliers by increase suppliers’ profits. The number of passengers per unit time can be maximized. In the meantime, Changes in flexibility bring about a reduction in unit costs. Uber has accumulated a large amount of information from drivers and users, including their itinerary routes, behavioral habits, special needs, etc., from daily huge orders. Besides, it also has an understanding of the traffic conditions of the entire city. This means that Uber can predict demands in advance and then ensure that the supplies match the number of demands that will be reached. This is the case in travel services, and it is also true in express delivery services. Distributing empty seat resources on-demand becomes more efficient. In the sharing economy, due to the use of sharing methods, the distribution of ondemand has gained greater popularity. This helps distribution objects and distribution methods to make their own breakthroughs. In the sharing economy model, the right to use products and services is greatly scoped. Through this transfer of use rights, people’s ideas and opinions on products and services will also be accompanied by the transfer and aggregation of the right to use, which will have a lot of useful thinking about the updates and improvements of products and services. It can be called “sharing wisdom” which is a spiritual product. Unlike the traditional economic transfer of ownership on demands, it does not wear out or disappear in transit and use. Indeed, it improves more valuable with the transfer and use. A typical example

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is open-source software. By definition, it can be interpreted as the software whose source code can be shared and used by the public. Users can share their usage rights. The use and modification of it are not restricted by permission. It is a typical product of sharing economy on the Internet. People can use the software source code according to their wishes and needs. They can also use, copy, distribute and modify the software source code according to the requirements and adapt the extent of the work. This way of manipulating the source code to get the application on demand is even more reliable and more satisfying than the software obtained by some direct purchases. As people use and modify open-source software, open-source software will become more adaptable to use. The way that completed product and service updates during the transfer of usage rights are not only closer to the users’ own preferences and usage requirements, but also draw valuable information based on the analysis of big data. The on-demand distribution reflected in “distribution wisdom” achieves a breakthrough in the value and distribution process. The difference between on-demand distribution in the sharing economy and the traditional economic can also be derived from the nature of the economic model. The essence of the sharing economy is the effective allocation of existing resources, which is different from the traditional process of creating resources and then allocating new resources. In the sharing economy, on-demand distribution reflects a process of arranging idle and inefficient resources as needed to fully utilize existing resources based on reducing the creation of new resources. Rachel Botsman (2010) divided the model of the sharing economy into three types in the book named “What’s Mine is Yours”: product-service system, market recirculation, and collaborative life. The so-called product-service system is to provide products and services through a shared platform to make full use of idle resources, such as short-term rental and rental of private cars; market re-circulation can be simply understood as the re-entering of the market for used products and services, and it breaks the traditional purchasing concept. When a product or service is idle for a party, the owners can re-enter it into the market for circulation to the demands. It breaks the traditional way of buying new products and services. At the same time, not only can you get new products by purchasing, but also you can get them by exchanging; As for collaborative life, it refers more to the sharing and exchange of people’s abstract invisible resources such as skills and time. It is not just the scope including products and services, but also closely linked to people’s lives. In the three types of sharing economy, all of the resources are distributed among people and enterprises according to their needs. In the process of on-demand distribution, the total amount of resources does not show a large increase. At the same time, products and services achieve multiple uses through repeated market entry, meet multiple demands, allocates free resources to demands, and realizes the value of resources. This kind of on-demand distribution and on-demand redistribution of idle and inefficient resources in the sharing economy reduces the consumption rate of primitive resources, the waste of resources, the people’s cost of living and the operating costs of enterprises in an increasingly resource-poor and expensive modern society. The on-demand distribution of the sharing economy maximizes sustainability and green development.

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The on-demand distribution of the sharing economy is not only more comprehensive and extensive on scopes, more efficient and convenient on methods, more sustainable and environmentally on results, but it is also fundamentally an improvement on the traditional economy’s on-demand distribution. From the perspective of the types of income and distribution of the sharing economy, the benefits of the sharing economy can be divided into three types: economic benefits, strategic benefits, other special and important benefits. Economic benefits refer to cash, performance gains that are meaningful to business operations. Strategic income refers to the benefits that are useful for the future development of the company. Other special benefits refer to some unique and important benefits that are different from the traditional economy. They are unique to the sharing economy. In terms of distribution methods, the sharing economy follows a wider and more effective on-demand distribution method that is different from the traditional on-demand distribution. It achieves the effective use of resources through the on-demand distribution of resources, which is of great value to human development.

Chapter 19

Value Creation in Sharing Economy

With the development of cloud computing, big data, the internet of things, and mobile internet technologies, social productivity has rapidly risen, and the resulting economic surplus has become a new issue for the world. The economic surplus brings surplus economic resources, and at the micro-level, it shows surplus funds, goods, and cognitive surpluses; at the macro level, it shows surplus inventory and surplus production capacity. The rise of the sharing economy is the inevitable choice for the social subject to need to revitalize the economic surplus, and it will create the most profound and outstanding value ever. This chapter will elaborate on the value created by the sharing economy for participating entities and the entire society based on the theories mentioned above and strive to present the dividends of the sharing economy comprehensively and systematically to the broad masses of readers.

19.1 Increase Consumer Residuals The economist Marshall (2012) uses the concept of marginal utility value to derive the concept of “consumer surplus”. It refers to the difference between the highest price consumers are willing to pay when they consume a certain amount of a certain commodity and the actual market price of these commodities. Consumer surplus measures the additional benefits consumers feel during the consumption process because of price differences. As can be seen from Fig. 19.1, if the price of a commodity increases, the consumer surplus decreases. According to Western economics, when firms are in a monopolistic position, relying on their market power, they will inevitably increase the prices of commodities and seek monopolistic profits. Under the game of supply and demand, they will bring lower production and sales, and they will not be able to make full use of social resources. The use of monopolistic markets for price increases will reduce consumer surplus and cause net social losses.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_19

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Demand

demand curve Consumer Surplus

P

q

Demand

Fig. 19.1 Consumer surplus

In the sharing economy business model, on the one hand, the use of big Internet data has brought consumers a variety of choices, which has greatly weakened the monopoly position of the manufacturers, market power has been dispersed, and the passive status of consumers has been improved. In the game of commodity prices, consumers’ demands are more easily met, so that the prices of commodities are reduced, consumer surplus is increased, and value is created for consumers. On the other hand, the sharing economy advocates the concept of “being used at any time and why it is owned”. This opens up a new situation in the flat market, mainly focusing on leasing, which greatly reduces the transaction cost, improves the utilization of social resources, and creates a broader range of social welfare. From the perspective of travel, the operating mechanism and business logic of the traditional taxi industry determine its transaction costs and sunk costs. In addition, fast and convenient information communication between the supply and demand sides is not possible, and the phenomenon that high taxi driver’s empty driving rate and passenger travel demand gaps exist at the same time, and a large amount of time, money and energy will be wasted in the imbalanced supply and demand structure. When the cost of renting a car is higher than the cost of buying a car, consumers who are rational economic people will buy cars, and the acquisition of ownership will bring more idle social resources. Thanks to the rise of the sharing economy, emerging technologies such as the Internet, Internet of Things, big data, and cloud computing have been widely used to create a variety of ultra-efficient human-oriented trading platforms. The information and data in the car rental market can be quickly and accurately communicated and exchanged, achieving an efficient match between the supply and demand sides, reducing the intermediate cost and opacity of transactions, and stimulating consumers’ enthusiasm for consumption. At the same time, car rental transactions on shared platforms are characterized by diminishing costs, which can

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easily create economies of scale, further reduce marginal costs, increase consumer surplus, and contribute to the formation of broader social welfare. It is worth noting that the extra benefits to the consumer surplus have a new carrier in the sharing economy. Consumers can obtain social wealth that traditional exchanges do not have by trading on a shared platform. For example, participating in the cross-border activities of the private kitchen platform not only can enjoy the local specialties, but also can communicate with diners who have not met each other, expand their social circle, and expand their resources. To apply for experience exchanges on the “On the go” platform, you can get advice on how to customize the instructor’s guidelines; at the same time, in the communication with successful business people, they can enhance their motivation to pursue new heights in life and establish a visual and achievable goal for their future career development. Whether it is the expansion of social circles or the enhancement of self-belief, these invisible capitals will be the consumer surplus brought by the sharing economy. In a word, the sharing economy can bridge the gap of information and data, realize the free matching of supply and demand sides, make full use of social resources, reduce the opportunity cost of production factors, and thus reduce the rate of return required by manufacturers. On this basis, the consumer will actually pay a lower price to obtain the goods. Under the condition that the highest price consumers are willing to pay will not change, the difference between the two will increase, that is, increase the “consumer surplus”. At the same time, the social wealth brought about by the sharing economy will also become an additional benefit for consumers, further increase the “consumer surplus”, and create great value for the micro-participants.

19.2 Producer Value Creation The narrow sense of the producers of the sharing economy can be understood as a shared platform, that is, a trading platform for the multilateral market. In a broad sense, it also includes natural persons, for-profit organizations, non-profit organizations, etc. These people and organizations can use the shared platform to create value, or create a shared platform to create value. From the perspective of the narrow-shared economy producers, the sharing platform is characterized by network externalities, which are mainly divided into two types: “member externalities” and “use externalities” (Li Yunyi et al., 2013). Member externality, also known as indirect network externality, refers to the change in the number of users on one side of the shared platform that will affect the value of the platform to users on the other side. Specifically, an increase in the number of sellers will give buyers more choices, thereby attracting more buyers to the market, and an increase in the number of buyers will bring more sources of profits to the sellers, thereby attracting more sellers in the market, which is a typical positive feedback effect.

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Use externality, also known as direct network externality, means that the value of the shared platform is related to the frequency of user transactions using the platform. Specifically, the sharing platform provides users with a channel for information exchange and communication, reduces the cost of users due to information asymmetry, and prompts the parties to reach an agreement quickly and efficiently. More transactions will be completed on the shared platform. The higher the frequency of transactions, the higher the revenue gained by the shared platform, and ultimately the shared platform and users to achieve a win–win situation. In addition, the shared platform is also characterized by its knowledge economy. The traditional economy is generally driven by labor factors or driven by capital elements. In addition to forming economies of scale, most of the rest are diminishing returns. Knowledge economy describes a situation where returns increase. Knowledge can be transferred, exchanged, presented, or sold by the original owner through the network at a zero marginal cost, and reaches millions of times of transmission (Tan Ruijun, 2012). The correct application of knowledge to the production process will dramatically increase the efficiency of economic activities and bring higher income rewards, thereby increasing demand. This further results in a continuous decrease in the price of the supply side, while a drop in the price can reveal more demand, which is a positive feedback effect. As a typical sharing platform, Lending Club shows very good network externalities and knowledge economy. First of all, Lending Club’s business model can be understood as a C2C platform connecting the supply and demand sides of funds. The continuous increase in the number of customers at both ends will cause direct and indirect network effects and create more network value. Secondly, Lending Club is an information platform for both lenders and borrowers to exchange information and conduct credit evaluations of borrowers through scientific and rational algorithms and a comprehensive system of networks. The results obtained will become a stepping stone for all kinds of funds, and create more funds to gain opportunities under the advantage of zero marginal cost. As a result, Lending Club is able to solve the urgent need for funding shortages for most entrepreneurs with sufficient capital resources, low loan thresholds, and faster processing speed. At the same time, a large amount of high-quality financial information gathered by Lending Club has also provided investors with diversified capital appreciation channels, attracting more and more investors to enter, and further expanding the pool of funds for this shared platform. The supply and demand sides of the funds achieve a perfect match. In short, Lending Club has built a complex and intensive value network that promotes the co-creation of multi-agent values. The narrowly-shared producer-sharing platform of the sharing economy, with its unique network externalities and knowledge economy, can effectively realize multi-service integrated integration, industrial chain integration and merger, business process change, and new business growth. This will accelerate the integration of production factors, enhance the ability to allocate resources, and innovate business models, ultimately increasing overall social production efficiency and achieving co-creative value. Similarly, among the broad producers of the sharing economy, natural persons, for-profit organizations, and non-profit organizations, etc., can form

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a shared platform through the sharing platform or itself, to achieve effective integration of idle social resources, and to promote the rapid and efficient development of economic activities. From the micro-level, producers have created extremely competitive values.

19.3 Expand Public Effective Demand The sharing economy can increase the actual purchasing power of the public from the two aspects of reducing costs and increasing revenues, thereby increasing the effective demand of the public. In addition, the sharing economy platform can provide the possibility of free matching for the individualized needs of the public and free up the vitality of long-tailed regions. In the form of an economic downturn, new economic growth points will be formed to expand the effective demand of the public and create value for microscopic individuals. The cost reduction is mainly due to the principle and operating logic of the shared economy model. The marginal cost of the transaction is very low and even infinitely close to zero. Specifically, a shared economic platform based on the internet big data technology can effectively match supply and demand, reduce information asymmetry, and increase the frequency of transactions. At the same time, the reduction of intermediate links can avoid complicated procedures, reduce the cost of the entire transaction process, and save time and cost. In addition, diversified options can reduce the expected cost. For example, when it comes to travel abroad, the traditional choices are mostly concentrated in hotels and hotels, while in the sharing economy, the choice of renting residential houses is provided. Under the condition that the expectations for service quality are not changed, people can choose cheaper housing. Taking Airbnb, a typical online short-term rental platform under the sharing economy model as an example, from Table 19.1, the average hotel prices in major cities around the world Table 19.1 Comparison of Airbnb and general hotel prices in major cities around the world (unit: RMB)

City

Airbnb standard room average price

Hotel standard room price

Beijing

279

504

Shanghai

290

490

Paris

628

1172

New York

730

1633

London

480

1057

Berlin

416

717

Rome

557

993

Sydney

602

1250

Source Piper Jaffray, BOC International Securities

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are generally higher than the Airbnb price, and some even reach more than twice the Airbnb price. Further, diversified choices will increase the intensity of competition. A research team led by Prof. Georges Zelvas of Boston University found that traditional hotels will use price reduction strategies to buffer the impact of economic benefits brought by online short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb. Especially in low-end hotels, price discount strategies can effectively recover customers (Ma et al., 2016). Under the combined effect of the two models of price reduction strategies, the cost of accommodation for all customers will be reduced, and the cost reduction will relatively increase the actual purchasing power of the public. The increase in income is that the sharing economy provides the public with channels to participate in economic activities through the resources around them, to reduce the threshold for innovation and entrepreneurship, to enable the public to acquire additional income, and thus increase overall income. To a certain extent, the actual purchasing power of the public has been absolutely improved. According to the report (Fig. 19.2), 96.5% of Didi Express bus drivers’ income increased significantly after they joined the mobile industry. Among them, 78.1% of Didi Express bus driver income increased by more than 10, and 39.5% of Didi express bus drivers had more than 30% of revenue increase (Irerich Consulting, 2016). This data intuitively shows that the sharing economy can improve people’s income. With the development of society, material resources are becoming more and more abundant, and people’s needs are becoming more and more diversified. The demand in the long-tailed region entails huge development value, and the sharing economy platform can connect this personalized demand with resources, realize the effective use of social resources, and greatly enrich people’s working life. Take the example of “On the Line” launched by Nutshell.com. This is a one-to-one experience conversation platform based on the science of fragmented chemistry. It creates a social income decline, 3.50% income increased by 110%, 18.40% income increased by more than 30%, 39.50% income increased by 11%-30%, 38.60% Fig. 19.2 Monthly income improvement of drivers engaged in Didi

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relationship between practitioners and students in vertical fields. If a designer of an Internet company in Beijing works for two years and earns a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan, he hopes to transform himself into a product manager through one year’s efforts. Obviously, he needs to get a tailored experience exchange. Through his own network of contacts, it may be difficult to find a professional line-up tutor. Then he can find the personalized solution he needs through “in line”. At the same time, experienced and successful people can also develop their talents and improve their reputation and influence. All in all, with the Internet sharing platform, the actual purchasing power of the public can be boosted by both cost reduction and income increase. At the same time, the long-tailed customer’s vitality can be released and social resources can be diversified. In turn, the sharing economy achieves the expansion of effective public demand and brings new economic growth points, creating infinite value for the micro-participants in the market.

19.4 Reduce the Cost of Innovation and Venture Capital Premier Li Keqiang pointed out at the Davos Forum in summer 2015 that the policy of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” is an important measure to promote economic development. As a new driving force for economic growth, the sharing economy is particularly significant in today’s economic development environment in China. The sharing economy can significantly reduce the cost of innovation and entrepreneurship, create more innovative technologies, models and formats, and lower the threshold for “double-inventing”. Acquiring a new position or creating a new company is a complex business process that can be easily achieved without paperwork. It needs to be put into practice and requires a great deal of effort, time, and money. In the traditional economic environment, innovation and entrepreneurship activities have significant high input characteristics. Because entrepreneurial credit and innovator capabilities cannot achieve verifiable and quantifiable output, innovation and entrepreneurship are faced with constraints on resources such as capital, technology, talent, venues, and facilities. Companies need a lot of investment in terms of entrepreneurial access costs, capital acquisition costs, and resource matching costs. The sharing economy has the characteristics of large-scale replication, abundant resources, and zero marginal cost. These features can not only drastically reduce the cost of the aforementioned innovation and entrepreneurship, but also attract more and more people to join the ranks of entrepreneurs with convenient and quick services, and further enhance the possibility and success rate of innovation and entrepreneurship. At the same time, the sharing economy adheres to the philosophy that “everyone has its own strengths, everyone can participate, and everyone can contribute”. Everyone is encouraged to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship, and a minimum entry threshold for the industry is established. The near-borderless development stage obscures the boundaries between professional and

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amateur so that the entrepreneurial business no longer has specific characteristics, which significantly reduces the preparation costs of entrepreneurs. Taking zbj.com as examples, provides a new employment stage for the general public without adequate capital and rich experience. As long as they have smart capital, whether or not they specialize in a certain profession, Witkey can break the traditional mode of employment and become the supplier of platform services, relying on the actual ability to achieve their own value. In addition, the demand for platform services, especially the large number of small, medium and micro-enterprises without financial advantages and resource advantages, has brought great convenience to their entrepreneurial activities. Compared with the traditional entrepreneurial environment, the zbj.com platform developed under the sharing economy can provide lower operating costs and various financing channels. For example, the company employs professional advertising designers to carry out marketing and marketing, and at least a few thousand yuan in labor costs a year. In zbj.com, the company publishes advertising design tasks on its website, and numerous Witkey bids are issued for tasks on both sides. Under the agreed-upon price, the company chooses its own satisfied product and completes a cost-effective transaction. This model can save startup companies a lot of money. At the same time, zbj.com is relying on data oceans to provide a series of extended services for companies, from trademark registration to investment and financing services, which greatly saves the time and funds required by companies to search for service providers, so that the access to information and the docking of resources can become fast and cheap. According to statistics, more than 200,000 enterprises and individuals from all walks of life publish tasks on the zbj.com to seek solutions to various problems every day. More than 5 million Witkeys provided various intellectual achievements online, and more than 2000 orders were completed in the zbj.com.1 Thousands of companies were established. The establishment of the pig game website is one of the successful examples of the sharing economy in practice. This website has significantly reduced the cost of innovation and entrepreneurship, which has significantly promoted the development of innovation and entrepreneurial activities and unearthed the potential of Witkey’s own talents.

19.5 Generate Collection Value Sheki (2012) proposed that the global educated population accumulates more than one trillion hours of free time each year. People like to spend and also like to create and share. Under the logic of digital media, people in traditional TV logic as audiences can further create and share at the same time, creating new collective value through the use of new information exchange media and communication tools: The greater 1

Revelation of the business model of the Pig Bajie Network in the past 10 years. http://www.sohu. com/a/109243197_466932,2016-08-05.

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the number of users, the greater the likelihood of a match. The one trillion hours of free time mentioned here is a manifestation of cognitive surplus. In a nutshell, cognitive surplus includes all unutilized knowledge, interests, and experiences of people, as well as the time, capabilities, and relationships that they have. In the context of internet big data, the creation of online media has enabled the interconnection of social groups. By sharing the economic platform, the resources available to the supply side are docked with the resource gaps of the demand side, and the cognitive surplus obtains a reasonable price, and the generation of collective value benefits the social entities. The larger the number of active users on the platform, the greater the value of the aggregates it releases. For example, Wikipedia is a multilingual collaborative project based on wiki technology, edited by volunteers from all over the world. It gathers the knowledge surplus of global users and forms a dynamic, free and open online encyclopedia. As of November 1, 2015, Wikipedia has a globally operating version of 280 languages. The total number of editorial entries exceeded 37 million, and the total number of registered users exceeded 59 million.2 On average, more than 800,000 person-time browsing records were obtained, and it was ranked as one of the largest and most influential online reference books. Through Wikipedia’s shared platform, infinite capacity of knowledge can be built up, free matching of knowledgeable users and users seeking knowledge can be achieved, and enormous collection value can be created. Besides, PickupPal.com, a partnership platform based on the sharing economy platform, is a good example of matching surplus drivers with demanding passengers. In the scenario of a partner ride, the number of cars and the number of passengers on the road will evolve into ample pools of resources. Every passenger who travels may find a vehicle on the same road. Every car with an available seat has the same passengers that may be found. PickupPal gathers the excess travel resources, and through coordination and cooperation of the community network, it can be coordinated and matched on the shared economic platform. It becomes a new method to solve traffic problems, and produces highly meaningful collective values. In the domestic market, network vehicles, such as trips and easy-to-use vehicles, have similarly subverted the traditional taxi industry. They quickly occupy the field of travel, a large number of users gathered together, quickly and easily achieve a stable match between the supply and demand sides, unearth huge collective value, and become a hot unicorn. The famous Metcalf’s law—the value of the network can be equal to the square of the number of nodes in the network, and is also proportional to the square of the number of users connected to the network. The essence of this law is that the greater the number of users on the network, the greater the additional value that the user can enjoy on the network (Wang Mingzhu & Yin Xiaozhi, 2016). The sharing economy is relying on the rapid development of the Internet, attracting a large number of suppliers and demanders. The greater the number of suppliers, the easier for demanders to find quality services. The more demanders, the easier the value of supplier services can be realized, which is the performance of typical collective values. It is this existence of 2

The total number of entries for the fifteenth anniversary of Wikipedia broke through 37 million. http://www.twwtn.com/detail_16628.htm, 2016-01-15.

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collective value that enables the scope of the sharing economy to continue to expand and its value continues to increase. The shared economic platform not only integrates elements and resources, but also builds an intelligent system. Based on a certain amount of user bases, information interaction and system matching can be achieved, and matching of needs can be achieved, resulting in a set value that can not be underestimated. Collective value is a potential cake brought by the sharing economy. It can make full use of the surplus resources of society. The scale effect produces obvious advantages and creates significant value for the micro-participants.

19.6 Utilize Resources The companies in the sharing economy model have the media function of “platform scheduling + on-demand service provision”. Through this function, people can timely sell, rent out unused resources in their hands, or make purchases when they have demand. The most direct value creation of this model is manifested in revitalizing stock resources. Under the sharing economy, resources such as cloud computing, big data, the internet of things, and mobile internet are used to match resources, and all available resources are integrated and reconstructed. The traditional concept of consumption is subverted, and manufacturing and products are realized at the lowest cost. As for the current stock market in the Chinese market, according to the research report of the Investment Housing Institute on long-term rental apartments, in 2015, there were nearly 100 million sets of housing stocks in China, and large-scale stock rooms needed revitalization. On the one hand, although almost 25% of the vacancy rates generated by the listings flowed to the leasing market, there were still quite a few idle homes failing to be available; on the other hand, the scale of newly-added new-year rents reached 60 billion yuan each year, and the total amount of domestic youth renting has reached nearly 8000 billion yuan, which means that the demand gap in the housing leasing market is still very large.3 The serious imbalance between supply and demand has made “destocking” a thorny problem that the real estate industry has had to solve in recent years. The rise of the sharing economy is a great turning point in this dilemma. It drives long-term apartments, creative space, and online short-term rental platforms. The explosive growth has provided a new path for solving the problem of stock rooms. On the one hand, on the sharing economy platform, it is possible to carry out the lease-for-sale business, through the division of the right to use the house, to achieve a free match between supply and demand, to meet people’s housing space needs, roundabout live and long-term unused real estate inventory. For example, Airbnb, an online short-term rental platform, gathers the information of the vacant 3

2015 Senior Renting Apartment Investment Research Report (Project Research Institute). http:// mt.sohu.com/20150810/n418494827.shtml, 2015-08-10.

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inhabitants of the world’s residents for use by tourists, and has reached the market scale accumulated by InterContinental Hotels Group for 65 years in just four years. As of 2015, Airbnb’s market has expanded to more than 190 countries around the world, with a total of 120 million listings, and an average of 400,000 people per night stay in rooms provided by Airbnb.4 This is the miracle of value creation brought about by the sharing economy. Through the Internet Big Data, information from both sides of supply and demand is shared, and the stock of social resources is revitalized, which greatly increases the supply of the market. On the other hand, the sharing economy platform provides value-added services downstream of real estate sales. After acquiring the right to use the home, the customer purchases a platform to provide a range of professional services, such as property butler services, venture capital and investment services. With the platform’s experience marketing campaign, we can quickly and easily get a variety of professional services in the system while obtaining inventory resources at a low cost. For example, the property assets of U-Park’s inventory are transformed into a co-working space that is tailor-made for small and medium-sized start-ups, with complete facilities, superior locations, and affordable prices. At the same time, it provides customized entrepreneurial mentoring guidance and integrated investment and financing services. While reducing entrepreneurial costs, it also activates customers’ consumer desires with personalized and customized valueadded services, and can quickly and effectively activate social inventory resources. Currently, the valuation of Urwork has reached 7 billion yuan. The stock of resources in the society is rich in content, not only the idle land resources that the public cares about, but also the idle items, capital, time, wisdom, and experience of the people. In the increasingly mature environment of technologies such as cloud computing, big data, Internet of things, and mobile Internet, a large number of second-hand goods trading platforms, crowd-sourced crowdfunding websites and Witkey websites have emerged. These sharing economy and business models achieve efficient matching of supply and demand sides, revitalize stock resources and increase the utilization of new resources, and greatly increase the supply of society. For example, Murota overlord Coursera has brought together 6 million student users within 20 months of its establishment, and introduced more than 600 online courses to the website for free; Youtube has attracted a large number of users with its open, free, convenient, and interesting features. The number of videos uploaded through the platform each month exceeds the total amount of videos uploaded by the three major TV networks over the past 60 years. These exponential growths come from the revitalization of stock resources between the masses and institutions under the sharing economy, completely subverting the logic of increasing the total supply of society through the logic of increasing new investment to stimulate economic growth and examining the infinite potential value of economic life from the macro level.

4

Airbnb, the originator of the sharing economy, recruited in China and kicked off officially in China. http://www.jianshu.com/p/f413821d0b17, 2016-11-17.

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19.7 Overcapacity Chase (2015), the founder of the sharing economy and the founder of Zipcar, proposed a new business model that uses excess capacity, builds a shared platform, invites a large number of individuals to participate, and creates a new world that meets the needs of all parties. She believes that sharing is the basic framework for reconstructing a new business model in the future. Everyone shares the excess production capacity. Surplus production capacity is an attractive low-cost raw material that can make the construction of the platform more valuable. In other words, there is a wealth of potential in excess capacity. If it is fully utilized, it will inevitably bring about an increase in wealth. Excess capacity is ubiquitous. It may be temporary, tangible, virtual (such as open data), or it may be related to processes, networks, or experience. As the key to providing products or services to the outside world for everyone sharing platforms, the use of excess capacity means that the original items will be put back into production and the new value will be discovered. And the required cost is much lower than the cost of purchasing new raw materials, and it also saves more execution time costs. On the one hand, through the division, integration and rational supply of resource use rights, the shared economic platform can well digest excess production capacity, tap the new value of social resources, and maximize social benefits. Taking Zipcar as an example, Chase’s keen observation of the market-led her to find that private cars in the United States are idle for 95% of the time, and 80% of car seats in life are empty, so in September 1999 Chase founded the car-sharing site Zipcar. Zipcar mainly uses the concept of “car-sharing” to choose a residential parking area for its residents. Members can use the website, telephone and application software to search for vehicles that meet the requirements, and use the membership card in the nearest designated area to open and lock the vehicle. The core of the site is the use of excess vehicle production capacity. Its operating model divides the right to use the car, providing convenience and cost savings to car owners while bringing certain benefits to car owners. As an intermediary platform, the Zipcar website receives a corresponding return by integrating and rationally distributing car use rights. The logical starting point for Chase to operate a website is as follows: Rather than spending 100% of the cost of owning a car and only exercising 1% of its value, it is better to match the cost to the gains of use (Chase, 2015). Zipcar is now the largest US time-sharing Internet car-sharing platform with a valuation of US$1.1 billion. The huge success of the site opened the curtain for the sharing economy era. On the other hand, the sharing economic platform provides a window for excess production capacity to communicate with the outside world. Through the opening of production capacity, it will not only improve the efficiency of the use of the platform but also create a large amount of new value. For example, Gold Million’s online O2O project launched in 2015, U-Taste, uses a combination of “quasi-finished products + smart pots”, and opens 8 trillion yuan to the home cooking market to free up excess restaurant capacity. Some convenience stores, small-scale catering, company

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employees’ meals, etc., without the need for a chef, a few smart pots and quasifinished products, can provide consumers with convenient and high-quality goods and services. In addition, the open production capacity of data information has stimulated the enthusiasm of the end users to participate independently, and innovation and creation have also become a model for sharing the economy. For example, Kong Drew, the youngest chief information officer in Washington, United, and CEO Corbett, a start-up company with only three employees, organized a “democratic application contest”. The event opened the city’s real-time database to the public, including public school students’ test scores, parking meter information, and real-time crime reports. It took only US$50,000 to collect 47 applications within a month. If the government arranges the recruitment of researchers for development through a formal way, it may require 200,000 US dollars. The success of this event has brought unexpected results. Its roots are in the opening of the city database, and invited the public’s participation, providing an interface for the opening of the public intelligent production capacity, enabling the excess capacity of the social subjects to match each other and activating the source of innovation. Similarly, Wikipedia, as an online encyclopedia that emphasizes free content, collaborative editing, and multilingual versions, relies on a collaborative editing platform for collaborative development of excess social knowledge capacity. More than 37 million entries were collected and more than 59 million registered users were brought together, totaling over 2.1 billion edits. The era of sharing, that is, the era of everyone’s participation has already come, this landmark change will bring a disruptive impact on the traditional economy. The great potential of the sharing economy lies in its enthusiasm for the end user’s independent participation through the division, integration, and reasonable supply of resource use rights, as well as the provision of open production interfaces. It digests excess capacity in society and creates a miracle for macroeconomic entities.

19.8 Avoid Social Damage Marx’s theory of income distribution points out that under the capitalist private ownership system, laborers’ newly created values include necessary values and surplusvalue, in which the necessary value is used to compensate for the consumption of labor value. The surplus value created by the laborers is all occupied by the capitalist class free of charge (Wei Liping, 2012). The purpose of the capitalist’s pursuit of surplus-value is not possession and consumption, but capital appreciation (Chen Guangjin, 2003). Therefore, he will divide the free value of unoccupied possession into two parts: income consumption and capital accumulation. The accumulation of capital includes not only the extension of expansion, but also the scale of expansion, all to increase the scale of production. In other words, under the capitalist private ownership system, enterprises cannot achieve the value and surplus-value of the goods and convert them into new capital in the distributional conditions and

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consumption relationships that are determined by production, and they will generate a large amount of surplus labor and goods. Looking further at Marx’s wage theory, the wages of workers are determined by both the supply and demand sides of the labor market. However, due to a large number of surplus resources under capitalist private ownership, the wage level of workers has always been at the lower limit of marginal productivity under the oppression of managers. That is to say, it is equivalent to the part of living wages. Therefore, the contradiction between social production and consumption under capitalist private ownership is the root cause of its economic impetus. The emergence of the sharing economy can play a role in regulating and improving the improper allocation of social factors under private ownership, breaking through the traditional thinking of “interests exclusive” and forming a people-centered “shared interest” concept, and avoiding the loss of social wealth caused by capitalist private ownership. According to the study report of the Network Special Vehicle Research Group of the National Finance Research Institute of Tsinghua University, each of the shared cars in Europe can reduce 4–10 private cars, in North America, each shared car can reduce 6–23 private cars, in Oceania, each shared car can reduce 6–10 private cars.5 In addition, research on car sharing in Europe shows that 15.6– 31.5% of the members of the rising automobile sharing organization sold their own private cars, while 23–26% of members canceled or postponed the original purchase plan. From a business activity perspective, in the past century, companies have made money by hoarding assets, intellectual property, talent, and other resources. The confinement of patents, copyrights, trade secrets, qualifications, and certificates under a capitalist private ownership system will result in a huge waste of talent potential, creating a situation in which both excess capacity and demand gaps coexist (Chase & Yang Yi, 2016). In the new sharing economy business model, through the internet big data technology, information communication can be rapidly achieved, idle resources in life can be revitalized, excess social production capacity can be digested, and the potential value of production activities can be excavated. For example, in 2003, a large international company needed a polymer with new features, but the company’s own R&D department could not solve it. So the company called Solver from around the world to participate in the solution through the InnoCentive website. In the end, 21 solutions were obtained, of which five were adopted by the company. It is worth pondering that the proponents of these selected programs were a small farmer, an aerospace physicist, a transdermal drug expert, and an industrial scientist. No one is specialized in the polymers industry. As a result, there are unlimited potentials in the social subject. Under the influence of an equal, free, autonomous and open sharing economy platform, based on a certain number of scales, it is possible to create unexpected collective values and release the energy-constrained by capitalist private ownership.

5

Tsinghua University Report: How to standardize the development of Internet buses. http://www. yicai.com/news/4696847.html, 2015-10-14.

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Under the shared economy model, centralized vertical control of business activities concedes to distributed horizontal expansion of peer-to-peer production. Equity transactions in the real economy market are gradually being replaced by commoditized flows of goods and services in the virtual network. Compared with the lagging market capital, the value of social capital is constantly being amplified (Rifkin, 2014). Rifkin even boldly predicted: “The arrival of the zero marginal cost society is the trend of the times and will become the beginning of capitalism faded out of the world stage”. As a result, the sharing economy represents new productivity and leads the direction of future development. Its instant online, vertical interaction, collaborative equivalence, and intelligent matching features have significantly improved the efficiency of mutual connection between market participants. And greatly reduce the transaction costs, service costs, trust costs, supply costs, so that low input and high output becomes possible. Social resources are fully utilized, and surplus skills are re-assigned to value. Compared to capitalist private ownership, social losses are avoided and unlimited value is created for macro-subjects.

19.9 Make Up for Market Failure Adam Smith, the ancestor of economics, believed that the market was controlled by the “invisible hand”, and it was not based on human will. The organization of economic activities can rely on competition mechanisms and price mechanisms to promote mutual benefits in competition and cooperative transactions so that both parties can benefit (Ho Pin Fan, 2016). After Smith, the concept of letting go of the market became the consensus and theoretical basis of most economists (Han, 2015). However, from the perspective of real economic life, the optimal state of Pareto cannot be achieved, which means that the free market cannot guarantee the continuous and normal development of economic activities. Since the twentieth century, the outbreak of the economic crisis has led to economic imbalances. This is precisely what cannot be achieved by Pareto optimality, namely the so-called market failure. The connotation of market failure can be understood as a situation in which the market is inefficient when it plays a role in resource allocation. Its performance can be divided into external negative effects, unfair income and wealth distribution, competition failure and the formation of market monopoly, regional economic incoherence issues, and unemployment issues. Regarding the problems caused by these market failures, the sharing economy, with its unique distributed, collaborative, horizontal, and peer-to-peer trading models, can make up for this by improving market information asymmetry and reducing negative externalities. The asymmetry of market information can refer to the emergence of moral hazards and adverse selection. Moral hazard means that even if a customer has the right to choose before purchasing a service or product, due to the limited information available, the quality of the service or product to be selected cannot be known. For example, in the taxi market, the driver’s familiarity with the road has led him to obtain extra profits by “detour”, thus wasting passengers’ time and money.

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In addition, in order to save costs and extend operating hours, drivers may neglect protection during routine repairs of taxis, which will greatly increase the probability of vehicle breakdowns and traffic accidents. The reverse selection means that the customer cannot fully grasp the quality level of the service or product he wants to buy, resulting in that he is willing to use the average price to pay for the product or service. When the average price is lower than the cost of high-quality products or services, high-quality products or services will exit the market, drag down the average level of the overall market, and then the average price will continue to decrease, resulting in a new batch of high-quality products or services out of the market. With such a vicious circle, there are fewer and fewer high-quality products or services in the entire market, and the economic efficiency of resources is getting lower and lower. The sharing economy can use cloud computing, big data, the internet of things, and mobile internet technology to provide an immediate and stable platform for information communication between suppliers and demanders. In the ongoing multi-frequency exchanges, both parties’ information transparency will be improved and the emergence of moral hazard will be reduced. At the same time, big data mining technology also makes it possible for information on both the supply and demand sides of the market to be disclosed, and the quality level of products or services can be disseminated to the public through visual media. Quality products or services can obtain customer support and lead the customer’s normal development of consumer attitudes; inferior products or services will be discarded by the public, stimulating manufacturers to ensure the quality and quantity of excellence, and reduce the emergence of adverse selection. Negative externality means that in the social economic activities, the behavior of an economic entity (state, enterprise, or individual) has a direct impact on other corresponding economic entities. The influence here is generally a bad influence, and the economic entity that brings about such a bad influence has not given corresponding payment. There are many manifestations of negative externalities. In the area of transportation, there are mainly road congestion and air pollution. Road congestion refers to the accumulation of social wealth. More and more people can purchase cars. As the population increases, the number of cars is also increasing, resulting in the number of cars in an area is always more than the level of good social order. In addition, too many cars will cause tailpipe emissions to exceed the self-regulation of the environment, leading to air pollution problems. The sharing economy allows ownership to be placed in the right to use. People can use the car without owning a car. The division of the right to use not only solves people’s travel problems, but also improves road congestion and further alleviates the level of air pollution. Studies have shown that if the shared transportation technology is fully applied, it will reduce energy consumption by 20% and emissions by 25% to 30%, relieve 60% of traffic jams and improve existing road capacity by 2–3 times, reduce the vehicle accident rate by 80% and the death toll by 30–70% (Wang Mingzhu & Yin Yizhi, 2016). In short, the sharing economy has also contributed greatly to the reduction of negative externalities. Based on the above analysis, the application of the sharing economy to the big data Internet and the division of the use rights can greatly contribute to reducing the

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asymmetry of market information and reducing negative externalities, and promote the balanced matching and full use of social resources. Further fulfilling the role of remedying market failures has created a pivotal value for the policy operation of social and economic activities from the macro level.

19.10 Promote Industrial Transformation and Structural Adjustment According to Wu Jinming, an expert on low-carbon development at the Asian Development Bank and a professor at the Business School at Central South University, China currently has 85% of its traditional industries and 15% of high-tech industries. The current production capacity of traditional industries is almost entirely surplus. In industries such as medical care and health care, which belong to high-tech fields, there is still a large gap in the supply of docking as the demand increases.6 On the whole, there is a serious excess of low-end supply and a serious shortage of high-end supply. The current industry in China is facing a typical structural imbalance. In the traditional economy, the premise of economic transactions is to transfer the ownership of trading products, and the core of the sharing economy is to increase the use-value of products and services. It deals with the use of goods and services rather than ownership. Under the support of internet big data technology, the sharing economy can maximize the allocation of unused resources, lower costs and more abundant resources to attract people to change their consumption concepts and abandon the traditional concept of “occupy” consumption. Changes in the concept of consumption will result in the adjustment of the structure of production, circulation, distribution, and consumption in the economic structure. The business model of the company will gradually change from the supplier of products to the service integration provider and platform service provider, and this will promote the transformation of the industry. Taking drip and drop behavior as examples, this typical sharing economy model not only changes the user’s travel habits, but also centers on the use of low-cost and diverse resource utilization advantages to change the way people own cars. The birth of the car opened the first revolution in the field of travel. It changed the way people traveled, expanded the radius of people’s lives and accelerated the development of the economy. However, a hundred years later, there has been a bottleneck in both industrialization and urbanization of automobiles. That is, the excessive growth of motor vehicles has caused traffic congestion and directly or indirectly caused various problems in the city. According to statistics, as of the end of 2015, the average private car ownership per 100 households in the country was 31, and Beijing, Shenzhen, Chengdu and other large cities reached 60; while the average private car ownership per 100 households in the United States exceeds 200 vehicles, China’s current private 6

How to optimize resource allocation in the era of sharing economy. http://news.163.com/16/0924/ 07/C1NAGN5H00014Q4P.html, 2016-09-24.

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car ownership level is less than one-third of the United States, but there has been a huge bottleneck.7 Traffic congestion has caused many cities to restrict car purchases. However, the public’s demand gap still exists, and the imbalance between supply and demand has intensified. At the same time, most people spend only 5% of their car ownership rights after paying 100% of the cost, and the remaining 95% are parked there.8 And the entire city will continue to carry out projects for the 5% of its use efficiency, such as building parking lots and planning road facilities. Occupancy of ownership brings idleness of resources, and trading with use rights as the main body can better solve the imbalance of supply and demand structure. The generation of dribble trips has brought hope to break the dilemma of travel. People do not need to have ownership of cars. They only need to have their right to use them when they need them. This not only saves the cost of travel but also enriches the choice of travel options. In addition, under the shared economy model, the sales volume of products will no longer play a decisive role in the profitability of enterprises. Enterprises will pay more attention to the number of users of the unit products, and gaining profits through the use of frequencies is the major trend of future development. Under this logic, the source of corporate income will depend more on service sales, and the business model of the company will also extend from manufacturing to downstream value-added services. In fact, BMW, Volkswagen and other auto giants are also extending their business to the automotive sharing field. It can be inferred that the proportion of the service industry will show a rising trend in the future economic structure. At the same time, the trend of coordinated development and mutual integration of the manufacturing and service industries will also become increasingly prominent. The core idea of the sharing economy to promote industrial transformation and upgrading and structural adjustment lies in its ability to bring low-cost resources and diversified choices in the “upgrade transformation” and “structural adjustment”, attracting people to abandon tradition with the advantages of low input and high output. The consumption concept promotes the transformation and upgrading of the entire social industry and structural adjustment. As the sharing economy becomes more mature, the national economy will develop into an industry-based service, a product that is durable, and a green consumer. This will create huge value for the improvement of national economic strength and progress in social development at the macro level.

7

In 2015, the national private car exceeded 124 million. http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/ 2016-01/26/nw.D110000renmrb_20160126_4-04.htm, 2016-01-26. 8 Interpretation of the sharing economy: the essence is scarce resources network car is just a good start. http://finance.sina.com.cn/chanjing/cyxw/2016-12-22/doc-ifxyxury7918377.shtml, 2016-1222.

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19.11 Optimize Social Credit System The sharing economy has brought great innovation and transformation to the production of modern society. Not only have there been new upgrades in technology, but more importantly it has reconstructed the relationship between people, people and organizations and services, and people and society. In the process of reconstructing the relationship, the most crucial thing is to use the “Internet+” to re-establish the mechanisms and methods of trust formation. To synergize with the maturing social networks and credit evaluation mechanisms, foster new trust relationships, precipitate trust relationships, and tap the dividends of relational capital. In the sharing economy, the internet big data technology has the characteristics of interconnection and indefinite repetition. The information asymmetry between social subjects can be improved and the construction of the entire social credit system can be optimized. Under the traditional economic model, commodities are unilaterally promoted by commercial organizations to end-users through advertising or other marketing means. It is inevitable that there will be unrealistic and exaggerated effects. Consumers only act as receivers and cannot fully understand the actual situation of goods. The asymmetric information accumulated at various levels often hinders the successful completion of transactions and reduces social efficiency. In the sharing economy mode, the consumer’s evaluation information of the commodity will be disclosed through the social network. Whether the purchaser will purchase goods and services can refer to historical evaluation information personally given by other consumers after they have obtained goods and services. This evaluation, which is entirely from the client, is difficult to tamper with and falsified and has a high degree of authenticity. In addition, merchants with high credit ratings will be more likely to be recommended by the platform, higher rankings and exposures will be able to obtain more trading opportunities, and thus force suppliers to improve credit with better goods and services. In other words, under the current Internet and big data foundation, everyone’s behavior on the Internet can leave indelible traces. As a product purchased by a customer, as a product sold by a business, given and received product evaluation, each viewpoint, comment, video, and photo uploaded on the social media will have an impact on people’s credit value in social groups. Judging from the two giants of the sharing economy, both Uber and Airbnb have established a system of mutual evaluation of users and service providers. Through a two-way evaluation system, the platform continuously precipitates evaluation information of suppliers and demanders, reduces the opacity of information between supply and demand parties, users with high credit value can obtain better services, and high-quality services are accumulated by credit for more users; on the contrary, users with low credit ratings will be eliminated. This positive feedback mechanism will promote the continuous improvement of the social credit system. At the same time, under the link of the Internet, the evaluation data on one platform may become the reference information for other platforms, and the credit efficiency will be infinitely extended.

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In addition, from the game point of view, it is difficult for a one-time game to identify participants who have lost credit accurately. Only an infinite number of repeated games can fully expose the creditworthiness of each participant, thus incentivizing the overall credit level. In the traditional real economy in the past, necessary technologies and tools have not yet emerged, and the ideal infinitely repeated game approach lacks an environment for implementation. With the maturity of cloud computing, big data, the internet of things, and mobile internet technologies, users of each network terminal interface can more and more conveniently and inexpensively observe the creditworthiness of the counterparty, and thus make a rational choice. The sharing economy platform provides each individual who is an Internet node with an all-encompassing and omnipotent repeat game transaction environment, prompting users at both ends of the platform to value and improve their creditworthiness under the drive of continuous value-added benefits. In the end, the “prisoner’s dilemma” caused by untrustworthiness caused by one-time games under the traditional model was broken. Under the traditional economic model, the social credit system can only collect, analyze, and collate the credit status of specific target subjects in a one-sided, oneway, one-time manner. The resulting credit evaluation results lack sufficient real-time effectiveness. Under the general trend of sharing economy, scenarios, socialization, evaluation, cooperation, etc. may trigger a new connection through the Internet. At the same time, based on the operation mechanism of infinite accumulation and repeated games, an all-round, multi-frequency, and two-way linkage credit evaluation system can be constructed to realize effective and timely recording and evaluation of the credit status of specific target subjects, and provide economic activities with smooth performance, then optimize the social credit system, ease economic friction caused by lack of credit, continuously improve the integrity of the entire society, and create great value for the efficient operation of social production activities from the macro level.

Chapter 20

Application Cases of Sharing Economy

The previous chapters introduced the theoretical part of the sharing economy. In fact, the practical application of the sharing concept has long been emerging, even far before its theoretical research. This chapter will introduce representative enterprises from five areas of program development, financing, travel, knowledge and skills, and manufacturing to introduce the application of the sharing economy.

20.1 Sharing Promotes Development: Tencent Open Platform With the continuous development of Internet technology, more and more Internet companies realize that it is difficult to meet the various needs of users quickly by providing multiple diversified application services through a single power. The status of traditional Internet companies is also challenged by a large number of emerging small and medium-sized enterprises. To maintain their status in the process of change, they need to be good at using these scattered competitors. Opening up enterprise resources, relying on the vast public power to continuously create and improving applications, and thus improving user loyalty have become a necessary way for the development of traditional Internet companies. The open platform represents the development trend of Internet data opening. Large domestic and foreign Internet companies have launched their own open platforms to attract developers to enter, such as Tencent, Baidu and 360 open platforms. The third-party application can develop the application of the authorization data based on the open interface of the platform to achieve a strategic win–win situation.

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_20

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20.1.1 Tencent Open Platform Tencent’s open platform is a stage provided by Tencent for developers. The main function of the platform is to open application, capability and content. In order to enable developers to access the platform without barriers, and to call various API interfaces easily, the platform enhances the basic API capabilities, and increases interfaces for user information, application promotion, payment, relationship chain, marketing, rich ability, basic support. Traffic and revenue are provided for applications through Tencent’s various social platforms. On this basis, Tencent has further improved its capabilities in mobile data analysis, mobile push, advertising, server hosting and social media. Through the continuous improvement of Tencent’s open platform, developers are provided with a wide range of development resources and capabilities to support developers’ innovative work on applications.

20.1.2 Open and Share Resources In the context of the sharing economy, we propose that the object of sharing economy is everything. Due to the limited size of a single enterprise, the production capacity, the scientific research level and the quality of employees, the resources owned by the enterprise cannot be fully and effectively utilized in the case of the individual use of the enterprise, resulting in the waste of resources. In the sharing economy, by transferring the right to use resources, other companies or individuals can also use the resources and create more value. In this process, the enterprise obtains certain benefits, the cost of other users is reduced, and the resources are properly allocated. Based on the concept of sharing, Tencent’s open platform provides developers with mature development resources. Tencent will provide experience for Internet operations to developers for free, and help developers from the three aspects of traffic, technology and profit. On the one hand, the core products such as Tencent Cloud, Guangdiantong and Yingyongbao provide support for developers from three directions: capability, service and content. On the other hand, through the establishment of the Open system (including Open Salon, Open Class, Open Day, Open Campus, etc.), Tencent provides developers with an offline communication platform. By building Tencent’s startup base, Tencent’s open platform will share the mature technical experience and other resources with more developers.

20.1.3 Operation Mode of Tencent Open Platform Tencent’s open platform opens its own resources. Developers use resources for software development, and provide download, use and update services through various user portals of Tencent Group.

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Firstly, Tencent’s open platform opens up Tencent’s internal big data resources. Developers collate and analyze this big data, extracting user needs, finding new directions for application development, continuously innovating products, and marketing precisely for potential users. Secondly, “Yingyongbao” integrates hundreds of millions of user portals, and developers on Tencent’s open platform can make full use of users. Developers will encounter difficulties in user contact during product development and initial operation, and user retention issues should also be considered in terms of profitability. As a cross-platform, personalized application store with a large number of users, “Yingyongbao” brings together a variety of high-quality, secure and personalized applications provided by developers, which can effectively display this software on the user interface, increasing the opportunity for the users to try the software. As of September 2016, the application volume of “Yingyongbao” exceeded 200 million every day, which became an important part of Tencent’s open platform sharing resources. Thirdly, Tencent’s open platform shares secure and reliable cloud servers and cloud databases with developers through Tencent Cloud. Tencent Cloud is the developer’s basic cloud products and services, which enables developers to have highly reliable data protection, solve developer data storage problems, and greatly reduce costs during the startup period. Finally, the platform leverages Guangdiantong to provide developers with accurate product promotion services. For developers in the start-up period, it is also a big problem to find a cost-effective product promotion method. The cost of traditional advertising channels is high, and it is difficult to guarantee the advertising effect. Based on Tencent’s platform with massive users, Guangdiantong can connect users and products. Developers can promote products in a variety of advertising spaces in Guangdiantong. Different advertising platforms are available to choose from, providing developers with abundant marketing space and low-cost, accurate advertising services, greatly enhancing the enthusiasm and continuous development of new developers. The operating mode of the Tencent open platform is that the platform and developers share revenue. The ways to gain revenue on the open platform are mainly application sales, advertising and item sales. Application sales mean that partially developed applications are paid for download and use. Users who want to use these applications need to become registered members and pay a certain fee. Other applications provide free download and use, in which other parties pay to insert advertisements, or revenue is achieved by selling paid items in the app. The benefits realized by the application are divided by the platform and the developer in a certain proportion to achieve mutual profit. In addition, Tencent’s open platform also offers innovative application developers with varying amounts of bonuses to encourage innovative thinking and support developers’ development efforts. With the development and improvement of Tencent’s open platform, the number of users entering the platform has grown rapidly, and the distribution of products’ revenue has become more and more inclined to developers, and developers will receive higher development revenue.

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20.1.4 Discovery and Inspiration The significance of the sharing economy lies in the sharing of resources, improving the efficiency of resources, reducing the resource acquisition costs of the entire society, and realizing the effective allocation of resources. Due to the limited internal conditions of a single enterprise, the resources owned by the company are idle or inefficient, and the benefits of resources cannot be fully utilized. On the one hand, the resources are fully utilized and the higher value is created. On the other hand, enterprises also benefit from others in the process of sharing. Before the launch of Tencent’s open platform, Tencent has accumulated a very large user base. At that time, Tencent’s own development software was available to users. However, as the number of users has increased, the diversification of user needs has become increasingly prominent. Although Tencent has a large number of employees and a high level of professional skills, it is increasingly difficult to meet the individual needs of many different users with the model developed by Tencent’s own employees. Under the trend of sharing economy, Tencent’s open platform allows each developer with development ability to become a developer of Tencent by sharing resources. On the one hand, it solves the problem that Tencent’s employees’ development capabilities are insufficient to meet user needs. The use of Tencent’s resources for free or low-cost, development work is easier, and the possibility of successful entrepreneurship is greater. In the process, Tencent’s resources and developer’s expertise are more efficiently utilized and create greater value. The sharing economy has the characteristics of low input and high output. Tencent’s open platform only needs to open its own resources to the public and provide certain support and services, which can acquire the technical and development capabilities of massive developers. At the same time, the vast number of developers have greatly reduced the investment in hardware facilities and advertising marketing using the platform, and realized the development and promotion of products at low cost. The sharing behavior makes both parties profit and improves the efficiency of creation.

20.2 Sharing Makes Capital More Efficient: Crowdfunding Network Contemporary crowdfunding refers to raising funds through the Internet. Compared with the traditional financing method, crowdfunding is more open. The core concept of this model is to rely on the platform, to gather the resources of many scattered individuals to achieve the goal, with “group purchase + pre-order” as the feedback form. The crowdfunding website allows any creative person to initiate a project to raise funds from the public, even if they are complete strangers. Those who are interested in the project support the implementation of creative projects by sharing

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funds, while the party sharing the funds gets a return after the project is completed. Crowdfunding eliminates the obstacles of traditional investment and institutional financing.

20.2.1 Crowdfunding Network The crowdfunding network was officially launched in February 2013. It is China’s most influential crowdfunding platform. It is designed to provide project sponsors with a comprehensive range of crowdfunding services including fundraising, investment, incubation, and operations. As of January 1, 2015, the number of crowdfunding projects on the website was 1964, with total fundraising of 61,492,800 yuan. The projects cover all aspects of the crowdfunding field. The crowdfunding model is mainly for rewarding crowdfunding and donation crowdfunding. Donation crowdfunding is generally used for public welfare crowdfunding, and rewards crowdfunding is crowdfunding in the general sense. The rewards are mainly in the form of physical means, service methods and equity.

20.2.2 Share Funds Crowdfunding is one of the ways to realize the sharing economy. The main object of sharing is capital. The three parties involved in crowdfunding are the capital demand side, the fund supply side and the fundraising platform. Such public investment has transformed traditional angel investment. Each person invests a small amount of money to become the investor of the project, which has dispersed the risk of investment. This is also the performance of the fragmentation of the sharing economic property attribute. Resource fragmentation can improve the transfer efficiency of resource usage rights. The huge amount of funds required by the project is distributed to many investors under the influence of the crowdfunding platform, which greatly shortens the time for fundraising and the risk of investors is relatively reduced. As shown in Fig. 20.1, the operation mode of crowdfunding is that the project initiator proposes the fundraising demand to the platform, the crowdfunding platform publishes the project related information to the public, the public selects the appropriate project, and transfers the funds to the platform, and the platform then transfers the funds to the initiator. In this process, the public will share the idle funds to the projects, so that the idle funds can be fully utilized and support the operation of the project to create value. The project initiator promises to give the investor a certain return (interest or commodity), and the investor will benefit from it. The crowdfunding platform charges the project sponsor a fee for the service.

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Fig. 20.1 Crowdsourcing operation mode process

20.2.3 Operation Mode of Crowdfunding Network If the project initiator chooses a crowdfunding network for crowdfunding, he should register, login and fill in the details of personal information and contact information. Then choose to initiate the project, fill in the project information, and upload the pictures and video materials related to the project, so that investors can understand the project. After the crowdfunding network reviews the initial project information, the project information and reward mechanism are improved with the help of the project manager. After the final review, the project can be promoted and raised on the crowdfunding network platform. In the crowdfunding process, the funds raised are handed over to the third-party platform at first, and the “first + final payment” is paid in batches to the initiator. After the project is completed and the fundraising is successful, the project initiator applies for the first payment, and the first payment is settled after the approval. After the investor confirms that the initiator has received the promised return, the project initiator can apply for the final payment. Crowdfunding provides project initiators with a series of professional services such as project planning, feasibility analysis and operational improvement, and real-time supervision of their project operations. If crowdfunding fails, Crowdfunding will conduct second crowdfunding after improving the project with the initiator. In addition, the crowdfunding network adopts the margin system to protect the interests of investors. The funds raised by the project sponsors on the crowdfunding network platform are collected by the platform at first. After the project is over and the crowdfunding is successful, Crowdfunding will transfer 70% of the funds to the sponsors, and the rest will be retained by the platform as a deposit. After the investors receive the return promised by the initiator, Crowdfunding will transfer the retained funds to the initiator. Otherwise, Crowdfunding has the right to directly control the deposit to redeem the promise of a return to investors. Profitability is the guarantee for the continuous operation of crowdfunding. Crowdfunding’s revenue is mainly through the provision of services to crowdfunding projects. Its charging system charges the project initiators instead of the investors. The

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main profit methods of Crowdfunding are divided into membership fees, commission fees, value-added service charges and risk reinvestment income. (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Membership fees are the most basic way of profit-making for crowdfunding networks. Crowdfunding has launched a membership system, mainly for those who want to launch projects and need to use crowdfunding platforms. These people are potential project initiators. To make better use of the services provided by Crowdfunding, users need to register as a member and pay a certain membership fee. After the one-time payment of the membership fee is completed, users do not need to pay the fee again regardless of the postfunding project and the number of funds raised. The membership system is implemented not only to earn membership fees, but also to provide members with more complete services to increase the enthusiasm and participation of project initiators in using the platform. Commission fees are the most important source of profit for crowdfunding networks. After crowdfunding success, the platform will draw certain commissions from the funds raised by the project. The form of crowdfunding commissions is based on the amount raised. To ensure the security of funds, the funds raised by the project are all transferred by the third-party payment institution, and the process will generate funds custody fees. After the crowdfunding success, 1.5% of the total amount of funds raised by the project will be deducted by the crowdfunding network and paid to the third-party payment institution as a handling fee. If the crowdfunding is unsuccessful, no handling fee will be charged. In addition to regular services for the project, crowdfunding also has some value-added services, which charge a certain additional fee. This part of valueadded services mainly includes guidance work in financial evaluation, legal counseling and consulting. The crowdfunding network has strong support itself, which can provide financial leasing, P2P lending and asset management services. The project initiator can outsource most of the financing work of the project to the crowdfunding network and pay the money accordingly. In addition, the crowdfunding network also provides advertising and publicity services to help the project promote. Since the crowdfunding network implements the deposit system, 30% of the total amount of funds raised is retained as a deposit, and the deposit is transferred to the project initiator after the investors receive the return promised by the initiator. During this period, the crowdfunding network can talk about margin reinvestment and earn income. This form of profit model has certain risks, but it is also an important source of profit for the crowdfunding network.

20.2.4 Discovery and Inspiration Under the general trend of the sharing economy, China’s crowdfunding market has huge room for development. Increasing investment demands and an increasingly hot

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entrepreneurial wave have provided many opportunities for crowdfunding. From the perspective of its operation mode and purpose, crowdfunding has great potential and practical significance, but the crowdfunding model does not completely form a regulated market in China. The lack of supervision, the distrust of users, and the poor credit environment are all problems. The crowdfunding model is still far away from real development. There are still many problems that need to be gradually explored in development. First of all, the profit model of crowdfunding websites is not clear. Nowadays, in order to get the project, the domestic crowdfunding website has to take the free mode operation project which is not a model that can be implemented continuously. Free will make the crowdfunding website run into debt and eventually abandon the crowdfunding model. Establishing its own profit model without losing the market is an urgent problem for crowdfunding websites. Secondly, the crowdfunding industry needs the joint development of crowdfunding websites. The websites need to explore organic cooperation models actively, give full play to the demonstration role of the leading websites, formulate industry guarantee mechanisms, credit mechanisms, and regulate industry game rules, provide a credit environment and policy environment for the development of the industry. Finally, crowdfunding should make full use of Internet resources. The crowdfunding model is an innovation of Internet finance. It is a new business model based on credit foundation and social model. Whether crowdfunding websites can grasp the essence of the Internet, balance their own business nature and social attributes, and re-examine user products, marketing, innovation to develop themselves is also a test for crowdfunding websites.

20.3 Mobike Shares Travel to Solve the Last One Kilometer Problem When consumers have demand, the market has a response. As one of the earliest areas in the field of sharing economy, there has been shared traffic outside the public transportation and private car sectors. Under the influence of the capital from all parties, the shared travel further extended to the “last mile” of the city, and the shared bicycle aimed at the travel demand of the urban traffic microcirculation, entering the city life and quickly becoming popular. In the context of the sharing economy, from ofo, Mobike was founded and won a large number of financing, Tencent, Didi, and other giants entered the game, and then the various new shared bicycle platforms entered, the development of shared bicycles is very rapid.

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20.3.1 Mobike The bicycle-sharing brand “Mobike” was released in Shanghai in April 2016.The Mobike bicycle was launched by Wang Xiaofeng, the founder of Mobike Technology and former general manager of Uber Shanghai. He said that “Mobike bicycles will use the price that everyone can afford, and help every city person to make short trips more convenient.” “Mobike” is committed to solving people’s short-distance travel needs by means of the Internet. With the Mobike app, users can query and use the returned bicycle. The key feature of “Mobike” is that it is an emerging form of “Internet + Finance + Bicycle”. For example, consumers can use the app to view the bicycle location, make an appointment and pay the fee. The cost of the car is reduced. The bicycle does not need to be bundled in a fixed position, but in any non-motorized parking area marked by the government, which reduces the cost of parking and finding.

20.3.2 Share Traffic Traffic sharing is a sharing method of ownership access. Ownership access is the display of idle items and assets owned by enterprises or the public on third-party platforms and users in need to browse and select online. They use the item temporarily without ownership and pay for it. Ownership access is the use of the O2O model, emphasizing the integration of online and offline resources. Trading and exchange evaluations take place online, and the delivery and use of products are completed offline. In the sharing economy, the use of resources is more important than ownership. Traffic sharing is also an act that emphasizes the right to use. The only thing that can be transferred through the platform is the right to use the vehicle. People do not need to own a car or a bicycle to use these vehicles anytime and anywhere. The shared vehicle is open to all individuals accessing the platform, greatly increasing the utilization rate, and the enterprise or individual (vehicle owner) also gains revenue through this process, and the resources thus create greater value.

20.3.3 Mobike’s Operating Mode The use of the Mobike bicycle is very simple. Users can download the “Mobike Bicycle” application on their mobile phones, pay the deposit and become registered users after real-name authentication. When there is a short trip, the user can search for nearby bicycles on the application. After recharging a certain amount, the user can unlock the bicycle by scanning the code on his mobile phone, then use it. Unlike traditional piled public bicycles, such a network bicycle eliminates the complicated

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Fig. 20.2 The running mode of the Mobike bicycle

process of running a card, and it can be parked at any legal non-motorized parking spot after the user uses the bicycle to reach the destination. After parking at a suitable location and locking the car, the use process ends and the bicycle can be unlocked by other users. The running mode of the Mobike bicycle is shown in Fig. 20.2. From the way of Mobike’s operation and huge market space, Mobike seems to be a great product. This innovation can meet the public’s short-distance travel demand to a large extent, and it can indeed improve the traffic conditions of a city. The simple use method and low cost also improve the user’s adaptability, so consumers are more acceptable. However, the current profit model is still a major hidden danger of this model. From the outside, the rental fee is fixed, so the frequency of use of the vehicle and the size of the user determine the amount of income. Due to the short development time of the industry, it is difficult to know the core data such as the number, cost and usage rate of the bicycle. Mobike currently relies mainly on bicycle rental fees, and each user is required to pay a deposit of 299 yuan when registering. Mobike requires a deposit of 299 yuan when the user registers, and the bicycle usage fee is not deducted from the deposit, and an additional fee is required. Although the deposit can be refunded, the bicycle cannot be used if there is no deposit. Therefore, most users who use bicycles frequently do not take out the deposit, which will be very good cash flow and capital deposit for Mobike. The reuse of the bicycle deposit may be the most obvious way to share the current bicycle. In terms of rental fees, there are currently two models of Mobike bicycles, and the usage fees are different. The original model is charged at 1 yuan per half hour, and the new light ride is charged at 0.5 yuan per half hour. The payment method is through the “My Wallet” in the Mobike Bike App, which can be recharged by Alipay or WeChat. The fare balance is different from the deposit and cannot be refunded. Judging from the current charging standards, the bicycle rental fee of 1 yuan or 0.5 yuan for a bicycle in half an hour is so insignificant compared with the depreciation cost of the bicycle and the deposited funds. This model seems to be difficult to make a profit. However, in terms of usage, Bida Consulting’s “2016 China Shared Bicycle Market Research Report” shows that the number of shared bicycle users is expected to increase to 49.65 million in 2017, and the daily order volume will exceed

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10 million, which means that bicycle sharing will be a huge traffic entry. The high frequency also makes the industry full of money. Therefore, in the future, Mobike can also explore profitable ways through various forms such as advertising cooperation, which is one of the important driving forces for the “burning money” operation of the shared bicycle industry.

20.3.4 Discovery and Inspiration Focusing on the problems of urban travel, bicycle sharing is playing a role that cannot be ignored. Due to the huge market space, all parties are eager to inject funds to promote the development of this model. In first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, the number of trips per day can reach tens of millions, of which 30% is short-distance travel of fewer than five kilometers, and the market demand is very impressive. On February 20, 2017, Mobike announced that it had received new investment in the D round of financing. The total amount of financing in 2017 alone has exceeded 300 million US dollars. The injection of capital can promote the expansion of the scale of the industry, making the idea of riding at any time become a reality. The success of Mobike provides a reference for the implementation of the sharing economy model in various fields. The sharing mode has greatly expanded transportation resources. Breaking through resource constraints is one of the goals of sharing economy. The sharing economy allows resources to be recycled and reused multiple times or even indefinitely by renting them. Based on the current large population and travel time, the original means of transportation and infrastructure cannot meet travel needs. The emergence of bicycle sharing enables the original vehicles to be reused by the public. In the future, a limited number of vehicles will be able to meet unlimited travel needs and break through the constraints of transportation resources. One of the most important prerequisites for the sharing economy to break through resource constraints is the feature of emphasizing the right to use rather than ownership. Mobike can greatly satisfy the public’s travel needs. As users only have temporary use rights when using bicycles, the same bicycle can be used indefinitely by different people during its lifetime. In other industries, it is also necessary to break through the traditional trading method of buying and selling ownership and seek a mode of temporary right to use, expand the scale of resources, and improve the efficiency of resource use.

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20.4 Fenda, Discovers the Value of Knowledge and Time by Sharing From the popularity of the reward model in 2015, personal knowledge resources began to be gradually regarded as a commodity and can be directly traded on a specific platform. The paid sharing of knowledge has spawned a regulated market, and knowledge sharing has begun to grow rapidly. For a long time, people generally believe that free is a feature of sharing, and knowledge is not considered a commodity. The sharing of knowledge has always been a form of free and voluntary, which greatly reduces the enthusiasm of people to share knowledge. Now that knowledge resource sharing is evolving from a free-to-pay model, it is a significant step in knowledge sharing. The pattern of paying for knowledge has been difficult to carry out, but from the rewards to the successful operation of “Fenda”, we realize that there is an effective mechanism for consumers to pay voluntarily, and on the Internet, many people are willing to pay for the knowledge they need, and knowledge sharing is increasingly possible with this mechanism.

20.4.1 Fenda In March 2015, Guoke launched the app “Zaihang”. People with expertise in various fields can become “experts” through a series of qualification examinations. Other registered users can meet with the “experts” through the “Zaihang” platform, face-toface communication and answer questions, and pay by the hour. Knowledge resources are shared and realized through this process. In May 2016, the “Zaihang” project team further launched the sub-product “Fenda”. In this application, users can introduce or describe the areas of their own, set the price of the answers. Other users can pay to ask questions when they are interested. “Fenda” transforms the role of the “Zaihang” knowledge sharing platform from offline to online, and accelerates the circulation efficiency of knowledge resources.

20.4.2 Share Surplus Cognition The cognitive surplus theory is one of the important theoretical foundations of sharing economy. In some areas, there are rich knowledge and skill resources and people with free time, and sharing desires. These people’s free time is gathered together, and using certain conditions to share knowledge with others can create a huge social value. Cognitive surplus regards people’s time and intellectual resources as a collection of social resources. Before sharing economy, when people complete their daily work and study, most of the rest is spent on entertainment, which makes it difficult to generate more value. In the era of mobile internet, the rapid development of online

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media enables the remaining time, intelligence, and other resources to be shared with others and become a public social resource. The platform of “Fenda” aims at the value of public surplus cognition. Individuals with various professional knowledge can accept questions from others and can respond within idle time. After the answer is over, they will get a certain amount of compensation. In this way, individual knowledge and idle time become resources and create value, not only the money that the respondent gets, but also the people who get the answers can acquire knowledge, and the surplus cognition is used efficiently.

20.4.3 Operation Mode of Fenda The Operation mode of Fenda is similar to a sharing platform for multiple communication modes. Macroscopically, it is a “many-to-many” communication mode (Fig. 20.3), that is, knowledge owners on the platform can impart professional knowledge to all demanders, and each demander can choose different experts in the field to ask for knowledge. In the middle view, it is a “one-to-many” communication mode (Fig. 20.4). Each expert can attract users interested in this field to form a group in their own fields. To each question is a process of transferring and sharing knowledge for all users of this group. At the same time, it is also a “one-to-one” knowledge communication mode at the micro-level, because the process of questioning and receiving answers is a one-to-one process between each user and the selected expert. Knowledge resources are shared and realized through multiple modes on this platform, making “Fenda” a market where knowledge resources can be directly traded. The respondents of “Fenda” have the characteristics of openness and popularity. The respondents in “Zaihang” can only be “experts” who have settled in after the complicated approval process. On the “Fenda” platform, each registered user can accept questions from others after filling out simple information. But only when there are sufficient and valuable knowledge resources in a certain field can it attract more users to pay attention and ask questions, and their knowledge can be shared and realized more efficiently. Therefore, on the “Fenda” platform, the popularity of the Fig. 20.3 “Many-to-many” communication mode

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eavesdropper

questioner respondents

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eavesdropper Fig. 20.4 “One-to-many” communication mode

answer may not be outstanding in major areas, but must master the key knowledge and voice in a certain field. The users on “Zaihang” subscribe to the experts online, and the experts use the offline time to meet the users and answer questions, and charge according to the time. The “Fenda” users ask questions online and pay for voice answers, and the knowledge and skills of the respondents are shared and benefited online. All users on “Fenda” can participate in questions and answers. Each user can publish their own industry or professional field, fill in the simple information and become the answering party. They price the 60-s voice answer at a range from 1 to 500 yuan. When a questioner chooses to ask the question, he/she must pay according to the price of the answering party to obtain the knowledge. If the question is not answered within 48 h, the fee paid by the questioner will be refunded. Under this operating mechanism, the questioner obtains the voice answer of the answering party by means of online purchase. After the question is answered, the questioner obtains the knowledge resource, and the knowledge of the owner is shared and the income is obtained. On this basis, “Fenda” divides the knowledge receiver into two roles: the questioner and the “eavesdropper”. The voice response of the answering party can be directed to each user, not limited to the questioner. Other users who want to listen to the question need to pay 1 yuan for eavesdropping fees. The platform will draw 10% of the fee, and the rest will be divided equally by the questioner and the respondent. This model allows users who ask valuable questions can also benefit and increases the enthusiasm of the questioner. For example, a disease attending physician issues a price of 10 yuan to consult the relevant questions. If the user is interested, he or she will need to pay 10 yuan for inquiry. When the attending physician answers, it indicates that the first round of the question and answer transaction is completed. When someone with the same needs sees the questioner’s question, he or she can pay 1 yuan to hear the answer from the attending physician. This 1 yuan is divided equally between the original questioner and the respondent. The more people listen, the more both sides will benefit.

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The questioner seems to ask the question separately, but the “Eavesdropping” mode helps him complete the question crowdfunding. However, only valuable issues can attract more users to participate in crowdfunding. This model plays a role in screening low-value issues. On the other hand, it allows both parties to share benefits, achieve win–win results, and improve user enthusiasm. The “Fenda” income distribution mechanism increases the value of knowledge and makes it a paid knowledge-sharing platform.

20.4.4 Discovery and Inspiration One of the important goals of sharing economy is to improve the adaptability of the participants. If the participant is single, the efficiency of resource allocation will be reduced. A platform like “Fenda” is to enable the subjects with surplus cognition to be in the same place. Individuals from different industries, ages and regions can share their knowledge and time with others. They can also gain knowledge in other unknown areas by paying a certain amount of money. The promotion of the subject’s adaptability promotes and realizes the exchange of mutual trust and relationships between strangers, and achieves efficient matching and value creation. To improve the adaptability of the participants, the successful operation of the “Fenda” mode provides us with a good reference: simplify the operation and lower the threshold of use. “Fenda” has 1 million paid users in 42 days, and the payment amount and repurchase rate are very impressive. Compared with the early product “Zaihang”, the platform activity has changed dramatically. Comparing the two products, “Zaihang” is more professional, the respondents are experts in various industries, and the mode of answering offline is used in the initial operation. In this way, the questioner can generally get a very professional satisfactory answer. However, the cost is relatively high. The way of answering offline also takes up the time of both parties. Coupled with a series of factors such as the approval system of experts in the “Zaihang”, the threshold for usage is high. The “Fenda” mode makes the user’s usage threshold very low. From the aspects of software download, question price, answering method and scheduling, users can use the product anytime and anywhere, which improves the adaptability of the participating subjects and improves the knowledge circulation efficiency. Furthermore, the “Fenda” mechanism has enabled all parties involved to achieve a win–win situation and further enhance the enthusiasm of users to participate. Although in the field of knowledge sharing, the free-to-play model is more likely to gather popularity and increase users, the “Fenda” still adopts a payment model. On the one hand, users are more cautious when asking questions, and they play a role in screening for worthless problems. On the other hand, the low cost does not cause the use threshold to be too high. “Fenda” divides the knowledge acquisition party into two roles: “questioner” and “eavesdropper”. The “one dollar eavesdropping”

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method avoids repeat answers. At the same time, the “questioner” can also participate in the division of eavesdropping costs. Proposing valuable questions can also yield benefits, and user activity will naturally increase.

20.5 Sharing Economy Promotes Industrial Upgrading: i5 Intelligent Machine Tool of Shenyang Machine Tool The sharing economy model is rapidly expanding in various fields driven by various factors. The concept of “sharing” in the fields of consumption and services continues to create new forms, while the manufacturing sector on the supply side is also under the influence of the sharing economy. A huge change has taken place. Enterprises use the Internet platform to share the production capacity, and the demand side and the supply side are effectively connected so that the supply side enterprise resources can be efficiently utilized, and the demand side enterprises can obtain various production resources at low cost and create greater value, thereby realizing effective configuration of resources.

20.5.1 i5 Intelligent Machine Tool In February 2014, Shenyang Machine Tool introduced i5 intelligent machine tools, of which i5 refers to the industry, information, internet, integrate and intelligence. This product is equipped with the i5 CNC system independently developed by Shenyang Machine Tool, which not only improves work efficiency but also meets the individual needs of users. In the context of the sharing economy, i5 intelligent machine tools achieve capacity sharing, individual design, and manufacturing for everyone with innovative business models and profit models, which will promote the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing.

20.5.2 Share Production Capacity Low input is one of the important characteristics of sharing economy. The most important equipment in manufacturing often requires large sums of money to purchase, so it is a big initial investment pressure for new companies. In the sharing economy, enterprises do not need to purchase expensive equipment for production. They do not need to pursue ownership of the equipment, but only need to consider whether it meets the production. Then they select the assets that are most suitable from the resources such as equipment shared by other enterprises.

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Production capacity sharing The sharing of production capacity is to integrate the production capacities of different enterprises, and to achieve the most effective connection between the demand and the supply side of the production. After the advantages of i5 intelligent machine tool production are reflected, it may face a situation of rapid expansion of demand. Then, after the demand is expanded, it is difficult to match the huge user demand by local productivity alone. Under this circumstance, the Shenyang Machine Tool has found a mode of operation that integrates social productivity (machine tools) and places them on a public platform to achieve large-scale production capacity sharing. Creative sharing Manufacturing enterprises are not the only users of Shenyang machine tools. Distributed manufacturing, intelligent manufacturing and cloud manufacturing formed by the Internet are also targeted at individual users. Computers, mobile phones, glasses, shoes and other daily consumer goods are made with machine tools. If the demand for these products is huge, then in theory, users can directly connect the machine tools to customize their products through the Internet. Shenyang Machine Tool puts part of the production resources (machine tools) into the sharing platform cloud. They can be called freely with the user’s needs, thus achieving mass customization. In this way, the i5 intelligent machine tool realizes “idea to shape”. Shenyang machine tool plays the role of creative sharing platform in this process. Numerous ideas have been put together under the Shenyang machine tool, forming a variety of products to meet different needs.

20.5.3 Operation Mode of i5 Intelligent Machine Tool Under the concept of sharing economy, the I5 intelligent machine tool creates a new operating mode and profit model in manufacturing. I5 explores the sharing of production capacity and personal intelligence, and innovates the profit model to meet the diverse needs of manufacturing enterprises and individuals. (1)

In terms of production capacity sharing, ideally, when all products of Shenyang Machine Tool can be connected to the network, the production status data is uploaded to the cloud, and this operation mode can be fully realized. Based on the data, the machine owner’s production capacity is fully visualized, and the i5 platform can identify whether there is idle equipment and match the idle equipment to the demander nearby. In this way, the most reasonable machine tool can be found for the processing task through the Internet. After the product is processed, it can be obtained by mail, which realizes the sharing of production capacity. If there are not enough networked machine tools, it is difficult to achieve a reasonable allocation of production resources, and it is difficult to achieve obvious effects when the production capacity is deployed in the above manner. However, when the terminals (machine tools) of Shenyang machine tools are spread all over the country and even around the world, the surplus of

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productivity in various places can release huge supply capacity and meet the needs of almost all users. The premise of Shenyang Machine Tool’s sharing of production capacity is that the equipment of the enterprise can be widely spread. To obtain enough participants (demand-side and sharing party) on the sharing platform, Shenyang Machine Tool adopts the U2U business model, which greatly reduces initial investment for equipment. The valuable assets of i5 intelligent machine tools can spread on a large scale. U2U refers to UNIS TO USERS. The UNIS sales company was established to change the previous model of single-sale machine tools, but to provide customers with a full-life professional industrial service based on customer needs, and achieve a win–win with customers in the service process. Under the U2U sales model, Shenyang Machine Tool does not require customers to purchase the ownership of the machine tool at one time but pays the deposit to obtain the right to use the machine tool. Subsequent production is paid in stages according to the time of use or the number of products produced. This mode of transferring resource usage rights rather than ownership changes the traditional economic transaction form and it is consistent with the characteristic of emphasizing the right to use. Using personal creative intelligent manufacturing, Shenyang Machine Tool loaded iCAM on i5 system, which is CAM software (Computer-Aided Manufacturing) on the i5 platform. Anyone can log in to the i5 platform via the Internet, design their own personalized products directly online, and use software modeling to generate processing programs. In this way, industrial design becomes a creative production. However, it is also very difficult to attract users to participate. In order to achieve effective interaction with users, Shenyang Machine Tool has launched user interfaces such as App and WeChat to promote creative sharing and everyone-made solutions in a model that is more in line with individual user preferences. For example, users can use Shenyang machine tools to make simple products such as mobile phone cases with their own zodiacs and names. Although the products are simple, the “participation feeling” of making personalized products with their own creativity makes the users feel very fulfilled. There is also an innovation of the profit model of the i5 intelligent machine tool. The new model of U2U launched by Shenyang Machine Tool enables the machine tool to change its manufacturing products to achieve profitability. Users pay for it according to product parts, time of use and even the value created. Shenyang Machine Tool leases intelligent CNC machine tools to customers, from buying and selling machine tools to sharing production capacity, reducing the equipment input cost of enterprises, and Shenyang machine tools can also lay out products on a large scale.

This profit model needs to follow up the customer’s use of the machine in realtime, collect and analyze the machine data. But Shenyang machine itself is not good at big data processing. So they created the intelligent cloud information technology

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Co., Ltd. in Shanghai with ever bright Financial and Digital, which establishes a large platform for industrial data, process machine tool usage data and provides value-added services to big data customers. On this platform, all manufacturing equipment is interconnected, and users submit product orders online through the platform. On the one hand, the platform analyzes the geographical location, production capacity, quality level and other factors of each manufacturing enterprise on the platform according to the requirements of the order to provide customers with the best company. On the other hand, the platform collects and analyzes the data of the customer’s use of the machine tool, and the customer pays according to the pre-established standards, thus achieving the common benefit of Shenyang machine tools and customers. In order to further promote the new profit model and increase customer acceptance of products, Shenyang Machine Tool Co., Ltd. established Younis Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. in 2014 to carry out a machine-based financial leasing business. Customers can pay for machine tools on time, and can also purchase in installments. This model can not only solve the problem of insufficient funds for customers, reduce the cost of purchasing the machine, and facilitate the sales of products, but also gradually withdraw funds and ease the problem of cash flow. In 2015, the total leasing business of Shenyang Machine Tool has reached 500 million yuan, providing financial support for the future expansion of the market.

20.5.4 Discovery and Inspiration In the new environment, traditional enterprises need to explore new modes of operation. Manufacturing is a heavy asset industry. However, the investment of assets is great pressure for enterprises. The low investment of the sharing economy is a feasible strategy to solve the pressure on the investment of valuable assets. The sharing of i5 intelligent machine tool capacity has created a precedent for success for other companies. Sharing enables the production equipment of large enterprises to be fully utilized. At the same time, it solves the problem of large investment pressure and insufficient production capacity of other enterprises and improves the operating efficiency of the entire industry. The model of capacity sharing also promotes the enterprise’s innovation of the profit model. The sharing economy promotes industrial transformation and structural adjustment. In sharing economy, the sales volume of products will no longer play a decisive role in the profitability of enterprises, and enterprises will pay more attention to the use of unit products. Gaining revenue through the frequency of use is a major trend in the future. Equipment manufacturers like Shenyang Machine Tool can’t adapt to the sharing economy model simply relying on product sales. The income model of leasing the right to use provides a good reference for other enterprises.

Chapter 21

Challenges, Problems and Countermeasures of Sharing Economy

With the rapid expansion of the economy as well as the digging of the market potential, sharing economy continues to attract large investors on a global scale in recent years. From 2000 to 2015, the cumulative amount of investment exceeds $27 billion in the sector of sharing economy,1 which indicates the enthusiasm of global capital for sharing economy. In addition to the scale of investment, sharing economic model has gradually penetrated into many industries. In addition to real estate, cars and other physical assets that can be used to share, all kinds of non-physical objects such as time, intelligence, skills, and so on can be shared also. At present, for a variety of consumers’ needs in the field of necessities, more and more companies began to try to resolve problems by the idea of sharing. However, all new things will experience “growing pains”. As a new economic model, no matter how sharing economy be in line with a global trend, and whether people get many benefits from sharing economy, there will certainly be a variety of challenges and problems in making the sharing economy fully integrated into society and become a mainstream business model. Therefore, how to face challenges and solve problems has profound practical significance for the healthy development of the sharing economy. In the last chapter of this book, we will analyze the challenges and problems in the sharing economy, and propose effective and targeted scientific countermeasures.

21.1 Challenges in Sharing Economy As a new economic form, the business concept and model of sharing economy has unavoidable incompatibilities with the mainstream economic pattern. This section provides three challenges that have a deep impact on the sharing economy and exert multi-angle analysis of external pressures. 1

Source: “China’s share in the economic panorama interpretation report".

© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Zhang, Sharing Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3649-3_21

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21.1.1 Competition with Traditional Enterprises As a new business model, the sharing economy has injected fresh vitality into society. A large number of reform-oriented sharing economy enterprises have emerged as a result. Due to its advantages of low cost, high flexibility, and convenience, the sharing economy model quickly gains a place in the market. The “market cake” of traditional enterprises is quickly divided up by emerging sharing economy enterprises, and the existing market order has been greatly affected. In the traditional industry, the taxi industry is the most affected by the emerging economic model. The emergence of Uber attracted a large number of passengers in a short time, resulting in a significant decline in the taxi passenger loading rate. The interests of the taxi industry and drivers have been violated, and Uber has encountered unprecedented resistance in some countries and regions. This situation reflects that in the process of redistribution of resources, certain interest groups dormant in the traditional industries have suffered infringements of rights and interests, and they only care about protecting their own interests. Sometimes they would rather choose to deviate from the public and try every possible means to block new ones. Enterprises enter the existing market. In addition to the taxi industry, Airbnb suffered from boycotts in the traditional hotel industry. Traditional hotel companies have raised many questions about Airbnb’s legitimacy, security, and taxation issues. The thinking nature of this business model lies in transforming the focus of people’s attention from ownership to the right to use all available resources to enhance the utilization efficiency, making it possible to dig out more value for the unit of resource. The sharing economy, which has had a huge impact on traditional enterprises, has profoundly subverted the current economic society, and its level is clearly different from any previous wave of innovation, just like the author of The New Capitalist Manifesto (Umair Haque, 2011) points out, if the traditional consumption reduced by 10%, while the share of consumption increased by 10%, then the profit margin of traditional business will be significantly affected; if traditional enterprises cannot be changed, and may even be eliminated. The development of the sharing economy has greatly reduced the barriers to entry for many industries. Sharingeconomy enterprises have significant cost advantages, the ability to create unlimited supply, and marginal costs that approach zero, putting conventional companies under enormous competitive pressure. In an exclusive monopoly market, the development of sharing economy enterprises and their rapid expansion has impacted the original business logic and economic order, and has directly led to the redistribution of social wealth and interests, as well as challenges and obstructions of stakeholders.2 It can be expected that as the sharing economy continues to thrive, traditional enterprises will

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Share the Economic Development Report Task Force. China’s Sharing of Economic Development Reports _ Status Quo _ Problems and Challenges _ Development Trends. E-Government, 2016 (4): 11–27.

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surely feel an unprecedented sense of crisis. It is even possible that traditional enterprises will unite with each other and adopt more boycott measures against emerging sharing economy enterprises, which will inevitably affect the development of the sharing economy.

21.1.2 The Test of Social Integrity In essence, the sharing economy is a transaction between strangers under the condition of asymmetric information. Therefore, the level of integrity is a key factor for the success and efficiency of the transaction process in the sharing economy. Overall, the level of integrity and transaction efficiency can be described as a positive correlation. As the intermediary between the two sides brokered the deal, sharing platform can reduce search costs of both parties to a certain extent, but due to adverse selection and moral hazard problems caused by asymmetric information, it is difficult to reduce direct by sharing platform. The cost of the transaction is still high. As the sharing economy model involves more and more industry fields, the field of bicycle travel has also been favored by the sharing economy enterprises. However, the actual results have made these companies unexpected. In Beijing, for the ubiquitous “last mile” problem of commuting to the public, a sharing bicycle software called “Mobike” develops rapidly and supplies bicycles launched in the streets of the city. The company did not expect that ten thousand all-new bikes suffered a lot of embarrassment in the process of using and parking. A few people do not follow the code of ethics, and they do not abide by the rules during the use of bicycles. This often led to irregular parking, the addition of private locks, and even malicious damage. In this regard, Mobike had to adjust the rules of cycling thanks to the credit scoring system, and encourage the public to report and make the appropriate penalties for the uncivilized behavior of cyclists occur during use, hoping to increase the cost of uncivilized behavior. This will reduce the occurrence of negative events. When Uber reviews the car driver on the platform, only the age, driver’s license, insurance, etc., are reviewed, and there is no investigation of the driver’s past violation records, credit history, traffic violation records, and other backgrounds. Judging the integrity of the driver is impossible. Drivers with bad driving habits, bad credit, and even illegal records may be exposed to consumers through justified reasons. This may cause many hidden dangers in the safety of the consumers. In essence, the sharing economy is a credit economy. Therefore, building a sound credit system is both necessary and important.

21.1.3 The Challenge to Traditional Government Supervision Any economic model will inevitably conflict with the original system in the process of innovation. The complexity and uncertainty of the innovation activity itself is the internal reason why the innovation process of the economic model faces the regulatory dilemma. The emergence of the sharing economy model and the introduction

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of new business ideas have created enormous challenges to the traditional regulatory practices that the government has been implementing. To Uber, for example, in recent years, in addition to government censorship suffered in some areas outside the United States, also received bans from France, Spain, India, Thailand and other countries.3 In many cities of China, the regulatory authorities have issued bans on companies that provide special car services, such as Uber and Didi, for reasons such as lack of licenses, disruption of the market, and potential safety problems. Currently, the regulatory disputes that the sharing economy faced mostly reflected in the following three aspects. (1)

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The innovative use of social resources. Based on traditional ways of using social resources, the supervision methods promulgated by government departments are also some traditional measures. In two areas of sharing economy— house rental and car rental, in the past only a few operators provided continuous service, the vast majority of participants only acted as the customer. The appearance of sharing economic model completely subvert the use of traditional social resources, and this caused a lot of controversies. For example, Airbnb in the area of rental housing as long as there are free room rental owners can provide short-term rental on their website. However, due to the constant supply, these free rooms have become a substantial hotel area after the rental service, which has caused a lot of life problems for the neighbors. Therefore, Airbnb has often been accused of affecting the property rental market and violating the city planning system. Protection of consumers’ rights. Because the service providers in the sharing economy have the characteristics of non-professionalization and lack a set of protection mechanisms for consumers’ rights and interests in the transaction process, there has always been controversy over whether the sharing economy model can protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Owners who provide housing rentals on the Airbnb website do not need to meet the same fire safety standards as hotels do. Drivers in Uber or Didi do not need an operating license like a taxi driver, which many people are worried about. In addition, the price of sharing services has also been widely debated. Dynamic pricing strategies are almost always implemented in all types of taxi software to attract more drivers to come to serve, so this attracts more drivers to come to service. However, this pricing method has been criticized since its launch, and most people equate it with arbitrary prices, causing passenger dissatisfaction and many negative effects. Disputes over unfair competition. Many of the services and products that came into being under the sharing economy were unprofessional and unregulated, which resulted in contradictions and conflicts between traditionally-owned and regulated enterprises. For example, in the hotel industry, traditional hotels need to pay various taxes, while Airbnb’s lessors do not have to bear such obligations. Also in the taxi industry, Drivers of regular taxi companies need to pay a lot

Zhang Jun. The Dilemma and Reform of Government Supervision in the Era of Sharing Economy. Information Security and Communication Security, 2016 (01): 102–105.

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of money to the company every month, also need to complete the company’s various assessments, and drivers in Uber and Didi are not subject to such harsh conditions. Traditional enterprises believe that such competition is unfair and call for supervisory authorities to adopt the same regulatory system as traditional enterprises for sharing economy enterprises through various forms.

21.2 Problems in the Development of Sharing Economy In recent years, the sharing economy has achieved a rapid leap forward, but at the same time, some problems and drawbacks have also been exposed in the development. This section will mainly discuss two issues that are particularly prominent during the development of the sharing economy—legal issues and taxation issues, and diverge ideas to raise relevant thinking on the development of the sharing economy.

21.2.1 Legal Issues As a new thing, the sharing economy model is not yet perfect in its own development, and its legal structure and operating mechanism are more unique than the current legal system. The existing legal system cannot be fully applied or covered. Therefore, the sharing economy model faces certain legal difficulties in its development. (1)

Assumption of responsibility. Since the rise of the sharing economy, some unfamiliar parties of supply and demand have infringed upon each other in terms of personal and property rights. Although the sharing platform played a docking role between the supply and demand sides, once this kind of infringement occurs, in most cases, only the parties can solve the problem on their own. There is no relevant law stipulating that the sharing platform should also bear the corresponding responsibility, which also makes people have doubts about the trustworthiness of the platform. In traditional industries, there is a clear legally defined employment relationship between employers and employees. The employer is responsible for the infringement of the employee, and the employer is also required to compensate the employee for damages. However, in the sharing economy model, there is no legally regulated employment relationship between the sharing platform and the resource provider, and it is more like a cooperative relationship. However, this cooperation relationship is not equal, and the sharing platform occupies a dominant position. It can be said that if there is no sharing platform, real-world transactions of offline resources will not be realized. Under such circumstances, the sharing platform has reason to bear some of the responsibilities. But due to the vacancy of the current legal system, there is no corresponding basis for the accountability of sharing platforms.

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Default payment risk of sharing platform. In current sharing economy trading practices, the remuneration paid by resource demanders is not directly delivered to suppliers. Instead, they are pre-stored on a third-party sharing platform. After the transaction between the supply and demand sides is completed, the payment obligation is paid by the sharing platform and the reward is paid to the supplier. There is a risk in such a transaction model, that is, when the sharing platform has operational difficulties, company bankruptcy, or accidents such as the invasion of the sharing platform account, it is difficult to pay according to the agreement. If there is no legal regulation, the supply and demand sides will be at a serious disadvantage. The risk of subletting resources. In general, for a sharable resource, only its owner has the right to rent through a sharing platform. So does the legal occupier of the resource, rather than the owner, have the right to sublet other people’s resources that they own legally through the sharing platform? Take rental housing, according to China’s “Contract Law” related provisions, as long as the landlord’s permission is obtained, the tenant can sublet the house. In the sharing economy, it will greatly increase the complexity and uncertainty of the transaction. If we consider it from the perspective of consumer protection, as well as the stability and security of the transaction, this type of re-sublease through sharing platforms do present considerable legal risks. Personal Privacy and Information Security. As a middleman in the transaction process, the sharing platform holds a large amount of personal information of the supply and demand side, and in combination with big data, cloud computing, and other technical means, the whereabouts of the supply and demand sides are exposed in the sharing platform, touching personal privacy. At this time, the sharing platform has the risk of leaking the user’s privacy. If the security of the sharing platform is flawed, the large-scale user’s personal information will likely be leaked. Therefore, the legislature needs to quantify responsibility and protection through the improvement of relevant laws such as compensation and accountability to reduce the risk of personal information leakage in the sharing economy as much as possible.

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21.2.2 Tax Issues At present, the tax laws of various countries have no clear provisions on the taxation of the sharing economy. This has also made it more difficult to impose taxes on the sharing economy model, and even created an illusion that the sharing economy model does not require tax payment. However, in view of the need to maintain the principle of fair taxation, the need to promote the development of a sharing economy model, and the need to reduce tax losses, taxation of sharing economy models are necessary and important. However, in practice, there are also the following tax issues. (1)

The taxpayer is difficult to determine. The determination of the taxpayer needs to be judged through the flow of funds in the transaction process. Funds in

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the sharing economy model show the flow of resource demanders–third-party payment platforms—sharing platforms–resource providers. From this point of view, the four parties involved are all taxpayers. However, the current tax system in a majority of countries has not introduced specific provisions for sharing economy. Landlords and private car owners only perform simple personal information registration in accordance with the requirements of the sharing platform, without filing to the property or traffic management department or tax registration.4 Due to the complexity and diversity of the sharing economy model itself, the determination of taxpayers is difficult. Tax suspected of tax evasion. The level of the tax rate will vary according to the taxation target. Therefore, sharing economy enterprises often choose taxable objects with relatively low tax rates. Taking China’s transportation industry as an example, the boundaries between transportation services and modern service industries have been clearly demarcated through the reform of the tax reform system. The applicable tax rate for transportation services is 11%. The applicable tax rate for modern service industry services is 6%. As a result, many car-sharing platforms are usually registered in the name of network technology companies, so as to rely on low tax rates to save taxation costs. This practice is not fair to the traditional taxi companies and drivers, whether the transportation platform or the modern service industry provided by the platform has become the focus of debate on taxation. Besides, unlike the traditional taxi industry, neither the driver nor the platform will actively provide invoices for the occupants. According to regulations, this kind of operating activity is within the scope of tax payment, so the platform needs to take the initiative to issue invoices and tax returns to tax authorities on time. However, in practice, most consumers will give up their invoices because of the cumbersome procedures for issuing invoices. This gives the company space for tax evasion. Difficulty in tax collection and management. In the traditional business model, as a voucher for the buyer and the seller, the invoice has legal effect and can be used as the basis for taxation. However, under the sharing economy model, the realization of transactions depends on the network platform. All transaction information is transmitted in the form of electronic data. Paperless transactions without corresponding certificates make tax auditing very difficult. In addition, as the sharing economy model spreads across all walks of life across the country, it also involves tax jurisdiction issues. Sharing economy enterprises provide services through the Internet platform, resulting in the location of the organization has been virtualized by the network, so it is difficult to judge whether the jurisdiction of taxation belongs to the location of the institution, the place of labor service or the place of consumption. In addition, since the sharing economy enterprises have not registered for industrial and commercial taxation, it is difficult for the tax authorities to determine the actual operation

Li Bo, Wang Jinlan. The tax revenue sharing economy business models. Modern Economic Research, 2016 (05): 29–33.

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of taxpayers, making it difficult to determine the competent taxation authority and the ownership of income.

21.2.3 Reflections on the Development of Sharing Economy It is undeniable that the concept of sharing economy is reshaping the economic model of society, and people have given a positive evaluation of the operating logic and good prospects of the sharing economy. However, in the course of development, the sharing economy model has also exposed various congenital defects, and these defects need to be viewed and considered carefully. Here, the book proposes the following points for discussion. (1)

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Will the sharing economy brings about a new monopoly? According to economist Kos, the reason why social organizations exist is to save transaction costs. But now the decentralized sharing platform has its goal to save transaction costs because the cost of the intermediary of the Internet is much lower than the transaction cost of the original organization. We have to be alert to the new platform by the monopolization caused by the Matthew effect. If the transactions in the industry are all concentrated on one large platform, then this large platform can accumulate more data and resources and make greater capital investment, thus forming a monopoly advantage in the industry. Following the merger of Didi and Uber China, the subsidies for private car drivers and consumers have been significantly reduced, undoubtedly corroborating this concern. The influence of the sharing economy on social classes. The sharing economy claims to establish a world that everyone can share. The goal is to break racial differences and class differences. But can the difference in class really be eliminated? As the relative lower-middle-level living space is further reduced, can the layout of capitalism really change due to the sharing economy? Is the sharing economy destroying the class or is it creating a new class? How to break the barrier between rich and poor sharing categories. As far as the current sharing economy trading model is concerned, most of the middle class classifies its own products or resources for sharing, and the demand for products or resources is still either the middle class or the lower class. It can be found that the rich, they lack the will or the need to share, and they are not willing to come up with their own products or resources for sharing. Even if they shared, their sharing goals are also at others in the rich, and they tend to share knowledge and culture. Such compartments make the distance between the poor and the rich not be reduced because of the sharing economy. This is one of the issues that the sharing economy should pay attention to in future development.

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21.3 Measures for Developing Sharing Economy Although the sharing economy is currently facing various challenges and problems, it still keeps moving forward. Therefore, in order to promote faster and better development of sharing economy, it is necessary to analyze and study the future development path of the sharing economy and build scientific and effective countermeasures.

21.3.1 Building an Open and Inclusive Economic Environment Like all new things, the emergence of sharing economy will inevitably conflict with the current status, and stakeholders whose benefits are affected will certainly not be overwhelmed. However, it must be acknowledged that the sharing economy model is beneficial to most people as a whole, and therefore, there are sufficient reasons to give full support to this new economic model. To this end, government authorities must overcome their own cognitive limitations, take the initiative to contact and actively study the sharing economy. The government has to be tolerant of its development and create an open and inclusive management atmosphere rather than blindly blocked. Global sharing economy originator Robin Chase said in his book “Sharing Economy: Reconstruction of future new business model” that government agencies “Don’t kill because you don’t understand” for such a new thing. On the one hand, although the Internet-based vehicle spurs demand for cars to a certain extent, on the other hand, because private car owners are usually willing to travel by network instead of taxis, the number of trips by car will therefore be greatly reduced, so the online dating model has in fact had a positive effect on governance congestion and pollution issues. Chase points out, the governments of various countries should be cautious as well as tolerant of the sharing economy. The United States individual car rental business company RelayRides had been banned by the regulatory authorities in New York State because the insurance provided by RelayRides was “illegal and insufficient”. California’s regulatory agency did not issue a “stop order” for it but required that carpool drivers need to obtain a special driver’s license and follow similar safety regulations as taxi companies to meet the legalization of carpooling. The sharing economy platform involves a wide range of areas and lacks successful replication experience in the past. Therefore, various problems will inevitably occur in the early stage of development. In this regard, government regulators should not rush to apply conventional thinking and methods of the past but to try to eliminate the risk of policy in the sharing economic development.

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21.3.2 Innovate Regulatory Methods The growth rate of the sharing economy far exceeds any previous business model. In just four years after its establishment, Didi Co., Ltd. has more than 14 million daily orders and more than 300 million users. The company used $800,000 from venture capital to start, after four years, it developed into a giant company of more than 25 billion US dollars, mostly thanks to the sharing company. The market witnessed its leapfrog development and its exponential growth, which allowed it to gain a wide range of favors that could be extended to various regions with great penetrability. If the government is not able to respect a new economic form in this period or leave room for the development of this new format, it very likely kills companies that do have creative capabilities. The rate of improvement of the law is far less than that of the sharing economy, which makes there has been some gray area in the regulatory process of sharing economy. Given this situation, national governments are actively exploring a suitable regulatory approach. In the process of innovation in supervision, the following principles are worthy of consideration by relevant departments. (1)

(2)

(3)

Differential supervision. Differences among things are ubiquitous. Therefore, we must always adhere to the basic principles of the specific analysis of specific issues, and explore the regulatory methods that are appropriate to the characteristics of the objects to be supervised. We cannot force the old regulatory framework into the new economic model. For taxi driver in London, gaining a business license is required to participate in an exam is known as the most difficult in the world—Knowledge of London, according to relevant statistics show that it takes about 4 years to prepare for the examination for the driver taking the exam, and the pass rate is less than 20%. However, the driver of the network doesn’t need to obtain the license. This provision has suffered from the dissatisfaction and protest of taxi drivers. They believe that such a regulatory policy has not been treated equally. Transport for London does not think there are unfair above requirements, and they think the network car drivers’ ability to identify urban roads is not inferior to taxi drivers passing the “knowledge test” due to the APP with navigation on the phone. Therefore, this type of test is not necessary for the driver of the online car. Moderation supervision. Regulators should maintain modest humility in the control of supervision, and the innovative behaviors that appear in the market can be handed over to the market through market rules. The sharing economy weakens the status of commercial organizations, and the major players in the market will shift to the individual operators who operate in a decentralized manner. This adds a lot of difficulties to the regulators at the technical level, and the existing strength of the regulatory agencies is difficult for many operators to conduct all-round supervision on individuals. So the market, companies and platforms need to take more responsibility accordingly. Do not fall into the pan-security misunderstanding. The phenomenon of pansafety is seriously present in the regulatory process of the sharing economy. In

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fact, safety issues are inevitably present in various industries. For example, the transportation industry involves road safety, and the catering industry involves food safety. Regarding various forms of commercial innovation in the sharing economy, there are always people who use security as an excuse to negate as much as possible, but they do not have a valid reason. Admittedly, security cannot be achieved in an absolute sense in sharing economy, but in order to avoid falling into the pan security of errors, it’s necessary to clear the following two aspects: on the one hand, compared to the traditional industries, whether the innovation of sharing economy will bring more safety problems; on the other hand, whether safety hazards resulting from sharing economy can be addressed under the related mechanisms.

21.3.3 Establish a Credit System In essence, the sharing economy is a credit economy. Trust is the foundation of the transaction. Without trust, a complete transaction chain cannot be established. The sharing economy is highly dependent on credit because both parties in the sharing economy model are strangers. If there is no guarantee of credit, consumers will not easily ride in a stranger’s car or live in a stranger’s room. Only by establishing a sound credit system, the supply and demand sides can have a relationship of mutual trust, and sharing behavior will occur. The development of crowdfunding, which is part of the sharing economy, has also confirmed the importance of a sound credit system. Crowdfunding is a business model that uses Internet platforms to publish projects to raise funds. The credit system is the biggest bottleneck crowdfunding platform encountered in practice. Both supply and demand of funds in the platform are in completely strange relations. It is a key issue that whether trust mechanism and other related security mechanism is sound enough to allow the other side to believe. The project sponsor may take advantage of the information asymmetry loopholes, and the leaders use false information to circulate money. Since the crowdfunding platform does not belong to our central bank credit system, and given the financial supervision body of the current crowdfunding is unclear, the adoption of the central bank credit system is difficult in a period. Lack of support from big data, qualification surveys rely on limited manpower, limited means and traditional methods, with not only high cost but genera effect. In order to accelerate the construction of the credit system, sharing-economy enterprises need to actively connect various sharing platforms such as the sharing economy platform and social networking platforms, and form a cooperative relationship with credit information agencies, to strengthen the sharing of credit records and disclosure of unlawful dishonesty. In addition, the government has a huge amount of social credit information. If it can be properly used, it will affect the efficiency of the sharing economy. Therefore, the government needs to strengthen the open and sharing of credit information and reduce the cost and the threshold for sharing

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information for the sharing economy enterprises, reduce conflicts due to information asymmetry in the transaction process, so that maximize information’s value by sharing, and promote the continuous improvement for credit system. A sound credit system will lay a solid foundation for the rise of the sharing economy. Brian Chesk, co-founder and chief executive of Airbnb, once suggested at the second World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit that the core of the sharing economy is trust. Reliance on moral or legal constraints alone does not serve to balance the risk of trust. This is also the significance of building a credit system. A sound credit system can exclude security risks in the sharing economy as much as possible. At the same time, the untrustworthy behaviors recorded by the sharing platform can also provide an important reference for the credit system to assess the personal credit rating. The level of social integrity and the development of the sharing economy are generally positively related. Increasing social integrity will be conducive to the sustainable development of the sharing economy. In the process of establishing the credit system, government departments and enterprises need to unify their goals and work together, so as to build a healthy and harmonious development environment for the sharing economy.

21.3.4 Establish Demand-Side Benefit Protection Mechanism It is a progressive stage for the sharing economy to promote credit between people. Therefore, in the sharing economy, it is not always a safe and reliable transaction. In the taxi and rental businesses, there are often incidents where the interests of the demanding party have been violated, which exposes the demand side’s weak position, also confirms the importance of building a demand-side benefit guarantee mechanism. In the traditional business model, relevant departments have introduced consumer protection laws to protect demanders’ legitimate interests from seller infringement. In the new sharing economy model, efforts should at least be made to construct the demand side benefit protection mechanism from the following two aspects. (1)

Improve the platform’s mutual evaluation mechanism and restrict the supply side’s behavior. Take the taxi software as an example, whether in Uber or Didi, after the trip, there is a mutual evaluation link. Through this link, passengers can make an anonymous evaluation of the services provided by the driver. Higher-rated drivers can receive certain rewards after accumulating a certain degree of praise, while drivers who are rated average or poor may receive punishment such as delayed dispatch. An Internet P2P skills trading platform Skill Share in the US also fully utilizes the mutual evaluation mechanism. Skill sharing is a network teaching sharing platform where people can learn or teach skills online. After each lesson, there will be a lesson evaluation session. Both teachers and students can conduct mutual evaluations in this section.

21.3 Measures for Developing Sharing Economy

(2)

5

397

The contents of the review will be displayed below each lesson profile for students to use as a course evaluation criterion. The teacher will also adjust accordingly in time based on students’ feedback. If a teacher’s course is highly evaluated, the platform will adjust this teacher’s related course to the top of the site.5 Through this mutual evaluation mechanism, the supply side of the platform will consciously constrain its own behavior from the perspective of its own interests, so that the demand side can accept more high-quality services. Sharing economy enterprises should learn from the existing excellent sharing economy enterprises in the market and learn how to establish a reasonable and effective platform for mutual evaluation. Improve system-level construction. At present, the consumer protection laws of various countries generally lack institutional provisions related to the protection of customer interests in the sharing economy. As a rigid provision, the system clause can provide a strong guarantee for the demand side’s interests. Therefore, the government departments should establish and improve relevant systems and regulate the behavior of the supply side from the perspective of protecting the legitimate rights and interests of demanding parties, to ensure the healthy development of the sharing economy.

Zhu Biheng. Sharing economy began to change the world. Competitive Intelligence, 2015(03):11– 19.

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