That skepticism reflects a widely held, deeply ingrained attitude reinforced by decades of warnings about poisoned Halloween candy and drink-spiking pickup artists. No wonder some of the loftier sharing-economy executives see their mission as not just building a business but fundamentally rewiring our relationships with one another. Much as the traditional Internet helped strangers meet and communicate online, they say, the modern Internet can link individuals and communities in the physical world. “The extent to which people are connected to each other is lower than what humans need,” NYU professor Arun Sundararajan says. “Part of the appeal of the sharing economy is helping to bridge that gap.” Lyft cofounder John Zimmer goes so far as to liken it to time he spent on the Oglala Sioux reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. “Their sense of community, of connection to each other and to their land, made me feel more happy and alive than I’ve ever felt before,” he says. “I think people are craving real human interaction—it’s like an instinct. We now have the opportunity to use technology to help us get there.”
From “How Airbnb and Lyft finally got Americans to trust each other” in Wired.
Share represented the full gamut of a true sharing economy, from the controversial Lyfts and Airbnbs to the individuals who run home businesses knitting scarves and baking pies without traditional employment safety nets or the corporate muscle of Big Sharing. While the former wields the power to get its way, defining “the sharing economy” at the expense of workers and consumers, sole proprietors and nonprofit collectives are often the ones facing real legal problems that they can’t afford to solve. The benefits big disruptive “sharing economy” players might be making for themselves are not exactly trickling down.
From “The case against sharing” in Medium.
There is no denying the seductive nature of convenience—or the cold logic of businesses that create new jobs, whatever quality they may be. But the notion that brilliant young programmers are forging a newfangled “instant gratification” economy is a falsehood. Instead, it is a rerun of the oldest sort of business: middlemen insinuating themselves between buyers and sellers.
From “The secret to the Uber economy is inequality” in Quartz.
blue milk 
I only ever use Airbnb when I get exclusive use of the whole apartment for a set period. I don’t understand why you’d want to rent a room in a stranger’s house. Old fashioned B&Bs were bad enough with their nosy questions and lack of privacy.
So I think “sharing” is just code for cost-cutting. It’s what you do when you don’t have the money for your own space and I am glad people have that option but I would forgo the travel if I couldn’t have my own space. I never stayed in a dorm of bunks in a youth hostel for exactly the same reason.
I guess I’m skeptical that anyone *really* wants to share. If they had the money wouldn’t they all just rent a place of their own? So is it really about sharing at all?
It’s not just code for cost-cutting, it’s stealing a neighborly tradition, and using it as a euphemism for “hiring” or “renting”. Airbnb isn’t sharing. Showing up at the local infoshop or church and having someone take you in for free is sharing (and even that is limited within group boundaries, and has social expectations and cost – it’s not free). Borrowing a neighbor’s hammer, inviting a new coworker to share your lunch, running out of gas on the road and someone siphons half a gallon into your tank, those are sharing. Giving your cart to the next Aldi shopper without asking for a quarter, or (a thing that our transit managers hate) giving away a bus transfer with an hour left on it, that’s sharing.
Even the little coops & home baking aren’t sharing, they’re forms of businesses. A lot of them fail because they won’t recognize that they are businesses and have to consider boring, nitty gritty things like product costs and cash flow.
There were some sharing websites that attempted to spread the in-group around before these “innovators” – I remember a couch-sleeping one from before airbnb, and some tool & toy library sites in various towns. And of course there’s Freecycle. Locally we have a Really Really Free Market event that we publicize mostly online (though, we were stuck out on the sidewalk last month and got a bunch of walk-ins, so we should probably also be doing old-school posters and flyers more).
There’s nothing “sharing” about renting out a room or exchanging cab rides for cash – that’s straight profit-making on a capital investment. It might be more efficient because of better information online, or it might just be cheaper because it’s under the table. But it’s not sharing.
I’m actually really angry about these companies coopting the language that comes from anti-consumption sources (like Annie Leonard and The Compact people, and simple-living groups, and other hippie types). “Sharing” makes them sound so friendly and makes it seem so obvious that they should be exempt from safety and labor regulations, that we should just trust them. It’s like the management strategy of giving people praise and calling them family members instead of paying higher wages.
Under the “sharing” paradigm (which, as others have pointed out, isn’t really about sharing as much as renting or selling), isn’t surrogacy a form of sharing? One only needs to look at the class, race, and sex politics surrounding surrogacy to see that a lack of regulation can have terrible consequences. Not that surrogacy is the same as car-sharing, but the analogy stands.
I also REALLY hate how the new “sharing” economy excludes the disabled. Many disabled people can’t ride in private cars, can’t access or shower in private apartments without the right accommodations, etc. This is precisely what regulations are for — to make sure that the free market doesn’t exclude people such as the disabled on account of their relatively few numbers and justify the exclusion by pointing to a lack of demand.