What's Yours Is Mine: Against the Sharing Economy

Lyft, Airbnb, Taskrabbit, Uber, and many more companies have a mandate of disruption and upending the “old order”and they’ve succeeded in effecting the “biggest change in the American workforce in over a century,” according to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. But this new wave of technology companies is funded and steered by very old-school venture capitalists. And in What’s Yours Is Mine, technologist Tom Slee argues the so-called sharing economy damages development, extends harsh free-market practices into previously protected areas of our lives, and presents the opportunity for a few people to make fortunes by damaging communities and pushing vulnerable individuals to take on unsustainable risk. The news is full of their names, supposedly the vanguard of a rethinking of capitalism. Drawing on original empirical research, Slee shows that the friendly language of sharing, trust, and community masks a darker reality.

. Tom Slee writes about technology, politics, and economics and in the last three years has become a leading critic of the sharing economy. He has a PhD in theoretical chemistry, a long career in the software industry, and his book No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart is a game-theoretical investigation of individual choice that has been used in university economics, philosophy and sociology courses. He blogs at tomslee

If you want to understand how internet businesses really operate, What’s Yours Is Mine is the place to start." Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows and The Glass Cage "In a field crowded with tech-utopian blowhards and app-happy snake oil salesmen, Tom Slee stands apart. Slee uses wit, clarity, and facts to demolish the self-serving mythologies of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and figure out what Uber, and their kind are really up to." Henry Farrell, co-chair, Social Science Research Council's Digital Culture In

Useful reality check This book provides a useful reality check about the "sharing economy". While it's a polemic, it's a generally well reasoned and even handed one, and Slee convincingly demonstrates how firms such as AirBnb and Uber are not really interested in "sharing" and instead profit by externalising their costs to their workers/providers and actively evading regulations. The chapter demolishing the firms' customer ratings systems is worth the purchase price alone.The main shortfa. a call to arms for sharing enthusiasts Saul Of-Hearts This is a must-read book for anyone interested in the Sharing Economy. As an early user of Airbnb, TaskRabbit, and other sites that fall under the umbrella, I fell for the promise of the peer-to-peer economy before eventually becoming critical of it. Tom's articles helped me see how my own experiences fit into the broader cultural shifts at play, and that the companies I was working for didn't have my own best interests at heart. This book takes an in-depth look at al. "Good book" according to T Dunlop. How ironic to be asked to rate a book that has a chapter about how rating systems suck. Just one of the reasons for reading this book. Honestly!