Change is a constant and it’s clear that the growth in the collaborative economy is going to reshape current spending patterns throughout many economies.
The actual impact is still hard to ascertain. But the evidence is stacking up that there are going to be significant changes in the near future. As Larry Fink pointed out in a recent article, the impact of technology can profoundly affect an entire industry, even if it only directly impacts initially on a small subsection.
Fink uses the example of hydraulic fracturing in oil production to make his point. As the demand for the supply of oil has continued to rise by around 600,000 barrels a day over the past year, the actual supply – in part due to new technologies such as fracking (putting to one side for this article the immense damage that fracking causes) – has increased by around 2 million barrels a day.
His argument here is that (as damaging as fracking is) the technology has affected the overall price per barrel in despite the fact that the majority of barrels are not produced using this method.
So when it comes to the sharing economy, what sort of changes are we likely to see as a result of the stellar growth of such businesses as Uber and Airbnb? For most younger people in the Western Economy, there are two common twin goals when it comes to acquiring significant items of property: the car and the home. Not surprisingly, these are in the crosshairs of both growing businesses.
So whilst both assets are fundamentally different (one being an investment, the other a depreciating asset), the question still remains. If significant sums of money are less likely in the future to be tied up by these big capital outlays at the start of young people’s lives, where will they be directed instead? Any ideas?