As I am trying to figure out which sector is ripe to be disrupted i go back and forth in circles around the essence of collaborative consumption (c.c.) ..
I typically use airbnb and lyft as prime examples of companies that leveraged c.c. Airbnb people share their "underutilized" home, in lyft share their under utilized car. Of course other people even throw in taskrabbit or etsy or fiverr (people sharing their under utilized time or skill or hobby etc..).
However, looking at these example in more detail I don't see c.c. as being the primary lever.
Lets take airbnb for example. I would make the case that their business model is (and will be more and more) supported primarily by independent-unit rentals and even more independent unit rentals that are primarily used for renting out. (This was the evolution of the "rooms to let" industry in the greek islands were locals in the 80s would undercut hotels by renting out rooms with rooms--to-let signs placed practically outside most homes and rooms to let sign holders awaiting the arriving tourists in every port. The problem there was that the majority of the tourists wanted their own bathroom (as opposed to a shared one) so rooms with own bathroom used would get much better prices/utilization - by the 1990s in most islands most locals had expanded their main house with extra units that were custom fit the tourist industry. Soon after that regulation came in allowing this new sector (which became the primary way to stay at an greek island) to exist while paying taxes as well as obeying certain rules.. So for most greeks, airbnb was "first invented in greece"... but forgeting that the point here is that for airbnb the model of enabling people to rent out rooms of their home (or their full home ) when they are out in vacation is very different than the model of someone that lists their vrbo, their a vacation property for rent and also a bit different from someone that creates multiple independent units that are exclusively used for renting. The latter has no c.c. in it - and I would argue that even the second has very little c.c. in it.
The case for lyft is different: If we were to look in classifieds for the last decades we would find tons of people wanted ads that require someone to have own car or bicycle or motorcycle.
Why is this different? Is it the part-time aspect? But part time by itself is the default for most of the youth-employment options today be it safeway and mcdonalds - they can make extra money by leveraging some extra time in evennings, weekends or vacation time...
I would make the case that in all the above cases the primary element is (will be) sth different than c.c.
It is about replacing relatively higher paid self employed/small business owners with a small crew/staff with.. a mega corporation that is able to provide cheaper/better/faster/more reliable local service relying (excluding HQ) on a minimum wage workforce, automation, replicable processes, consolidated vendor relationships and global marketing.
And that is not collaborative consumption. It is what every big (primarily retail) chain does, has been doing for decades be it walmart or starbucks or mcdonalds. The primary cost benefit is not in uber/lyft the avoidance of an exclusive commercial car that stays unused most of the day (this does have a ~$5/hr benefit). It is the fact that we eliminate all the money made by
- taxi drivers that make $20/hr or more
- taxi owners that make $30/hr or more owning a taxi and having other people driving it
- taxi business that own multiple taxis have an operator and do some local yellow page marketing
- local-towns/cities that make money selling medalions/licenses
Most of the above ecosystem is being replaced with a few global companies + essentially unexperienced minimum-hourly paid workers that via scalable processes and computer-aided operation provide better/cheaper/more reliable service that the whole ecosystem used to do before. Again this is more like walmart replacing downtown local shops than collaborative consumption.
I typically use airbnb and lyft as prime examples of companies that leveraged c.c. Airbnb people share their "underutilized" home, in lyft share their under utilized car. Of course other people even throw in taskrabbit or etsy or fiverr (people sharing their under utilized time or skill or hobby etc..).
However, looking at these example in more detail I don't see c.c. as being the primary lever.
Lets take airbnb for example. I would make the case that their business model is (and will be more and more) supported primarily by independent-unit rentals and even more independent unit rentals that are primarily used for renting out. (This was the evolution of the "rooms to let" industry in the greek islands were locals in the 80s would undercut hotels by renting out rooms with rooms--to-let signs placed practically outside most homes and rooms to let sign holders awaiting the arriving tourists in every port. The problem there was that the majority of the tourists wanted their own bathroom (as opposed to a shared one) so rooms with own bathroom used would get much better prices/utilization - by the 1990s in most islands most locals had expanded their main house with extra units that were custom fit the tourist industry. Soon after that regulation came in allowing this new sector (which became the primary way to stay at an greek island) to exist while paying taxes as well as obeying certain rules.. So for most greeks, airbnb was "first invented in greece"... but forgeting that the point here is that for airbnb the model of enabling people to rent out rooms of their home (or their full home ) when they are out in vacation is very different than the model of someone that lists their vrbo, their a vacation property for rent and also a bit different from someone that creates multiple independent units that are exclusively used for renting. The latter has no c.c. in it - and I would argue that even the second has very little c.c. in it.
The case for lyft is different: If we were to look in classifieds for the last decades we would find tons of people wanted ads that require someone to have own car or bicycle or motorcycle.
Why is this different? Is it the part-time aspect? But part time by itself is the default for most of the youth-employment options today be it safeway and mcdonalds - they can make extra money by leveraging some extra time in evennings, weekends or vacation time...
I would make the case that in all the above cases the primary element is (will be) sth different than c.c.
It is about replacing relatively higher paid self employed/small business owners with a small crew/staff with.. a mega corporation that is able to provide cheaper/better/faster/more reliable local service relying (excluding HQ) on a minimum wage workforce, automation, replicable processes, consolidated vendor relationships and global marketing.
And that is not collaborative consumption. It is what every big (primarily retail) chain does, has been doing for decades be it walmart or starbucks or mcdonalds. The primary cost benefit is not in uber/lyft the avoidance of an exclusive commercial car that stays unused most of the day (this does have a ~$5/hr benefit). It is the fact that we eliminate all the money made by
- taxi drivers that make $20/hr or more
- taxi owners that make $30/hr or more owning a taxi and having other people driving it
- taxi business that own multiple taxis have an operator and do some local yellow page marketing
- local-towns/cities that make money selling medalions/licenses
Most of the above ecosystem is being replaced with a few global companies + essentially unexperienced minimum-hourly paid workers that via scalable processes and computer-aided operation provide better/cheaper/more reliable service that the whole ecosystem used to do before. Again this is more like walmart replacing downtown local shops than collaborative consumption.
No comments:
Post a Comment