With so many different sharing marketplaces emerging over the years, it’s no wonder the collaborative consumption movement is starting to be met with some growing pains and a struggle to find its identity. Having specialized marketplaces for cars, rooms, and even handbag is what has made it so successful, but they’re not without unique problems, ranging from disturbing the status quo, to trusting someone behind your computer screen.
At a glance, the shared economy is a way for anyone to utilize their most valuable assets to make money–assets that aren’t being used one hundred percent of the time, like cars, yachts, spare rooms. At the end of the day though, things like airbnb and Uber are disturbing the traditional way people used to vacation and travel by providing the same service, sometimes cheaper and often times more convenient. This obviously presents a problem: if things like Uber are presenting a cheaper alternative to taxi cabs, what about the taxi cabs?
The hotel and taxi service haven’t changed much since their inception, so a little rocking the boat is great–some good ol’ capitalistic competition. The difference, however, is that people trust hotels (for the most part) and people trust taxis (again, for the most part), if not based on history, than based on the government regulations, licenses and standards these establishments have had to adhere to for years.
That’s where the sharing economy’s growing pains come in.
Hotels and cabs have established brands and trust mechanisms integrated into their everyday existence. The sharing economy currently has people photocopying their driver’s license to confirm they are in fact people. See the difference?
But that’s not to say you can’t trust anyone online. Many specialized marketplaces, like Relay Rides, Rover, Airbnb, Angieslist–and basically every other one–have evolved to allow users to create specialized profiles, verify their identity, and provide user reviews. This aggregate of their online behavior for services provided enables a potential customer to trust more completely the product that they are going to be receiving.
It’s these efforts of the users to reduce their anonymity online, to be more than a username, that can encourage growth in the market. Things like a trust resume can empower people to project who they are online, and universal measurements of trust such as transparency, community engagement, and longevity are behaviors that have been long rewarded offline, and on.