10.7 New Avenues in Production, Transportation, and Marketing
205
ago, we now increasingly shop online and get a far greater array of products delivered
to our homes than what we can find in a shopping mall.
But that is not all. Companies like eBay allow everyone to sell products. This
creates a peer-to-peer market, whereby items can be reused. Rather than throwing
a used product away, we can now sell it, donate it, or share it with others. In fact,
we are currently witnessing the emergence of a “sharing economy”. Car sharing is
just one of the earlier examples for this. Now we enjoy new services such as Couchsurfing or Airbnb, which offer strangers the opportunity to stay as guests in other
people’s homes—something that would have been unimaginable just a few years
ago (before the emergence of online reputation systems). In the meantime, neighbors share drilling machines and other tools, books and bikes, and offer personalized
services.
The emergent sharing economy seems to be the result of the recent economic
crisis. While earning less, people try to maintain a high quality of life by sharing
goods. As a positive side effect, resources are being used in a more sustainable way. In
future, the sharing economy is a great opportunity to further increase living standards
despite the competition of a growing world population for the limited resources of
our planet. The sharing economy will certainly be an integral and important part of
the circular economy, which we need to build in order to reduce scarcities and waste.
The sudden move towards shared use (which may be seen as a special case of
“recycling”) is enabled by novel online platforms that can directly match supply
and demand at a local level. It is now possible to coordinate the socio-economic
activities between many more individuals, even though they might have very diverse
interests, skills, resources, and needs. The companies facilitating this coordination
enjoy remarkable growth rates of around 20%, which benefits from the recent trend
towards sharing rather than exclusively owning goods.
However, we can also see a trend to buy and sell personalized products, for
example, tailor-made jeans. In fact, entire shops have been established to customize
mass products to individual tastes. Individualized production is becoming a trend.
This is fueled, for example, by 3D printers and other new production methods.
14
After the “democratization of consumption” in the twentieth century,
15 we see a
“democratization of production” in the twenty-first century. In fact, the separation
between producers and consumers is already eroding. We are becoming a mixture
of producers and consumers, so-called “prosumers”, who play an active role in the
conception and production of the goods we buy. On the Internet, and even more so
on social media, this has already been true for some time.
Eventually, it will not make much sense anymore to manipulate opinions through
advertising. Instead, companies will simply give us what we really want, if we are
willing to let them know. In the future, a symbiotic relationship between producers
and consumers will be key to economic success. Companies that don’t care about
the wishes and opinions of their customers will have little chance in the marketplace,
14 “Additive” production methods now make it easy to generate anything from pizzas to artificial
skin to houses, using particular 3D printers.
15 Where ordinary people have more comfort than kings used to have some hundred years ago.
205
ago, we now increasingly shop online and get a far greater array of products delivered
to our homes than what we can find in a shopping mall.
But that is not all. Companies like eBay allow everyone to sell products. This
creates a peer-to-peer market, whereby items can be reused. Rather than throwing
a used product away, we can now sell it, donate it, or share it with others. In fact,
we are currently witnessing the emergence of a “sharing economy”. Car sharing is
just one of the earlier examples for this. Now we enjoy new services such as Couchsurfing or Airbnb, which offer strangers the opportunity to stay as guests in other
people’s homes—something that would have been unimaginable just a few years
ago (before the emergence of online reputation systems). In the meantime, neighbors share drilling machines and other tools, books and bikes, and offer personalized
services.
The emergent sharing economy seems to be the result of the recent economic
crisis. While earning less, people try to maintain a high quality of life by sharing
goods. As a positive side effect, resources are being used in a more sustainable way. In
future, the sharing economy is a great opportunity to further increase living standards
despite the competition of a growing world population for the limited resources of
our planet. The sharing economy will certainly be an integral and important part of
the circular economy, which we need to build in order to reduce scarcities and waste.
The sudden move towards shared use (which may be seen as a special case of
“recycling”) is enabled by novel online platforms that can directly match supply
and demand at a local level. It is now possible to coordinate the socio-economic
activities between many more individuals, even though they might have very diverse
interests, skills, resources, and needs. The companies facilitating this coordination
enjoy remarkable growth rates of around 20%, which benefits from the recent trend
towards sharing rather than exclusively owning goods.
However, we can also see a trend to buy and sell personalized products, for
example, tailor-made jeans. In fact, entire shops have been established to customize
mass products to individual tastes. Individualized production is becoming a trend.
This is fueled, for example, by 3D printers and other new production methods.
14
After the “democratization of consumption” in the twentieth century,
15 we see a
“democratization of production” in the twenty-first century. In fact, the separation
between producers and consumers is already eroding. We are becoming a mixture
of producers and consumers, so-called “prosumers”, who play an active role in the
conception and production of the goods we buy. On the Internet, and even more so
on social media, this has already been true for some time.
Eventually, it will not make much sense anymore to manipulate opinions through
advertising. Instead, companies will simply give us what we really want, if we are
willing to let them know. In the future, a symbiotic relationship between producers
and consumers will be key to economic success. Companies that don’t care about
the wishes and opinions of their customers will have little chance in the marketplace,
14 “Additive” production methods now make it easy to generate anything from pizzas to artificial
skin to houses, using particular 3D printers.
15 Where ordinary people have more comfort than kings used to have some hundred years ago.