Sharability: Prospects for Better Reallocation of Durable Household

Goods

Alex Goldman, ABDDepartment of Sociology

University of Florida

The Motivating ProblemIndividuals buy many things that they want to use, but don't need to own.

There simply aren't enough convenient and/or rewarding

mechanisms for temporarily tapping into the utility of goods already owned

by our friends and neighbors.

Three Related Themes:1.  Environmental Degradation 2.  Economic Irrationality

3.  Social Alienation

U-Store Environmental CatastropheSelf-storage space available in the US grew seven-fold

over the last 25 years, even as new homes became 25% larger during the same period. This is a direct result of increasing consumer accumulation of infrequently used durable goods. Research continues to suggest that the kind of economic development fueled by expanding consumer demand is causing increasingly jarring shocks to our planetary ecosystems and their life-support services.

Connections to the Great Recession

While Americans have been busy accumulating all this stuff, they have also been falling deeper into debt. The connection between easy access to credit and rising levels of material wealth is at the root of the financial problems which came to a head in 2008.

The encouragement to consume above our means is a key part of the "treadmill of production" thesis.

Simultaneous Commmunity Atrophy 

Social scientists have extensively documented the post-industrial dissipation of neighborhood and civic ties.

Our propensity to "bowl alone" stems partially from the weakening of social capital ties resulting from diminished investments in reciprocal social exchange.

This state of affairs is related to perceptions of material self-sufficiency independence of modern households. 

Sharing Can Help… by reducing the average amount of resources

consumed when we want to do something that we don't currently have the requisite things to undertake

by reducing the financial outlay involved in purchasing an item of one's own and storing it while not in use

by encouraging individuals to get to know nearby others well enough to engage in trusted exchange 

Disclaimer: It might also result in bad things too... or just anarchy 

What Determines Goods' Sharability? Durability - the extent to which a good's usage diminishes

its capacity to provide high quality services over its lifetime

Lumpiness - the usual time interval between a good's usage; lumpier means less frequently used and often idle

Granularity - the distribution of a good in a particular society; smaller grains are omnipresent, larger grains are more rare

    What goods are durable, lumpy, and mid-grained?

  Less Sharable          More Sharable

CoffeeArt SuppliesCarsClothesLaundry MachinesPersonal ComputersCell PhonesHygiene Tools

ToolsBooks/DVDsKitchen AppliancesSports GearCostumesToys/GamesLuggageYard Care Equipment

Sharing Systems' Goals

Efficient sharing systems must satisfy owners' full demand for a lumpy good's functionality while temporarily transferring its excess capacity to others who value some of its utility, but not a large enough amount to justify purchasing a new unit of their own. 

Non-Sharing Alternatives

Primary Markets - Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, etc. Secondary Markets - Yard Sales, Ebay, Craigslist

Rental Schemes - Rent-a-Center, Zilok

Giveaways - Donation Centers, Freecycle.org, the curb

Throwaways – dumpsters, hazardous waste disposal

Existing Sharing Models

Accommodation Sharing - CouchSurfing, Hospitality Club

Ridesharing - Zipcar, eRideshare, State/Municipal Programs

Swapmeets - SwapTree, BookShare, GameShare, etc.

Service Exchanges - Austin, San Francisco, Portland, etc.

Tool Exchanges - Atlanta, Providence, Seattle, etc.

The Glaring Gap

No extra-market model successfully taps into the huge wealth of dispersed durable goods scattered throughout residential neighborhoods and local social networks.  

Why?

Why No Mainstream Attention? We traditionally view sharing as an informal process

Individualist cultures are uncomfortable with sharing

Environmentalists have prioritized production (extraction/manufacturing) over distribution… plus the first “R” is much more difficult than the next two

Sharing doesn't represent much of a business model...  in fact, it's arguably the antithesis of one, working against economic growth (a cardinal sin in a recession) and encouraging “anticonsumerism”

Why No Academic Attention? Economists aren't very interested in non-monetary

exchange because it doesn't allow for easy modeling

Sharing is often regarded as the province of early anthropologists and sociologists, or as a matter only of importance to traditional/impoverished peoples.

Questioning the basic processes of modern consumer culture is often viewed as an very politicized (Marxist) or ultimately futile pursuit.

Some de-politicized PragmatismOverconsumption is inefficient resource allocation!  Individuals buy too many products that they rarely use because they can't find other ways to source their utility.

Sharing Helps Correct Economic Inefficiency Because...

  1. Current options make renting items neither cheap nor simple   2. "Renting" from Wal-Mart is bad for them and the environment

  3. Buying used goods is often time consuming and hit-or-miss

The Major Practical ObstaclesBorrowing entails knowing who owns stuff and both what and with whom they will share.  So...

• Do we know what the people around us own?• What items are culturally appropriate to share?• Who is more or less disposed to sharing?

Guesses and assumptions are OK, but systematic research is better

Two ways to do this Research

1.  Ask many randomly selected individuals questions about their sharing attitudes and past behaviors - Thanks UF Survey Lab! 

2.  Set up a real sharing system, recruit lots of participants, and see what they actually do.  

How does one start a sharing service?Create "phone trees" and "master lists" of

stuff kept by "administrators"?

Set up email listservs for different groups?

Create a Facebook application for sharing?

Just start tweeting your haves and wants?

What Capabilities are Required?• easily list items that you are willing to lend• search or browse for items you might need• contact someone who has an item you need• form groups within which you would like to share• keep track of when you lent an item to someone• restrict viewing of items to friends or groups• quickly change the borrowing status of an item • the ability evaluate someone's trustworthiness• reward users who contribute to the system• sanction and exclude those who prey upon it

SHARABILITY.ORG

1.  Recruit, Recruit, Recruit

2.  Refine, Refine, Refine

3.  Scale Up, Up, Up

as sociologists, we can find out...whether such systems could significantly impact the way we access resources and interact with each other on a daily basis. or in other words...   

Can folksy stuff like "borrowing a cup of sugar" be transformed through the magic of network technologies into real social change?   

Thanks for Listening!!!

Please Tell Your Friends!