"Just as internet shopping forced Walmart and Tesco to adapt, so online sharing will shake up transport, tourism, equipment-hire and more."
After reading the article The Rise of the Sharing Economy, I was surprised just how much the internet is affecting aspects of our lives that were essentially untouched previously. Beforehand, I knew nothing about peer to peer sharing and the internet. I, like many of my peers have used amazon and ebay before to purchase things but these peer to peer rental interactions are taking the power of the internet to a new level. I think its cool that we can now use websites such as Airbnb to participate in the "huge new “sharing economy”, in which people rent beds, cars, boats and other assets directly from each other, co-ordinated via the internet". It has many pros because individuals are renting out their possessions that aren't being used on a daily basis for a cheaper rate then consumers would receive it if they rented from a business. This main pro to the peer to peer sharing economy branches out into other forms of how this act helps our generation to stop being so wasteful and in turn taking a step toward being more economical. For example, by sharing cars we lessen our footprint on the environment and in turn ease traffic. However, a big con would be how much more dependent on technology and the internet we would be. These peer to peer interactions are organized on the internet and the internet is used to find background information (in the form of background checks, facebook profile look up, and other social media). This just leaves me wondering, How much more dependent on the internet we can possibly be or will be in the future?