Author: Staci Nichols – Chief Marketing Rebel

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The Ch. 2 Case Study states that the sharing economy enables access, flexibility, and sustainability through technology. Yet platforms like Uber and AirBNB reflect deeper systemic failures such as declining job security, unaffordable lodging and housing, and weakened labor protections. Drawing from personal experience as both a user and provider, this essay argues that the sharing economy, far from a solution, often exploits economic vulnerability and evades accountability under the guise of innovation.

Defining the Sharing Economy 

The sharing economy refers to the modern, technology-enabled expansion of sharing beyond trusted social circles to include exchanges between strangers through digital platforms (George & Julsrud, 2019). While sharing itself is ancient and rooted in human cooperation, smartphones and online platforms have transformed it into a more transactional, market-oriented form that scholars call “sharing out” rather than “sharing in.” In that regard, “sharing” is a misnomer. A term like “platform-mediated commerce” would be more accurate.

The case study asks: with many rideshare drivers offering rides full time, is Uber still part of the so-called sharing economy? In the dozens of Uber rides I’ve taken over the years, I never met a single driver who told me they happened to be commuting to work or on a road trip in my direction. However, I don’t think that’s necessarily the fault of Uber, AirBNB, Turo, VRBO, or any of the other platforms as much as it is a reflection of broader social problems.

ChatGPT estimates that if I drove Uber 40 hours a week as head of household with one deduction that, after vehicle expenses, I would take home $1,500/month (ChatGPT, 2025). This is $8.66/hour. No one would work under those conditions if they had better options. We need to examine why jobs offering such little value have become so popular or common.

Personal Participation as a Producer 

I participated in the sharing economy as an AirBNB host in Cancun. I own 5 rental properties there. One was purchased solely for the purpose of being an AirBNB rental, so there was never an intent to share my home. Before getting involved as an AirBNB host, I did extensive research on a website called AirDNA. I had great success, earning SuperHost status, having a 90% occupancy rate, and earning a 10% return on my investment.

Unfortunately, after the first year, the Quintana Roo state government changed the laws so that they essentially garnished 15% of my pay off the top. So if I was to be paid out $100 USD, AirBNB first sent $15 USD to the Mexican government then paid out the rest to me. Sometimes the government took a larger lump sum at the beginning of a month or a quarter without any apparent rhyme or reason. This “garnishment” was on top of annual income taxes that were paid on the AirBNB income. Ultimately, I quit doing AirBNB a few months after this change and converted to a long-term rental.

Consumer Perspective 

In my work for Lexicon Legal Content, I wrote for numerous law firms that only handled rideshare lawsuits, such as UberLawyer.com and Uber-Lyft-Accident-Lawyer-Los-Angeles.com. In the numerous articles I researched and wrote around these rideshare companies, I learned that sexual assaults by drivers were disturbingly common, that Uber and Lyft did little to curb the problem, that there is a lower level of insurance coverage from Uber if you get hit by a driver when they are en route to a pick up a passenger (on the clock but with an empty vehicle), and that Uber uses numerous evasive tactics to sidestep accident liability.

In my personal experience, I once took an Uber from a park-and-ride in San Ysidro, CA, to the San Ysidro border crossing into Mexico. Our driver told us during the ride that she was a Mexican national from Tijuana, and that she too would be crossing into Mexico as soon as our ride was over. My daughter accidentally left her school laptop in the backseat. I messaged the driver within seconds of her pulling away. She never turned around or came back.

Trying to communicate with Uber to get the laptop back was impossible. We were told they “couldn’t” do anything unless the driver logged in again (they claimed they would suspend her). According to Uber, she never logged in again, and I checked back for months. All we wanted was for Uber to contact the driver and ask her to return our laptop—they would not do it. I deleted the Uber app after this and switched to Lyft. My personal experience is that the sharing economy leaves too much room for pirate-like behavior from providers, limited accountability, oversight, and regulation, and creates too many liability gray areas.

Sustainability and Future Improvements 

The case study assumes that the sharing economy is a more sustainable approach to consuming goods and services. However, a 2020 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that the average ride-hailing trip produces an estimated 69% more climate-warming emissions than the trips they replace (Hawkins, 2020). This is largely caused by “deadheading,” when drivers return without a passenger to their hub. Again, observation shows that rideshare apps are used to replace taxis, not to increase carpooling.

In thinking about how to improve the so-called sharing economy, it’s important to consider the idea that this concept, at its core, is a form of privatized socialism. The very corporations that actively resist or lobby against socialist-leaning public policy are often the first to appropriate its communal logics when it serves their interests. By capitalizing on the rhetoric of sharing and collective benefit, without accepting the reciprocal obligations of public oversight, legal liability, or equitable stakeholder engagement, these companies construct privatized infrastructures designed primarily for profit extraction. In doing so, they displace traditional regulatory frameworks and erode the traditional value once associated with ownership, replacing it with a transactional model mediated by algorithms and stripped of accountability.

Additionally, it is worth questioning whether a market for monetized “sharing” between strangers would even exist in a society where stable employment, affordable housing, and robust social safety nets were the norm. The normalization of platform-based gig work reflects not sustainable progress, but the erosion of secure livelihoods under late-stage capitalism. Driving for Uber fills in the gaps of being a single parent, a full-time student, a refugee who speaks limited English—these gaps would be better filled with improved community support and social programs and benefits.

Likewise, if environmental protection was a genuine policy priority, government agencies would regulate corporate polluters like Uber directly, rather than celebrating marginal emissions offsets through consumer behavior. “Platform-mediated commerce,” in this light, operates as a market-based workaround for crises that profit-driven deregulation has exacerbated. It masks structural exploitation through the language of convenience and distraction of cool technology.

Conclusion

The ch. 2 case study states that Uber was not “an easy business to start.” Uber could have been easy to start if they had simply used their realtime ride-hailing app and technology with traditional taxis. There is no reason Uber needed unregulated, private vehicles to make their platform a success. In that vein, the “sharing economy” rebrands corporate deregulation as communal benefit, externalizing risk while minimizing responsibility. Uber didn’t reinvent transportation—it bypassed reasonable legislation, appropriated a socialist concept, then extracted profit. Meaningful improvement requires treating these platforms as businesses, not movements.

Resources

George, C., & Julsrud, T. E. (2019). The sharing economy and the relevance for transport. In C. Curtis (Ed.), Advances in Transport Policy and Planning (Vol. 4, pp. 37–52). Elsevier.

Hanlon, A. (2025). Digital marketing (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications, Ltd.

Hawkins, A. J. (2020, February 25). Uber and Lyft generate 70 percent more pollution than trips they displace: Study. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/25/21152512/uber-lyft-climate-change-emissions-pollution-ucs-stud

OpenAI. (2025, October 29). ChatGPT response to query about Uber earnings at 40 hours/week. Personal communication.