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The Rise of Collaborative Consumption

Insider Blog: Infographic: The Collaborative Home

Infographic: The Collaborative Home

Our new infographic looks inside our homes at all the assets that can be shared, rented and swapped through Collaborative Consumption.

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By Morgan Clendaniel for FastCo Design on July 6, 2011

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Imagine other people paying you to use your things when you don’t need them. That’s the genius of collaborative consumption.

Collaborative Home.jpg

You might own some tools that you never use, or perhaps you have a backyard that you just don’t have the time to do anything interesting with. Until recently, those pieces of property mostly served as nagging reminders that you didn’t have enough time to do everything you wanted to do. Today, they can look like revenue streams, not wastes of money.

Ideas about ownership of property are slowly starting to change in this country. The success of Zip Car and of bike sharing programs in a few major cities are the vanguard of a host of different “collaborative consumption” services and businesses that allow people to monetize their own unused resources, or to find ways to get goods and services without purchasing them. This infographic shows some of the stuff that might be lying around your house that are just profits waiting to happen — and all the start-ups trying to help you along:

This infographic was made by the venture fund Collaborative—which invests in collaborative consumption businesses—and the Startup America Partnership in order to help illustrate the economic benefits of this idea. (Full disclosure: I used to work with the founder of Collaborative.)

Your house, it turns out, is full of things that could be making you some cash. Your car can be shared with your neighbors via RelayRides. Your driveway itself can be rented out as a parking spot through Park At My House. Your tools, video games, sports equipment, even clothes, are all monetizeable. How much can you get?

That’s right, the average New York-based user of Airbnb (a site which lets users rent out their house like a hotel) makes $21,000 annually. That’s a nice supplement to any income. You can also make $200 a month just by renting your video games out. And you thought that was a useless habit. Even if all you have is time, you can monetize that, too.

TaskRabbit lets you do small jobs for your neighbors. Most of those small jobs involve assembling Ikea furniture. So, if you’re good with wordless instructions and a hex wrench, you could rack up $15,000 in earnings doing odd jobs.

But all this talk about the money you could make is just part to grab your attention. What’s truly important about collaborative consumption is much more world-altering than just supplementing people’s incomes. We own far too much stuff, a symptom of our aggressive consumer culture. If you don’t need to buy a circular saw or a leaf blower just to use them once a year, but can use one when you need it, it could fundamentally impact how we consume. So, while making money on your unused stuff sounds great, imagine not having to buy the stuff in the first place.


By Morgan Clendaniel for FastCo Design

Number of comments: 6
Posted under the category: CC Company
With the tags: , , , ,

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Nizam’s comment is:

It is now even possible to share storage space. Whereas people have now had to rely on sometimes impersonal and expensive self-storage companies, instead of simply asking the neighbour if they have space in their garage or shed like we did some years back... sharemystorage.com brings back some of that social aspect of sharing space and at the same time saving some money for the storer and making the some money for the person owning the space.

Take a look: sharemystorage.com

On Jul.12.2011 at 08:49 PM


carpooling’s comment is:

Sharing rides has become such a popular travel option in Germany that the site carpooling.com has now more traffic than expedia.de!
It is especially good when you want to travel door-to-door with your own car and share the cost of your journey.

On Aug.23.2011 at 07:24 AM


amit’s comment is:

travel book is application on facebook that do similar thing base on good will http://apps.facebook.com/smileypolka/index.php

On Sep.12.2011 at 04:43 AM


Tradelist’s comment is:

As victims of the "aggressive consumer culture" I understand your point, we just successfully downsized our living from a 2 story house to a small rural cabin, and we couldn't be happier without all that "stuff".
Thanks!

On Sep.22.2011 at 02:15 PM


Fang’s comment is:

Glad to read this. Here I'd like to share some thoughts with you too: new off-line marketplaces or on-line platforms are shaking up the idea of ownership (of properties), and creating new collaborative spaces by: Sharing.
http://nestproject.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/space-sharing/

On Sep.24.2011 at 07:28 AM


Jason’s comment is:

I appreciated this article and would also like to share a thought and a link. In addition to revisiting the ways that we share goods and modes of transport, where possible we should also consider the possibilities in the realm of philanthropy. Perhaps when we permanently part with goods that we no longer want or need, we can do it in a way that helps others. http://webthriftstore.com

On Oct.21.2011 at 05:20 AM











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