Sharing Economy is in everybodys mouth, but nothing change until Blockchain arrives. This is the real moment on the Blockchain to demostrate if is aplicable or not to the real world.
They speak to us in all the media and the Boom conferences of the collaborative economy, but are we really witnessing a change of hands of power, from the old monopolies (taxis, the big store malls, the banks, hotels, etc...) to the new oligopolies (Amazon, Uber, Revolut, AirBnB...)? The monopolistic and corporative dinosaurs are twisting themselves trying to drive the new entrants from their playing field. The authorities choose to try to minimize the public scandal represented by the strikes that kidnap the freedom of citizens and workers ritghs, but they do not worry about managing the problem in a long-term manner, but they do so with their eyes set on the statistics and the image the citizens has on them, not thinking about our future generations.
The user/citizen, today, has become a secondary actor in this scenario, in which the monopolies of the past and the future, are stressed before the authorities to share the market cake again. In addition, the user/client has become in himself the merchandise and the workers with out rights that is marketed in the great clouds that leave charged with nothing, that user and of course his interests of a future that is just around the corner.
The reality is that collaborative economy Gig economy is not a new form of economy. It is not at the level of power sharing among those who collaborate in this economy, as could be deduced from its name: collaborative economy. On the contrary, the great actors that lead this economy become connecting nodes of the different suppliers that participate in it and end up being concentrated in a more pronounced way, bearing in mind that their market dominance is interregional, if not even worldwide. China and other exceptions mean that these new moguls do not take over the globe. Therefore, we go from monopolies, national and even transnational, Europe, Latin America, Asia, etc. to monopolies which include more than three continents under their umbrella. This is something that really must make us reflect. Do we want the decisions of which neighborhoods the transport service reaches in our city to be taken in San Francisco United States (UBER case)? Or, that the resources dedicated to the distribution of certain basic necessities are taken on the other side of the Atlantic, as in the case of Amazon, which can perfectly decide, once it has detached itself from its competitors, not to distribute its products to the rural areas of the Midi in France or in the centre of Castile in Spain? Or even more urgent, when and howmuch riders will get paid? This is therefore an issue that goes far beyond our generation and therefore, is raised in a way that is not binary but with various consequences.
"Do we want the decisions of which neighbourhoods the transport service reaches in our city to be taken in San Francisco, United States (UBER case)?... Or when and howmuch riders will get paid (deliveroo) ?"
Given that we are at this crossroads, what is the reason, not to break our corsets of imagination and capacity for strategic vision and take a bold step and create, from Europe giants based on a different axiom, in giving power to the people, in giving decision-making power to the members of the community, to those who are really collaborators and therefore architects of the success of this collaborative economy. Giving these users and collaborators a large part of the value they generate within the project, not a percentage of the income, but a participation in the shareholding, in the profits and in the decision-making capacity of the different steps that are taken in this economy. Together with this, we must be able to give these users/collaborators the capacity to make decisions in a way that is consistent with their work and contributions, that is, to govern their destiny and the principles on which the project is based, in this way, if it is a collaborative community, in which particular transport resources are put in common, as the Uber of the world was initially supposed to do, it is really these drivers and vehicle owners, who together decide where the coverage of the services offered is extended; In the case of home deliveries or retail sales, decisions are made by the small/medium sized manufacturers of their products and not by the hub that concentrates them, be it Amazon or Aliexpress.
There are two important variables in this new approach: the distribution of the value that is generated among all and how the distribution of decision making is made, so that the guide of the steps that are taken in the future of the project is not concentrated, but is decentralized.
Is this feasible?
If we have been attentive to the financial publications of recent years, we will have seen the fashionable word, the Blockchain. There are thousands of articles talking about this, so I am not going to go into detail on this issue. I'm going to highlight two things: 1- I think Blockchain is not an end, but a tool; 2- I do not believe that it only serves as a financial tool, but that it is much more than that, it can be the lever that overturns our economy and transforms our lives forever making monopolies disappear, creating sustainable economies, based on the interests of its members and as the Internet did, with access to information, transforming our society, really, Blockchain, can transform our lives again, but this time in the part that most affects our pockets and that of the next generations...
(next I'll publish the second part.) Any idea or question, you know, either here or twitter @jero_net