Stefanie SchulteDec 24, 2017

#WeWashing: "when organizations refer to renting and selling services as 'sharing' and/or use terms like 'community' in misleading ways":

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/leesean-huang/wewashing-when-sharing-is_b_6879018.html

"At worst, [the #sharingeconomy label] is a way of obfuscating commercial transactions as 'sharing' as a way of evade the reach of regulation and oversight."

(via Frank Pasquale, https://twitter.com/FrankPasquale/status/944754728612913152)

#WeWashing: When "Sharing" Is Renting and "Community" Is a Commodity

WeWashing is a new term that refers to the abuse of words like "sharing" and "community." Use #WeWashing to identify and critique this abuse.

Show threadJerry 🦙💝🦙Dec 24, 2017
@stefanieschulte the word “sharing” always seemed like an odd description for services like Uber and Airbnb.
Show threadAlex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UKDec 24, 2017

@jerry @stefanieschulte not sure of USA culture (assuming author is Asian American) but in UK (even big cities) it is normal for taxicab driver (especially older ones) to share some part of their life story with you, its not some magic development via Uber.

I have had to travel in many taxis recently due to hospital appointments, our town supports at *least* two taxi firms with apps that provide same features as Uber but no nasty surprises like surge pricing. Drivers appear well treated too.

Show threadStefanie SchulteDec 24, 2017
@vfrmedia @jerry It's a tricky business, due to low margins and risk of oversupply. This is a huge challenge for business owners and local regulators, I believe. However, Uber might not be particularly good at this - they just benefit from billions of dollars of subsidies from their investors, as Hubert Horan pointed out: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2933177
Will the Growth of Uber Increase Economic Welfare? by Hubert Horan :: SSRN

The urban car service firm Uber is currently the most highly valued private startup company in the world, with a venture capital valuation of over $68 billion b

Show threadAlex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

@stefanieschulte @jerry #Ipswich #UK seems to be a pioneering town in use of GPS apps for taxi despatch, I noticed a sudden drop off in VHF radio traffic from taxis on my scanner as they all switched to these systems. Uber doesn't operate much in Ipswich (there was one mention of it in a Council meeting) and it doesn't do localisation *that* well either..

(even if my Google settings are in Dutch I am in UK (which the website should try and detect) or the map could centre on NL/BE)

Dec 24, 2017 at 1:23pmWeb