The growing impact of the sharing economy

The sharing economy, with BlaBlaCar, Uber, or AirBnb as its leading exponents, will have a global combined turnover of around 300,000 million euros in 2025, according to a report by the OBS Business School based on data from the consulting firm PwC echoed by The Economist. The report, which puts the number of platforms in the world included in this business model at more than 7,500, especially disruptive in tourism and mobility, continues to see its main difficulties in the lack of regulation, the opposition of neighborhood groups (notably for AirnBnb) or the rejection of colectivos as taxi drivers (notably for Uber).

Although they are nourished by already existing markets, the report points out that the potential to create collaborative consumption platforms is greater in industries where transaction costs are drastically reduced, as well as the price, life cycle and frequency of I use key success factors.

The main platforms monetize the value of transactions between individuals that they make possible through commissions or service fees. Some voices question the fact that the collaborative model is nothing more than a facade to instrumentalize the contributions of its users for corporate purposes, and advocate for alternatives such as “platform cooperativism”, equivalent platforms where users share ownership and benefits. Going further, technological breakthroughs like the blockchain can give rise to an atomized collaborative economy without intermediaries.