The ‘sharing economy’ is changing the rules of business. Last year, venture capitalist Alex Stephany published a book on the ‘sharing’ phenomenon ‘The Business of Sharing: Making it in the Sharing Economy’. The first chapter of the book tells us about a Silicon Valley start-up JustPark and explains the idea behind the business of sharing.
The rise of ridesharing
Some chap in Silicon Valley just went and created Lyft.com – a ridesharing platform. The principle it works on is that you share cabs and split the cost with others. Price is fixed upfront and always less than original Lyft services. In techy San Fran terms, ride sharing is a peer-to-peer facility that matches the passengers who need a ride with drivers who have a car.
As far as ridesharing goes, Lyft has even outdone Uber in those stakes. So much that the ridesharing feature on Uber hasn’t taken off quite so well in many cities.
Ridesharing Economy
Splitting the cost of rides is convenient for both the passengers and the drivers. Whereas the riders might sometimes be put off by the cost of the fare and therefore forego getting a cab altogether resulting in no business for the driver what so ever, the cheaper cost of sharing a ride means that the driver gets the cash and the passengers get a cheaper ride, making it a win-win situation for all.
In fact you can even avail of promo codes. Go to www.rydely.com/uber-promo-code-free-ride-coupon-guide/ for more info.
The Future of Sharing
The business of sharing is here to stay and flourish. Peer to peer transactions are everywhere and not just in car-pooling. Aside from the billion-dollar textbook success Lyft.com, many others are adopting their business model.
The need for cars
Ridesharing is deemed to be a super successful, high in demand business model. One of the factors contributing to that, is that the majority of us living in big cities don’t own cars anymore, and those who do can easily provide such a service, resulting in others not needing or wanting to buy their own vehicles. It is basically taking assets, in our case, cars with drivers, and making them accessible to the community – the passenger. This results in the reduction of the need for ownership of those assets – i.e. cars.
Jobs for drivers
Furthermore, this results in jobs for drivers because platforms such as Lyft and Uber employ their drivers on the freelance basis. This means that you can literally do it in your spare time earning extra cash from the asset you already posses. As for the passengers – we will always want cheaper fares, so it seems that ridesharing will be a continuous phenomenon benefiting both sides.