COLLABORATIVE CONSUMPTION

n.

An economic model in which consumers use online tools to collaborate on owning, renting, sharing, and trading goods and services.

From social lending (Zopa), to car sharing (Zipcar) to co-working (HubCulture), to peer-to-peer rental (Zilok), to collaborative travel (Air BnB), to neighborhood sharing schemes (WeCommune), ... people are already using the principles and dynamics of Collaborative Consumption — organized sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting and swapping through online and real-world communities — to get the same fulfillment and benefits of ownership with reduced personal burden and cost and as well as lower environmental impact.

—Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption: http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com, HarperBusiness, April 1, 2010 (approx)

As Zipcar (and GoLoco.org) founder and former CEO, I totally agree. In fact, I've given a number of lectures over the last four months on this topic. I think of it as "consumption 2.0" or "collaborative consumption."

—Robin Chase, " ZipCar Capitalism: A New Economic Model?: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2008/10/zipcar_capitali.html" (comment), BusinessWeek, October 31, 2008

Collaborative consumption is a phenomenon that is sweeping the globe. ...Consumers collaborate on-line to exchange goods and services through web sites such as eBay and Gumtree, share hospitality experiences through Trip Advisor (featuring five million reviews and rising) and pool their collective purchasing power on www.12thshare.com to co-own, in a process known as fractional ownership, high-value assets such as prestige cars, property and airplanes.

—Ray Algar, " Collaborative Consumption: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-30282472_ITM," The M&C Report, April 1, 2007

As the second citation shows, this economic model is also called ZipCar capitalism, a fantastic phrase coined by journalist Bruce Nussbaum:

I spent time on the subway this morning thinking about what a new economic model might look like and what might have any chance of succeeding and came up with ZipCar Capitalism. Treehugger calls it Rentalism: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/rentalism.php but that doesn't ring well in my ears.

—Bruce Nussbaum, " ZipCar Capitalism: A New Economic Model?: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2008/10/zipcar_capitali.html," BusinessWeek, October 30, 2008

crowdfunding

crowdsourcing

inconspicuous consumption

socially produced

wiki

Economics

You can read my 2007 Collaborative Consumption article at this link

http://www.oxygen-consulting.co.uk/index_oxygen_articles-4.php