Suggested by AD Aaron Delissaint over 3 years ago

The Tragedy of Commons teaches us that people will invariably act in their own self-interests when they have access to a public resource or one that is held in common therefore extracting all value from said resource until it is depleted. In my opinion, this concept is why some believe that both public and private resources, utilities, goods, and markets should be regulated. However, the issue is not with the markets, the goods being exchanged, or the regulations. The issue lies in the fact that we seem to ignore the inherent human nature that individuals will act in their own self-interest if it benefits them and/or if they possess the power to do so. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I even postulate that if one’s self-interests are aligned for “good” then business in general, the markets, and the economy that a person engages in will be for the “good” of not just the individual but for the overall system. However, looking at the economies at work today we cannot be further from this ideal. So how do we change things?

For starters, it means that the new economy will need to be a decentralized free market embracing the best principles of peer-to-peer (P2P) and sharing economies. When, how, and with whom people do business should be governed completely by and for the benefit of the individual consumer. The utility of currency should be directly tied to the value of the consumer and their interests. This means that anything can have transactional value based on the estimation and perception of the individual consumer. However, for this idea to work there must be a broad spectrum approach tackling the issues that matter most to people’s self-interests. As Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs indicates people's greatest interests and basic needs tend to be physiological e.g. air, water, shelter, food, sleep, clothing, and reproduction. So the new economy needs to address these foundational issues first.

That means to build this new economy we must tackle foundational societal or social needs. We can get started by addressing something seemingly innocuous at first with the hopes that it will take root in the conscientiousness of the masses. For example, a little over a decade ago, if a person didn’t want to drive they would catch a cab, bus, or train. With the advent of “P2P” transportation options, people are just as likely now if not more likely to order a rideshare option. In fact, Uber has become so popularized within our verbal lexicon that many people now just say: “Let me call an Uber” and people immediately equate that as synonymous with any other modality of transportation.

That being said, I think that the next logical step in growing the new sharing economy would be to address shelter or lodging. However, I want to encourage people to think about things a bit differently. As I mentioned before, with the advent of rideshare, companies like Lyft had it right initially. They allowed gifting for the rideshare services, which allowed the end-user and consumer to set the prices they deemed worthy of their experience and service. The problem here though is that the operational costs of such a venture coupled with the opportunity costs put a pathway to profitability out of reach, which led Lyft to quickly change its pricing model and adopt one similar to Uber’s. When you step back and think about it, Lyft was on to something early on though. It's just that the unit economics didn’t make sense. They had to decide whether they were going to be facilitators of this burgeoning sharing economy or brokers. If they choose the route of facilitation they could have easily mapped out a path to profitability. As history has shown us, along with Uber, they choose to be transportation brokers by taking a cut of each trip and ergo becoming the defacto regulators of this new P2P economy in the transportation sector. So how do we make things better?

What if we took the P2P concept that we see with Lyft and Uber and turn it on its head? What if we got rid of the middlemen and brokers trying to make a profit and let consumers deal directly with one another to share services, space, and goods? What if we applied this concept to lodging and gave people the ability to work directly with the property owner to book stays for as short as an hour? Well, my friends then you’d have Hotbed. The first of it’s kind peer-to-peer ultra-short-term on-demand property rental solution where users aren’t penalized for working directly with their guests including accepting payments from them. If you tried to do that on platforms like Airbnb you would quickly have your account suspended.

However, Hotbed is just the start of the revolution of the P2P and sharing economies. We start by providing end-users the ability to share their space with whomever and however they like and on their terms. It starts with Hotbed but soon we hope to bring a new sharing economy that covers other basic needs like food and clothing as well.

Will you join the revolution with us?

Why not now? Since the advent of Craigslist, we've flirted with the idea of growing a genuine P2P marketplace. Now's the time for a fully productized trusted solution that puts the power back in the hands of the consumer. A place where the consumer doesn't have to worry about being baited or influenced into a purchasing decision by advertising or algorithms.