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Around the Apocalyptic Web: The sharing economy and getting paid for your work

By jdupuis on October 22, 2014.

I find the whole idea of a "sharing economy" where people barter and exchange and free up excess capacity in their own lives and situations to make others' lives a little easier and cheaper an interesting notion. And worthwhile. After all broadly speaking the open access and open source movements do partake of this same spirit. Libraries too, in that we pool the resources of a community to acquire stuff for the benefit of all the members, so that everyone can share the wealth.

But is there a dark side to sharing?

With the advent of companies like AirBnB and it's ilk not to mention the whole idea of the "reputation economy" sucking up the "gift economy" for it's own devices, well, let's just say I'm a bit more skeptical of the big money players than the little gals and guys.

So this Around the Web explores a long set of readings about more the new, more corporatized side of sharing, some pro, most con. After all, even the open access movement has it's share of big publishers and small startups diving in.

In no particular order:

Add your own favourite example of rich people asking not-so-rich-people to kick in to their profits in the comments.

Tags
acad lib future
around the web
librarianship
Open Access

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