Not quite "sharing economy" but what?
April 13, 2016 12:13 PM   Subscribe

I just read about the Copia app, that connects markets and restaurants with "left over" food to shelters and organizations that feed people in need. This is the best example of my question. What is it called when you have X (service, tangible) and are using technology to share it with people in need of X? And vice versa (you need X and use technology to find it). Is there anyone writing about this and/or studying this particular use of technology?

Where do I find these articles? Uber and AirB&B are not what I'm talking about as these are now mostly about exchanging money.

If I'm not explaining this well, I'm sorry, that's part of my frustration here. I'm not entirely sure how to explain it. Help please.

When I search under "sharing" I get apps like ShareCloud and obviously, that's not what I'm looking for.
posted by Sophie1 to Technology (10 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well, I think it used to be called market-making.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:17 PM on April 13, 2016


Is an article like this kind of what you are looking for?

The Role of Values in Food Hub Sourcing and Distributing Practices

It's a fairly new thing to study, I think. But you might try keywords like "mobile" and "distribution" and possibly "value chain."
posted by pantarei70 at 12:18 PM on April 13, 2016


Best answer: I've heard "gift economy" to describe things like freecycle, couchsurfing.com, little free libraries, and other things like this. If that's what you were thinking of?
posted by Sara C. at 12:18 PM on April 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


broker? middleman? neither seems to turn up many apps.
posted by andrewcooke at 12:20 PM on April 13, 2016


Best answer: It's some sort of crowdsourced resource redistribution. Like when people needed shovelling out of the terrible snowstorm in MA and they could use a website to find a shoveler or offer to shovel? This article has some more examples.
posted by jessamyn at 12:22 PM on April 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


The Whole Earth Review/ Co-evolution Quarterly/ Stewart Brand referred to it as disintermediation. Removing the intermediaries between resources/ users of resources.
posted by theora55 at 12:25 PM on April 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Yes, jessamyn. This is exactly what I'm looking for! I'm going to read all of your examples - keep em coming! Perfect.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:25 PM on April 13, 2016


It's not an app, but check out http://www.shareable.net
posted by instamatic at 4:12 PM on April 13, 2016 [2 favorites]




nthing Shareable.net - they essentially write about this stuff all the time. They are particularly fond of distinguishing these initiatives from what most media refer to as the sharing economy (Uber, AirBnB et al).
posted by HopStopDon'tShop at 12:10 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


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