Soraya Sedkaoui - Sharing Economy and Big Data Analytics

Wouldn’t using the shared economy “risk a bias between public policies, based on collective reliability and social action that is highly linked to charitable practices”? (King Baudouin Foundation 42016). The study of King Baudouin’s foundation showed that the insecure population does not have access to the range of offers that fall within the scope of the sharing economy, in particular that of the business model, since it is not free. Furthermore, the activities of the sharing economy are carried out with digital tools that cost a significant amount. In addition, this segment of society feels inferior with regard to their inability to benefit from this kind of sharing.

The objective of the sharing economy is to create an egalitarian society through exchange platforms. These must guarantee access for all and at a lower cost for the duration of time for which it is needed, such as a car in town, tools, housing and many other goods that would otherwise be very expensive if they were acquired through the classical economy (Pasquier and Daudigeos 2016).

By definition, poverty is a person’s inability to satisfy his or her most basic needs: food, shelter, clothing, education, health, possession of comfort goods (car, travel, etc.).

Poverty can be understood through two perspectives: “The first focuses on the resources, including goods and services, that are owned or available to characterize the level of poverty.” It is a monetary analysis of poverty. The second focuses on what people are able to do or be using the resources at their disposal. It is an analysis on “human capabilities” (Lasida et al . 2009).

In light of this definition, one wonders what a population living in poverty can share if it does not have the essentials to meet its most basic needs. Will access to platforms be enough to restore a sense of social reintegration to people that are living in modest circumstances?

Indeed, it is necessary to have an asset base in order to be able to perform any exchanges:

In this perspective, economic capital would be measured more in terms of access to property, than in terms of heritage. This new relationship with goods is therefore supposed to create a tremendous leverage effect for the poorest populations: what could not be bought yesterday because of a lack of resources can be borrowed or rented the next day at reasonable rates. (Pasquier and Daudigeos 2016)

Also, a study by Williams and Windebank (2005) showed that people of modest circumstances express negative feelings of social exclusion in relation to second-hand purchases.

Paradoxically, they are simultaneously driven by “positive feelings of agency power over purchasing decisions, because second-hand purchases sometimes remain preferable to donations, loans or non-purchases” (Benoît-Moreau et al . 2017). In practice, this means that collaborative platforms offer people with opportunities to acquire goods and feel reintegrated into society through the collaborative economy niche.

But ideas that advocate the reliability of the sharing economy to institute equality for all are not shared by everyone. The literature on this issue is divided between those who support the idea that digital platforms contribute to social integration, and those who consider them to be reserved for a wealthy population.

A study in 2016, by Benoît-Moreau, Delacroix and Parguel, on the economic benefits brought by purchase-sale practices on collaborative platforms, which integrated the “psychosocial benefits” 5variant for the first time and was associated with the economic benefits gained, revealed that the economic benefits increase when purchase and sale transactions are practiced on the platforms (they allow them to make gains on their budgets and close the month-end).

In contrast, from a psychological point of view, this activity does not provide any satisfaction for people in financial difficulty. Instead, it reinforces the feeling of social exclusion because it is perceived as a “stigmatizing constraint”. The only psychological satisfaction is that of making a financial gain (Benoît-Moreau 2017).

Without claiming to be utopian, collaborative platforms offer economic opportunities for a section of the population that are in financial difficulty. They give that section of the population a sense of satisfaction by allowing them to perform the act of buying with dignity, instead of begging or getting into debt.

The sharing economy is a growing phenomenon. Thus, the turnover of sharing platforms is growing rapidly, “the revenues generated by all these players in the European Union have increased from 1 billion dollars in 2013 to 3.6 billion dollars in 2015” (Winkler 2017).

While the sharing economy provides profits, it also causes disproportionate effects in society, particularly in regard to employment disruptions. It promotes self-employment, commonly known as freelance .

This new approach to job searching will fundamentally change labor market regulation:

Activity is rarely regulated by an employment contract. Self-employed workers generally do not benefit from any form of social protection (unemployment, health or retirement) and are therefore, with age or in the event of a turnaround in the economy, faced with an increased risk of poverty. (Winkler 2017)

The Internet provides knowledge, information and opportunities worldwide. How can more people benefit from these digital dividends?

– 250 million people in Europe and Central Asia are on the wrong side of the digital divide.

– In Europe and Central Asia, the number of Internet users is higher than the number of bank account holders, but not everyone has equal access to digital dividends from the Internet.

– The European Union has almost universal access to the Internet, so where are the European Google and Facebook?

– In Central Asia, 60% of people do not have access to the Internet.

– In South Caucasus, 40% of people do not have access to the Internet.

Opinions regarding the reliability of the sharing economy as an economic model that can meet the social objectives of sustainable development, particularly those that expect the decrease in poverty and inequality in the world, as stated above, are somewhat harsh. We cannot be categorical about a possible need to increase social inequalities, on the one hand, because the sharing and collaborative economy is a recent concept under construction. On the other hand, the implications of using trading platforms has to be analyzed with greater optimism.

Indeed, in the context of trading platforms, pilot projects, which have a purpose of reducing inequalities, have helped to strengthen social cohesion. Projects such as Soli-Food and Welfood, for example, reflect this desire by providing a vulnerable population with access to food under the aegis of the fight against waste (King Baudouin Foundation 2016).

The change brought about by the collaborative economy does not affect the nature of the goods consumed, but rather the behavior of consumers, in other words, their way of consuming, either through the B2C or B2B formula. Previous exchanges are now complemented by the emerging C2C formula, but also by other transactional methods that contribute to a more efficient flow of goods in the market.

Table 2.1. Configuration of new trade methods (Ertz 2017)

Although a number of these exchanges involve new goods (B2B, B2C, B2G, G2B, G2C or G2G), others are only associated with second-hand goods (C2B, C2C, C2G). It is worth noting that C2C exchange schemes can be found in each exchange configuration, making it a dominant factor.