Author(s)

Sitong Guo

Corresponding Author

Sitong Guo

ABSTRACT

In recent years, the sharing economy has become one of the mainstream trends of economic development, which has led to the emergence of many start-ups under the banner of the sharing economy. Even though a majority of people are quite optimistic about its sustainability, as a new economic model, the development and prospects of the sharing economy seem to be significantly doubtful, according to the limited practical experience. The paper attempts to analyze the current state of the sharing economy by taking Uber as an example to discuss the flaws of the sharing economy. After a discussion of definitions and categories, I focus on two areas of research in the sharing economy: internal factors and inherent operating mechanism. Since the sharing economy is built on the basis of trust, it cannot guarantee the quality of service provided by the sharing companies to consumers to some extent. Moreover, due to the change in the role of intermediary agents, platforms currently do not give sharers legal protection.

KEYWORDS

Sharing economy, idle assets, employment relationship