The Sharing Economy and Design

Keywords

Sharing economy, design, collaborative consumption

Abstract

The sharing economy is gaining momentum and changing the way people think about and interact with products. The commercial economy has created a culture of conspicuous consumption, where status is displayed by owning lots of stuff. But the sharing economy encourages collaborative consumption where status comes from having access to a lot of goods [1]. In the sharing economy, companies use technology to facilitate peer-to-peer rental schemes [2]. These “using rather than owning” strategies have the potential to reduce our demand for natural resources, and revive the old virtue of building products that last [3]. For this reason it is important that design students be exposed to courses, lectures, and projects where they learn to design for the unique challenges of the sharing economy.

Original Publication Citation

Smith, D., Howell, B., & Morgan, D. (2015). The Sharing Economy. Conference proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education: Design Teaching, Research & Enterprise (E&PDE15) (pp. 588-591), Loughborough, England, September 3-4.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2015

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/6133

Publisher

E&PDE

Language

English

College

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology

Department

Technology

University Standing at Time of Publication

Associate Professor

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