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The sharing economy.

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niallon11
@niallon11
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### What is a sharing economy platform?
>The term describes many different kinds of businesses, form hobbit worthy community exchanges to profit seeking global businesses such as Uber. The thing that they have in common is matching supply and demand more efficiently, using technology to reduce the transactions costs involved in acquiring goods or services from the people able to provide them. [Ref: Financial Times.](https://www.ft.com/content/80e4682c-a966-11e5-9700-2b669a5aeb83)
Or in other words a way to get the right product to the right person as cheaply as possible. This will maximize the use of the product as it goes straight into the right place.

My understanding is that the sharing economy is about getting the right product to the right person as efficiently as possible.

My favorite examples of this would be,

  • AirBnB for accommodation.

  • Uber for travel.

  • Tinder for dating.

  • Trivago or others sites for holidays.

  • Spotify for music.

ect...

All of these examples and more have changed how an existing process operates by using technology to make it more efficient and cost effective to do the same task that had previously taken a lot more time and third parties to make happen which increases the cost. Using any of these services reduces the cost compared to traditional methods and with technology takes the effort out of making the transaction.


#### Tinder for dating
If we are going to look into one in detail then i will use Tinder as a great example since it relates to an existing business here in the west of Ireland.
##### Matchmaking.
While in most countries you can just ask out a person that you like on a date their is an old tradition in this part of the country for people looking to find a partner to marry. It was called matchmaking and in certain towns there were people who made a career out of matching up suitable people for marriage.


Funnily enough it is a tradition that still goes on today and the most famous of these is Willy Daly who runs a matchmaking festival in Lisdoonvarna, Co.Clare. You might think that it is just a small town bit of fun but it is actually fairly large for a small one street town.

Over the course of the matchmaking festival, the event attracts over 40,000 people to the small town. Using a large ledger of names and details he painstakingly matches up couples for a life together. People actually travel all over the world to take part and he has a surprisingly good record at it.

All I can say is thank god for tinder. Set your stats. Set your location. Get matched straight right form the couch. The wonders of technology have really added to this ancient business and sharing economy.

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