https://bravenewgeek.com/tag/lyft/Recent content in Lyft on Brave New GeekHugoen-usThu, 28 Aug 2014 17:37:39 -0600https://bravenewgeek.com/the-sharing-economy-a-race-to-the-bottom/Thu, 28 Aug 2014 17:37:39 -0600https://bravenewgeek.com/the-sharing-economy-a-race-to-the-bottom/<p>Last year, Airbnb hosted more than four million guests around the world. ((<a href="https://www.airbnb.com/annual">https://www.airbnb.com/annual</a>)) A million rides were shared on Lyft just over a year after it launched in 2012 ((<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/08/lyft-1m-dc">http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/08/lyft-1m-dc</a>)). These data points alone seem impressive, but the growth of this phenomenon is staggering. The “sharing economy”—as it’s being called—enables just about <em>anyone</em> to become their own micro-entrepreneur. New companies like Uber, TaskRabbit, and Airbnb are popping up at a remarkable rate, and they’re disrupting traditional businesses in astonishing fashion. An <a href="http://shareconference.us/">entire conference</a> dedicated to this new socio-economic system occurred just a few months ago, but the truth is the sharing economy is little more than marketing <em>sleight of hand</em>.</p>