Sharing economy

Web 2.0 and sharing economy applications started proliferating in the latest years of the first decade of the 21st century. Those applications allow producers and consumers to interact in digital spaces built by companies who govern them, take ownership of the data, and gain income through fees and advertisement.

The direct interactions between different kinds of users in Web 2.0 revolutionized E-Commerce. Platforms like Uber or Airbnb gained popularity and got many users. But they also have a centralized organization that manages the entire ecosystem, defines the rules, follows compliance, develops the system, advertises it, etc. These Web 2.0 ecosystems face some security issues that must be managed by their running companies without an impact on direct trading between peers, speed, and the amount of work required for the transactions to get done without fraud or lack of security. Those security risks are most related to

• product or service offered, not provided later.

• fake accounts, and identity threats.

• poor quality of products and services.

• product damages and thefts.

• a debtor does not pay after using the product or service.

• data breaches.

To overcome these pitfalls, the most important and effective strategy is to manage reputation systems. As an example, Airbnb released on November 2023 a new service called “Guest Favorites” which includes a collection of the 2 million most-loved homes based on ratings, reviews, and reliability data from over half a billion trips (https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/3495).

Reputation is an incentive for actors to behave well in the ecosystem, and operate with good results into it.

Another significant service in the sharing economy space is insurance. Having a way to get your money back when the products or services will not be available as promised, or getting compensation when a product is damaged are two essential features to increase security and incentivize actors to behave properly. Insurance services can be provided by Web 2.0 platforms or by external agencies.

These two services, reputation, and insurance, along with better technology features and governance, must be provided in new Web3 solutions to delight users and move them to more powerful decentralized ecosystems.