Peers Inc

Engage Others’ Minds by Publishing Problems, Not the Solutions

THE PRINCIPLES OF THE COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY 1. Open accessible assets > closed assets Open assets deliver more value than closed assets because they are more efficiently used and let us continually uncover new valuable uses. 2. More networked minds > fewer walled-in minds1 More people are smarter than fewer people, but only when they are netw

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/34144

we needed technology that had several parts: Customer-facing software. Initially customers used the website to join Zipcar, reserve cars, pay their bills, and manage accounts (smartphones didn’t exist yet). Back office: The web pages—that only we could see—allowed us to manage customers, cars, and parking locations. In-vehicle hardware. The Zipcard

Ostrom identifies “common pool resources,” which have two characteristics: they produce a steady stream of benefits accruing from the resource, and it is very difficult to exclude individuals.

The researchers compared four business models, Asset Builders, Service Providers, Technology Creators, and Network Orchestrators, which closely mirror Peers Inc.

The first, General Public License (GPL), is an example of how innovative licensing can prevent the privatization of community-built assets in perpetuity, and sometimes expand them.

There is more than enough physical stuff already; we just need to think about and organize it differently.

Platforms organize, standardize, and simplify participation.

In general, there is an inverse correlation between platform complexity and its openness to innovation (and therefore to potential value). The less rigid and structured the platform, the more innovation. More structure produces less variation.