The Upstarts

Airbnb and Uber didn’t spawn ‘the sharing economy,’ ‘the on-demand economy,’ or ‘the one-tap economy’ (those labels never quite seemed to fit) so much as usher in a new trust economy, helping regular folks to negotiate transportation and accommodations in the age of ubiquitous internet access.

This idea was not necessarily novel (VRBO, HomeAway, Couchsurfing, and Craigslist did it first), but the elegance of the solution was unrivaled. Carefully selected photographs and reviews from previous transactions introduce the host and the guest to each other before they meet in person. Like Uber, cash is deleted from the equation; Airbnb collect