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Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

My God. A sharing economy company that actually shares things!

It is weird that these companies are so prominently displayed nowadays, yet a German website that is already up and running since 1998 and was until very recently not requesting any share of the fare is completely missing from the story - mitfahrzentrale.de Apparently they currently have 700,000 offers of long-distance car shares online. I remember that some other site was already up and pretty popular in the mid nineties, and in both cases you actually only had to pay the driver the cost for gas. Maybe it's the name that never really moved the story outside the German-speaking countries.

Probably just language barrier. But much of English-language culture is just American culture and it is very navel-gazing. Never underestimate Americans' ability to not consider anything happening beyond their borders, except as matters of foreign policy.

It is very frustrating to see as a foreigner. A magazine article will be talking about something like legalizing prostitution and will be more likely to quote Benjamin Franklin than to say what happening in other countries where is is legal.

America is surrounded by a near identical twin in the north, huge oceans on it's sides, and a relatively undeveloped south. The country itself is as large as europe with as many climates to experience. It's nearly inevitable.

Europeans on the other hand, can drive to a different developed nation in 5 hours. Seeing your relative across the country isn't that big of a deal. Being aware of cultural differences is inevitable.

mitfahrgelegenheit.de is another great one. Ride shares tend to be much more popular in European countries because the distances between major cities are usually shorter and people are generally more trusting of riding in strangers' cars.

GoLoco (from Robin Chase, ZipCar's founder) was an American take that never really caught on in the States.

In what sense does this company facilitate actually sharing in a way that Uber does not?

FTA:

Like Uber, BlaBlaCar takes a cut of the fare, but crucially, prevents its drivers from trying to turn this into a job. In each of the countries it operates in, BlaBlaCar uses government guidelines on driving costs to set a cap on the fare. These calculations account for fuel costs, insurance and tax. The rule helps to avoid giving the impression that the app poses a challenge to cab drivers' livelihood.

"Because they don't make a profit, BlaBlaCar drivers aren't classed as professionals," says Nicolas Brusson, the co-founder and chief operating officer at BlaBlaCar. "They don't require special insurance or a special license."

Yeah, I read that. I don't see how that makes the BlaBlaCar sharing any more actual than the Uber sharing.

The typical notion of the sharing economy is that you're allowing more efficient usage of activity that would exist with or without your interference.

For example, car pooling is part of the sharing economy - the car was already going in that direction anyways, but now you've saved a bunch of gas by putting multiple people in the same car. Without your carpool, that driver would still be going that way - like BlaBlaCar.

Ditto if you and your neighbors got together and shared a lawnmower. You were all going to buy one anyways, but in this scheme you get to save money, and the lawn mower is sitting idle a lot less. Good of the environment, good for you, and maybe you can afford a better mower as a group. Score.

Uber isn't part of the sharing economy, since the drivers are only on the road because of you. It's a pretty typical merchant-client relationship that doesn't fit any common notion of the word "sharing", unless you consider your coffee shop to be "sharing" their coffee with you.

In Uber/Lyft's case, the supply (rides) wouldn't exist without you. The key tenet of the sharing economy is that you're piggy-backing on activity that would be happening regardless. I think it's a pretty tough case to argue that all these Ubers and Lyfts would be on the road anyways if it weren't for the people hailing them.

This is true for (most of) AirBnb as well. If you're renting out your apartment while you're away, that's a part of the sharing economy, since you'd own the space even if AirBnb didn't exist - it would just be sitting empty. If you're maintaining a room or apartment strictly for the purpose of renting out, it really isn't, and now you're looking at a much more traditional merchant-client relationship.

> Uber isn't part of the sharing economy, since the drivers are only on the road because of you.

But most are using their personal cars (at least for Lyft and Sidecar, which are the ones I use), which they would own either way. It's not the driver's time and gas being "shared" under your definition, it's the car itself, which would otherwise be sitting in a garage and replaced with another taxi or rental car.

Also, I don't see how the person not making a profit somehow makes the service qualify under your definition of "sharing economy."

if its just sharing the car, then there's already carpools? uber is a way for people without a cab license to operate a cab service?

Of course there are already carpools. Those generally imply that driver and passengers were already taking the same route, and they all usually know one another. Ridesharing services extend that to rides the driver would not otherwise be taking. Again, what's being shared is the car itself.

ah. so its like zipcar but for individual car owners.

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