User:Dianacese/sandbox

Definition
Sharing economy is a socio-economic ecosystem that implies online transactions of intellectual, physical and human resources. It is a widely-used term that is also referred to as collaborative consumption, peer-to-peer or access-based consumption. Its roots are based in initiatives such as Wikipedia, Couchsurfing or TaskRabbit and its specificity is the reliance on shared production and consumption of goods and services. As opposed to the traditional economy, which involves a transfer of ownership from the producer to the consumer, the sharing economy implies a market mediation without a transfer of ownership. The "sharing" in the Sharing Economy does not necessary exclude the use of monetary exchange, but it rather refers to the use and assets of the intellectual, physical and human resources.

Controversy
One of the main controversies built around the sharing economy is the “worker misclassification”, meaning that all companies being part of the sharing economy “treat their workers as contractors instead of employees” or as "micro-entrepreneurs".

Opponents of the legal classification of workers as independent contractors argue that this aspect has a positive impact on the employers, who save money and a negative impact on workers, who do not have access to syndicates, health insurances, paid leaves and a broad range of other benefits. The Atlantic wrote on this matter that “the lack of employee status can also mean limited recourse for workers who face discrimination or want to unionize” and that the main actors’ issue is that they are “trying to misrepresent their central function in order to avoid additional requirements and expenses”. Opponents criticize the nonexistence of a "full-time independent contractor" status in the marketplace with clear regulations regarding the workers' rights and duties.

However, platform operators such as Uber or Lyft argue that “the participants contribute freely to the common pool and can withdraw their offer at any time, so in that sense, they are not employees”. Proponents of the independent contractor classification state that the balance between the companies and the workers is set in favor of the latter. Advantages include a higher take home pay, scheduling flexibility, which allows independent workers to work for more companies at the same time, but also to self-design their schedule and higher independence than employees.