The sharing economy is already knocking at the door

In many cities all over the world cab drivers were protesting against taxi service application Uber, a smartphone app that directly connects users with the nearest registered Uber cars, which they can book and pay for with their smartphones – the passenger and the driver also rate each other this way. AirBnB is a website for people to rent out lodging. Rating is an important tool here too in creating mutual trust. New York hotels are already demanding local authorities to impose tourism tax on flat owners who rent out their property via this service. During the football World Cup in Brazil 120,000 rooms were rented via AirBnB and flat owners’ revenue was USD 38 million. Dalma Berkovics, the representative of collaborative economy firm OuiShare told us that in her view access is now more important than property, for instance this is how shared office spaces work, where one can rent office space on an hourly basis. Gergely Kiss, managing director of eNet opines that shared services work well and this already manifests in economic performance. Similar services have been launched in Hungary too, but these have very little influence on the country’s economy for the time being. According to István Siklaki, social psychologist at Eötvös Lóránd University (ELTE), economic recession gave an impetus to sharing economy, but he thinks that in Hungary people are too keen on owning things for this type of model to spread. Iván Rózsa, communication director of Magyar Telekom believes that technological development can give a boost to the sharing economy concept.