Designing Sharing Economy Platforms through a 'Solidarity HCI' lens

Abstract

Despite sharing economy's promise of a novel, inclusive and community building socio-techno-economic system, sharing economy has been indicted, among others for profiteering from previously private and occasionally non-monetized activities, for turning the activity of sharing into an individualistic and impersonal one, for reproducing stereotypes and creating precarious jobs. In the epicenter of such critiques are the 'big' and 'limelight-ed' platform-firms, like AirBnB and Uber and the digital infrastructures they employ. To the best of our knowledge, the majority of related research focuses on SE platforms of this ilk. In response, acknowledging that the problem is not the agency of the digital in the activity of sharing per se, but that the wrong people set the terms, design and benefit from this mediation, we find it timely to explore the existence of community-driven sharing economy initiatives and explore how they use the digital to support their sharing ends. As a result, in this paper we report from our engagement with a ride-sharing initiative, called 'Share the ride ;)' which operates within a Facebook group since 2009 and is the most popular ride-sharing 'platform' in Greece.Extrapolating from our findings and while adopting a 'Solidarity HCI' approach, a call to design for 'human' rather than market needs, we participate in the 'sharing discourse' by providing design implications for the development of sharing economy platforms which can favor community building, participation, self-organization and the nurturing of a generative sharing ideology. To this end, we suggest the development of malleable sharing economy platforms and of mechanisms which can support the development of relational trust(s) and enduring social relations. Finally, we underscore that in order to favor the establishment of such relations, those platforms should employ architectures which esteem pluralism and self-affirmation.CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Collaborative and social computing systems and tools.

Exploring the factors that influence continued use of sharing economic platforms: Insights from idle fish

“…Interactions facilitated by platforms can foster relationships among individuals from diverse backgroun ds who might not otherwise be able to connect (Ntouros, Kouki, & Vlachokyriakos, 2021). These interactions can have beneficial implications for broader groups (Kas et al, 2022).…”

Supporting Designers in the Sharing Economy Through a Generative Design Cards Toolkit

“…Stemming from efforts in HCI to "design for 'human' rather than market needs" [38], we turn to design considerations for solidarity, equality and care for sharing and cooperativism [45]. We adapted the prominent principles of design justice [10], which "centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face" 3 and formulated a set of guiding questions for designing to overcome digital exclusion and social injustice [45].…”

“…Design researchers have recognized the social and ecological import of such non-profit models of the sharing economy (e.g., [14,28]) and called for the development of design strategies and tools [45] to support their proliferation [25] and growth [35]. HCI researchers have responded to these calls and developed recommendations to aid the design of digital platforms and tools to cater to communities' needs and sharing practices [6,18,38].…”