What the Future of Ownership Looks Like: An Era of Digital Collectivism

The shared economy has changed over time, from the early days of eBay to the co-ownership of homes, jets and digital art NFTs. As the shared economy continues to evolve, the things people share has grown in scale, and moved from renting time on an electric scooter, for example, to actually owning part of a jet or a multi-million dollar home. But what will the shared economy look like in 30 years? If this topic interests you, please consider voting for my SXSW panel submission with Alison Davis, CEO of Blockchain Coinvestors, on the Shared Economy in 2050.?

As the CEO and cofounder of Pacaso, I think a lot about efficiencies and how people use resources, specifically when it comes to real estate. When I started Pacaso, I wanted to create a model that made second home ownership more accessible and more efficient. It just doesn’t make sense for second homes to sit vacant 10 months of the year, especially when inventory is at an all-time low, building material costs are at an all-time high, and demand for homes continues to increase. I see Pacaso as an example of the shared economy. People come together and, with our technology, are able to share ownership of a second home. Essentially, this helps create more inventory and also helps housing stock be more fully utilized.

A New Phase of the Shared Economy: Sustainability?

As we move into the future, pioneering models for co-owning major assets like second homes are bound to proliferate. In fact, sharing resources and assets like real estate is already becoming much more normalized. According to a recent study, one in three adults lives in a “shared” household with other adults.?

In her recent book The Fifth Era, my panel partner Alison Davis outlines how we are moving into a realm beyond the paradigms of the Industrial Age and into a new paradigm marked by accelerating digital transformation in a globally connected economy. In her book, she posits that the generation born after 1990 already displays dramatically different comprehension of work, socialization, goods and services, and their place in society. As we move into this Fifth Era, which will take place in the next 20-30 years, there will be a reevaluation of what humans value and what makes us happy, with significant implications for consumer goods and services.?

Davis and her co-author, Matthew C. Le Merle, reason that the next generations may value simplicity and owning less over clutter and excess, and experiences over material goods. She also posits that “sustainability will become an essential part of doing business, with a clear focus on the broader societal impacts of company strategies including the quality of jobs, the full impact of products and services on society and other external considerations.”

A Housing Shortage and the Necessity of Shared Resources

As the authors point out, never has it been so true that necessity must be the mother of invention — the greatest challenges of our time demand innovative solutions. Already, we are short 5 million homes in the U.S. alone, and given increasing labor shortages, lack of supply and population growth, those numbers may triple or quadruple in the next 50 years. In order to keep up with rising demand, we would need to essentially build two million new homes per year for the next decade, according to the National Association of Realtors. In 2050, co-ownership of resources, both physical and digital, will be not only inevitable but critical.?

Impact of Emerging Technologies?

Taking another step back, how do emerging technologies like blockchain impact the ownership of resources and, likewise, the shared economy? Researcher Primavera De Filippi posits that “through participation via blockchain, organizations may become more decentralized, a term explained as ‘platform cooperativism’ — where users qualify both as contributors and shareholders of the platforms to which they contribute. And since there is no intermediary operator, the value produced within these platforms can be more equally redistributed among those who have contributed to the value creation.”?

The advent of blockchain in this context indicates that people may begin to expect a certain level of shared ownership of the organizations in which they participate, and that the very notion of ownership will move from the individual to the collective, and from materialism to experientialism.?

How can we embrace the changes ahead and use technology to create even more efficiency via shared resources? How do we position sustainability to be the cornerstone of our future endeavors? What will the shared economy look like in 2050? If these questions interest you, please vote for our SXSW Panelpicker submission for a crash course on how technologies like blockchain and the need for greater sustainability will shape the shared economy, and what Davis and I see as a necessary and inevitable collectivism.?