The Clothesline Paradox and the Sharing Economy

Open source software was one of the earliest successful examples of a sharing economy that has had huge economic impact. But as alternative energy advocate Steve Baer once noted, ecosystem services are often ignored in economic analysis: when you put your clothes in the dryer, the energy you use is measured and counted, but when you hang them on the line, they disappear from the measured economy. In this talk, I explore how various sharing economies are directly and indirectly monetized, and ruminate on their future.