Uber and Airbnb Models: Unfair Competition or a New Form of Sharing Economy?

Airbnb and Uber are creating new markets with their business models. Are they optimising their use of resources or are they circumventing social standards and legal regulations? In the opinion of Tim Brühn and Georg Götz, University of Gießen, companies with large market shares like Google, Ebay and Amazon internalise the usage externalities between their client groups to a greater degree than platforms with a smaller number of customers. From an efficiency point of view, this is beneficial. At the same time, this dynamic reduces the competitive pressure between companies and potentially allows them to charge large price premiums. Martin Peitz, University of Mannheim, points out that new providers in a market must be prepared to abide by the rules that apply to everyone, and that states must be willing to amend existing regulations in line with changing framework conditions if necessary. For Adolf Rebler, Upper Palatinate government, the “modern models” constitute attempts to circumvent the legal regulations of the German Law on the Carriage of Passengers. For Ulrich Schwalbe, University of Hohenheim, it would seem sensible to annul obsolete regulations and replace them with rules that guarantee a sufficient degree of security and service quality. Harald Heinrichs, University of Lüneburg, sees great potential in the sharing economy’s ability to make a contribution to sustainable business. In his opinion, it is the role of politics, business and society to develop appropriate conceptual and regulatory approaches. For Dieter Schlenker, Genossenschaft Taxi Deutschland, the profits from transporting persons are being privatised via Uber, while the related risks are being inflicted on society. Reinhard Loske, University of Witten/Herdecke, argues that European and national competition laws are need to ensure that the sharing economy does not develop purely into the domain of the internet giants and is not ruled by their interests and profit margins. Katharina Dröge, MP, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, considers Uber and AirBnb to be good ideas. However, both companies must prove that their business model is not entirely based on the exploitation of unfair competition.