The paradox of collaborative consumption

This chapter discusses collaborative consumption through the lens of paradox theory and categorizes four tensions that exist between the sharing and market logics of exchange. Belonging tensions manifest when participants refer to each other as friends while engaging in communal relationships, or as strangers while engaging in exchange relationships. Performing tensions concern the participants’ pro-social and economic goals for collaborative consumption. Learning tensions result from communities of practices and grassroots movements that struggle to integrate platform business models, while gig economy firms exploit the sharing ethos. Organizing tensions arise from the differences between occasional amateurs who participate in reducing the underutilization of existing goods on the market, and professional peer-providers who acquire new goods to rent to consumers. Collaborative consumption exists on a continuum among the tensions of belonging, performing, learning, and organizing. This perspective can help us understand existing and emerging forms of collaborative consumption.