Sharing Economy 1.0: From Disruption Narrative to Infrastructure Layer

The original promise of the sharing economy was simple, yet radical: what if access became more important than ownership?

In the early 2010s, the model appeared not just as a business innovation, but as a structural economic shift. Platforms like Airbnb and Uber demonstrated that underutilized resources — homes, cars, time — could be transformed into global services through digital coordination.

The narrative was powerful: decentralization, community, democratized access. Between 2015 and 2020, global search trends pushed the term “sharing economy” to its peak. Among the most searched topics were car sharing, peer-to-peer models, crowdfunding, and blockchain. The platform economy became tightly intertwined with the venture capital boom and the era of “disruption.”

The turning point came around 2020. English-language search interest declined significantly. This does not indicate the disappearance of the model, but rather its normalization. What was once revolutionary has become an integrated part of the economy. Airbnb and Uber have become institutionalized players.

In Europe, the sharing economy quickly collided with regulatory realities. Cities such as Barcelona and Berlin introduced strict limitations on short-term rentals. The initial phase of unregulated innovation was followed by institutionalization.

In Hungary, search interest peaked between 2016 and 2018. Budapest became a prominent stage for the Airbnb boom, while Uber expanded rapidly before withdrawing under regulatory pressure. The revolutionary atmosphere was replaced by structured operation.

The most important insight, however, runs deeper: behind decentralized resource usage stood highly centralized platforms. Sharing economy 1.0 often did not aim to optimize existing systems, but to replace them. This is where friction began.

This is especially true in logistics.

Crowdshipping: The Illusion of Logistics

In theory, crowdshipping perfectly aligned with the logic of the sharing economy. Millions of commuters. Underutilized vehicle capacity. Flexible routes. Numerous studies highlighted the model’s potential.

In practice, however, very few models scaled meaningfully.

Why? Because logistics is not simply about matching supply and demand.
Logistics is infrastructure.

– high volume
– strict SLAs
– liability chains
– network optimization
– system integration

Most early crowdshipping models attempted to operate outside the network. They did not integrate into the core systems of carriers. They tried to replace the backbone.

But large operators cannot delegate control of their backbone to a loose, non-integrated crowd layer.

Crowdshipping did not fail because the core idea was flawed.
It failed because it tried to exist outside the infrastructure.

How can the principles of the sharing economy still work in logistics? How did we get to Sharing Economy 2.0? We’ll reveal all in our next blog post...