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Sure, they hate the local cable monopoly, but they will bitterly complain if the city council allows any Tom, Dick or Harry who wants to sell them cable service to spend two years ripping up streets in their neighbourhood. They hate expensive, dirty cabs, but the first time someone is killed by a taxi driver, they demand tougher licensing and background checks, whether or not there’s evidence that this would have prevented the death in question, and whether or not they would really prefer to pay more for every ride in order to be 0.00001 per cent safer from extremely rare events. They loathe the cost of hotel rooms, but wouldn’t want their neighbours running a rooming house or a bed and breakfast next door, since it might “ruin the character of the neighbourhood.”

Over time, consumer/voters are the ultimate engine of the regulatory cycle that begins with a fledgling startup and ends with a behemoth utility that treats you like dirt if you manage to get someone to take your phone call. And, over time, companies learn to like it. At some point, they’re so heavily regulated that the regulations themselves become a form of competitive advantage: Existing dominant players can negotiate the sea of red tape, while new incumbents don’t have the maps.

The cycle will not necessarily end in the death of the new sharing services; on the contrary, Uber and Lyft probably are more likely to prosper if they can get themselves into position as heavily regulated incumbents. But it does mean the death of the idea of the sharing economy as some revolutionary force that is going to provide us an endless supply of formerly luxury goods at bargain-basement prices. The sharing economy, at the moment, is being subsidized by two things: the lack of regulation, and a flood of venture capital. Neither is a permanent condition.

The future of sharing is more likely to look like the past than the future oft predicted by enthusiasts. History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it tends to return to the same few thoughts over and over and over again, just like the humans who act it out.

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