Canada’s pity economy is flourishing — though should we unequivocally call it ‘sharing’?

The title from Statistics Canada’s recent release describes a new zone of a Canadian economy that’s flourishing fast: 2.7 million Canadian adults “participated in a pity economy” between Nov 2015 and Oct 2016, spending $1.31 billion in a process.

The inhabitant statistics group asked Canadians about how they use 4 services that are frequently cited as examples of the presumably new “sharing economy”: ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft, and short-term home let services Airbnb and Flipkey.

But some open process experts contend when supervision agencies like Statistics Canada use a tenure “sharing economy” they risk warping open sermon about the impact of companies like Uber and Airbnb. Those companies rest on digital collection to broach on-demand services like cheap rides (made possible, critics say, by low wages) or to book low-cost vacation lodgings (which detractors say distort local genuine estate markets.)

“I consider difference do matter,” pronounced Sunil Johal, policy executive during a Mowat Centre during a University of Toronto.

“So if a supervision is regulating a tenure like ‘the pity economy,’ we consider that lends an imprimatur of legitimacy to a tenure and roughly endorses a business practices of those handling in that space.”

• The Uber-ization of a Canadian economy
• Regulation could strengthen pity economy in prolonged run
• Debate over Airbnb and Uber reveals pomposity of ‘sharing’ economy

“Every time anyone in a position of management uses a vernacular ‘sharing economy’ though including a qualifier about that terminology, what you’re unequivocally doing is reinforcing that publicly-coined term,” pronounced Trish Hennessy, executive of a Ontario bend of a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, who combined that such bolster advantages a open family efforts of companies like Uber and Airbnb.

A feel-good term

Indeed, some investigate suggests that a term “sharing economy” brings altruism to mind. A investigate expelled in 2016 by a Pew Research Center in a U.S. found that just 27 per cent of respondents had listened of a countenance (more than a 11 per cent of respondents who were informed with “gig economy,” a opposite tenure used to report a same mercantile phenomenon).

Among a race who had listened of a pity economy, a comparison of 40 per cent described it in ways that emphasized sharing, mutual help, or charity.

“Nobody is against to sharing,” pronounced Sunil Johal of a Mowat Centre. “It’s something we learn about in kindergarten, that pity is caring.”

• Cross Country Checkup: Will we win or remove in a pity economy?

Even if critics contend vital players in a “sharing economy” aren’t indeed pity anything, a fact stays that a tenure has gained traction — doubtless aided by news media looking for pithy, headline-friendly ways to benefaction a concept.

As a result, even people who don’t like a tenure find themselves using it, like Trish Hennessy of a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, who thinks a tenure “on-demand use economy” is some-more accurate. A write consult seeking Canadians about a “on-demand use economy” would expected upset participants, pronounced Hennessy, though a survey on “the pity economy” would get responses.

Go with what people know

That open recognition is accurately since Statistics Canada’s recover refers to “the pity economy”, according to Myriam Hazel, a comparison researcher with a agency.

Statistics Canada “is wakeful that a tenure pity economy is mostly criticized and competence not simulate a forms of exchange that we are meddlesome in measuring,” wrote Hazel in an email to CBC News.

“However, since a tenure pity economy is so widely accepted to paint activities of digital platforms, it was used in a analysis.”

Uber and other on-demand digital services are happy to code themselves as partial of ‘the pity economy,’ though some open process experts contend governments should be heedful of regulating that term. (Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg)

Statistics Canada’s investigate didn’t categorically ask respondents about appearance in “the pity economy.” Instead, it asked how they used “ride services such as Uber, Lyft, etc.” or “private accommodation services such as Airbnb, Flipkey, etc.” The formula of a research, however, were presented as describing “the pity economy in Canada.”

Statistics Canada isn’t a usually bend of supervision to use the term, either: several federal, provincial, and internal governments have all referred to “the pity economy” and supervision bodies in other countries have finished a same. But governments that use a countenance uncritically are holding a risk, according to one expert.

Why Uber and Airbnb call it ‘sharing’

“The approach we see it, a pity economy is a complement formed on pity underused resources or services, directly from people to other individuals,” Airbnb spokeswoman Alex Dagg told CBC News in an email.

A orator for Uber Canada said in an email that a association “supports a new pity economy, where people make use of their personal resources as a source of additional income.”

Dean Baker, co-director of a Centre for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., said Uber and Airbnb rely on a “sharing economy” moniker to support a thought that their business models are fundamentally new and shouldn’t be compelled by existent regulations ruling a travel and a liberality industries. 

​”People impute to central papers as lawful sources, and in outcome this is giving a sign of capitulation to this thought of a pity economy, again ancillary this thought that they’re qualitatively new and different,” pronounced Baker.

Sunil Johal of a Mowat Centre thinks Canadian supervision agencies competence wish to recur their use of a term in foster of some-more detailed phrases like “the digital economy” or “the peer-to-peer economy.”

​”It’s a longer-term, still sermon issue … and it competence already be too late, though if we don’t compensate courtesy to it now, once a train’s left a hire it’s unequivocally tough to change what people call something,” he said.

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/statistics-canada-sharing-economy-1.4004993?cmp=rss