The Sharing Economy Expands. NewsWire

NewsWire: 9/3/22

• The sharing economy has expanded to include virtually every kind of private property. Startups now allow people to rent out their pools, cars, boats, and even backyards. (Axios)
• NH: In 2008, the launch of Airbnb (ABNB) kick-started the sharing economy. Now 14 years later, new startups have expanded consumer sharing to luxury items and accommodations.
• Swimply allows users to rent out their pools. In 2019, it had only 800 bookings. But this year, it has already recorded over 150K. The company claims that users can make between $5K-$10K a month renting their pool. And the company plans to expand its offerings to tennis courts and backyards. 
• Boatsetter allows users to rent out their boats. You can rent a speedboat for a few hours. Or you can rent a yacht for an extended vacation. It will also put you in contact with a licensed captain. One Miami user rents six boats and makes $100K annually. 
• Kindred allows users to swap houses. For every night you host a user, you gain one night of free travel. The only costs are a $300 annual subscription, a $30 service charge, and a possible cleaning fee.
• IMO, Millennials will enjoy renting these kinds of odds-and-ends services. More than past generations, they regard ownership as risky--and unaffordable. Now they can rent the lifestyle they desire for a few days and leave the hassles of ownership (clean up, maintenance, asset value risk, insurance, etc.) to others. True, they end up never really knowing how these things work. But they reap the benefit of using things that would otherwise have gone unused. For the owner, the opportunity cost is often close to zero.

DID YOU KNOW?

• The Numbers on Pandemic Learning Loss. We’re learning more about the pandemic’s effect on education, and the news is grim. According to new data from the Education Department, the reading and math scores of 9-year-old students have dropped to their lowest levels since the 1990s. The latest declines spanned nearly all races and income groups, but were markedly worse (4x greater) among the lowest-performing students. In the decade leading up to 2020, student scores held steady after trending upward throughout the 1990s and mid-2000s. This news comes amid the finding that the number of students who are being held back in school is growing. According to an Associated Press analysis of 28 states that provided data for the most recent academic year, 24 saw an increase in the number of students who repeated a grade. Grade retention has been boosted by pandemic-era laws in multiple states, including California, Pennsylvania, and Florida, that make it easier for parents to hold their kids back by request.