The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing by Lisa Gansky, 242 pages
Netflix,
Airbnb, Zipcar... all of these businesses are based on the idea of
people sharing or renting resources instead of purchasing them. And
that's what
The Mesh is all about. Gansky discusses the many ways
in which our world is changing to be more suited to rentals and sharing
rather than purchasing: the economy in the recent years, the collapse
of big businesses, the continuing strain on the environment... according
to Gansky, these have all primed us for Mesh businesses, which are
transparent, feature goods that are built to last (or be upgraded), and
are shareable.
Gansky does a great job of presenting
her arguments, using real-life examples to back up her claims. Are some
of her ideas a little dubious? Yes. (Especially the one that suggests
that Walmart create a share club that will let people turn in their used
goods for a discount on an upgrade; the used goods would then be sold
to others. Somehow I don't see the Walton family going for that.) But
that doesn't mean the overlying theory isn't solid. I mean, look at the
library. This is the original Mesh business, albeit one that's not based
on making money. So really, this book could be summed up as taking a
library mentality and applying it to money-making businesses. A pretty
cool concept if you ask me.
Note: the last 60 pages or
so of this book are a Mesh directory, with sections on different types
of industries, and information about Mesh businesses that fit into those
categories. It's really cool, and I definitely plan on investigating
some of these businesses in the future.
