[tvanantwerp]

Maybe it's because I work for a nonprofit, but this piece seems like speculation and paranoia. Oh, so this group Peers is actually funded by a handful of wealthy patrons? Guess what--all nonprofits make 90%+ of their revenues from the top 10% or less of donors. Some nonprofits only really have ONE donor. That's just how the nonprofit sector works. All of it. By the author's logic, the Red Cross is astroturf.

I think it's a fair point that these companies aren't building a sharing economy. They're building companies that let people sell individual surplus of capital or time or skills through a convenient platform. That might not be sharing, but there's real economic value in that. They wouldn't be able to take a cut from these small transactions unless they genuinely offered some valuable service to the other parties. I just recently stayed in a wonderful AirBNB apartment while on a trip, and I know I wouldn't have managed that without the AirBNB service, and I know I would have paid more and gotten less for a hotel.

The author assumes--wrongly, from my experience in public policy--that the status quo organizations and regulations exist for the common good. Some do, but many don't. Lots of bad laws and crooked organizations raise unjustifiable barriers to entry--not just for Silicon Valley start-ups, but for the mom-and-pop businesses too.

I can't say for sure whether Peers is good, bad, or neutral. I can say with certainty that this article is heavily biased, ignorant of how most nonprofits work, and ignorant of the public policy process.

[Joeboy]

> By the author's logic, the Red Cross is astroturf.

It would be like that if the Red Cross claimed to be a grassroots organisation and engaged in advocacy for its funders. As far as I know neither of those things are the case, and if they are I hope somebody will write critical blog posts about it.

[mikecane]

If you speak to people who were involved in Occupy Sandy -- a real grass-roots effort to relieve the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy -- they can tell you what dealing with the Red Cross is really like. [typo edit]

[seiji]

I think it's a fair point that these companies aren't building a sharing economy.

That's the point. They're directly manipulating gullible people into thinking they're "sharing" and "doing good" when in reality the entire mission is to sign up more people so sites can take their 30% cut of actual work happening (then, if reported properly, taxes take 50% of the 70% paid out to the user, so the user is left with... not much).

[freshhawk]

I think you're coming at this from the wrong direction.

Peers is a lobbying organization for SV companies that are trying to enter long regulated industries with a business model that does not work when regulated.

They attempted the "This market needs disruption! We're cool and big government regulation is lame!" message at the beginning, and it was working alright. Then there is backlash after some AirBNB users trashed and robbed a house and an Uber driver in DC was arrested for sexual assault (charges dropped), etc. People are being reminded of why the regulation is there in the first place and that's not going to get those regulations relaxed in the american party politics system.

Peers is an alternate strategy emphasizing a positive (sharing is great!) instead of a negative (regulation is bad!) and they appropriated the language and vocabulary of the existing culture/movement/whatever-you-want-to-call-it because it's great language and already tested as having a positive emotional impact on people. The American right gets the anti-regulation angle and the American left gets the "sharing culture" angle now.

This guy is taking that appropriation personally, since some of these businesses are not at all compatible with the core tenants of the sub culture he belongs to. I can't blame him for that, he's absolutely right about that part. They are appropriating the language of a movement they are fundamentally at odds with for marketing/political purposes.

> I can say with certainty that this article is heavily biased, ignorant of how most nonprofits work, and ignorant of the public policy process

It's a personal blog post so of course it's biased, it doesn't pretend not to be, and there are no nonprofit groups involved (although there are a few non-profit groups that have partnered with peers) so throwing around the word "ignorant" when you have got your basic facts backwards is unwarranted.

[mrxd]

The words "astroturf" and "grassroots" refer to political movements. Wealthy people create the appearance of a broad movement representing the public interest that advocates for certain policy positions, but this is just to disguise the primary mission of the organization, which is to expand the wealth of the donors. If wealthy donors used the Red Cross to lobby governments for favorable legislation, then your analogy would be reasonable.

And the nearest thing to a mission statement of peers.org is "We educate our peers and community leaders about the benefits of sharing. Together, we can help protect and grow the sharing economy."

"Educating our peers" sounds a lot like customer acquisition efforts for the relevant startups. "Protecting the sharing economy" probably refers to the startups' regulatory issues.