Goda nyheter

New York Times-kolumnisten Thomas Friedman vänder sig från alla dåliga nyheter och pekar på en trend som griper om sig blixtsnabbt. Hans exempel är förtaget Airbnb som förmedlar bostadsuthyrningar globalt:

• July 5, 2014, was Airbnb’s biggest night ever. Its platform hosted over 330,000 total guests staying around the world — in thousands of cities and over 160 different countries.. In Paris, nearly 20,000 people were staying in Airbnb rooms on July 5. In 2012, that number was under 4,000.

330 000 rumsuthyrningar i mer ä n 160 länder den 5 juli. Fantastiska siffror !

Hemligheten ? Förtroende. Människor litar på Airbnb och de litar på varandra eftersom de hyr ut sina bostäder till varandra genom Airbnb

Take trusted identities and relevant reputations and put them together with the Internet and suddenly you have 120,000 people staying in Brazilians’ homes instead of hotels at the World Cup. Obviously, there are exceptions and bad apples, and Airbnb provides $1 million in damage coverage for such cases, but the numbers say the system is working for a lot of people.

Allt är en del av det Internet möjliggör säger en av företagets grundare. Brian  Chesky:

The 20th-century economy was powered by big corporations that standardized everything because they never really knew their customers, argued Chesky. “The 21st-century economy will be powered by people” — where the buyers all have identities and the producers all have personal reputations — “so I will be able to sell something directly to you and delight you and surprise you, and the selection you’ll be able to choose from won’t be 4 but 4,000,000.”