From Solidity to Liquidity: Macro-Level Consumption Patterns in the Sharing Economy

Abstract

Macro-level consumption patterns in ownership-based modernity have been identified as being predominantly passive, individualistic, private, and alienated. However, access-based consumption, the new imperative of what has been termed the sharing economy, is fundamentally changing traditional business models and affords consumers a more flexible and fluid lifestyle without the burden of ownership. The current essay updates Fırat and Dholakia’s framework of consumption patterns with the new conditions of the sharing economy and critically reflects on the implications of market-mediated access for the four dimensions of the framework. The authors conclude that the sharing economy implies a shift from solid to liquid consumption, but this transition is sideward rather than upward because consumption alternatives in the sharing economy remain within the boundaries of market-mediated exchange and thus fail to generate substantive higher-level consumption alternatives between modes of consumption (e.g., the choice between using a car or public transport).