Room Versus Board

Brendan O’Connor, writing for The Awl on Airbnb:

The true innovation of the sharing economy—or maybe it’s the startup economy, or entrepreneurship (or maybe just…capitalism)—is in the continued refinement of the perception of value, not necessarily in offering new services and developing new products, but in making them available for cheaper, because, as it turns out, when you don’t pay anyone a salary or give them benefits because they’re all subcontractors, and you don’t actually have to invest in any of the infrastructure upon which your business model depends, either directly or by paying taxes, your costs are a lot lower than everyone else.