英语论文网

Lyft公司非常善于分享经济，它利用网络把有暂时不用的任何东西的人，不管是空房间或空闲时间，和想要租用他们的人联系起来。Lyft所需要的工具就是车里的座位：给它注册，原意让人搭便车以换取“捐献”的老练司机就会在车前放Lyft的商标——毛茸茸的粉红色小胡子；乘客需要安装Lyft，并通过智能手机软件支付。交易后，双方一般通过软件互评。15个月之前，该软件服务范围只有旧金山，现在它扩展到超过30个美国城市，并且每周进驻更多的城市。这个月Lyft收到来自风投者的250万美元的投资。

AT LYFT’S base in Clara Street, in San Francisco, all is bustle. New staff are being shown the ropes. At least three dogs are tucked under desks or following their owners around. At 15,000 square feet (1,390 square metres), the place is almost four times as big as the old office, but it is already cramped. Lyft is about to move again, to a space of 60,000 square feet.

Lyft is a darling of the “sharing economy”, which uses the internet to bring together people with underused assets—anything from spare rooms to spare time—and others who might like to rent them. Lyft’s stock-in-trade is seats in cars: it registers and vets drivers who are willing to offer a ride in return for a “donation” and to place Lyft’s trademark fluffy pink moustache on the front of their vehicles; passengers request a Lyft, and pay, via a smartphone app. The two parties rate each other afterwards, also through the app, which is a common practice in the sharing economy. Fifteen months ago the service operated only in San Francisco. Now it is in over 30 American cities and entering more by the week. This month it raised $250m from venture capitalists.

It is not travelling alone. SideCar, a similar San Francisco startup, has spread to ten cities. Uber, backed by Google and best known for sleek black limousines, also offers ride-sharing services in both America, under the name of UberX, and Europe, as UberPOP. RelayRides, which lets motorists loan out their cars when they are not using them, is also found across America.

Along with transport, the market most affected by sharing has been accommodation, in which Airbnb, yet another San Francisco company, is the most prominent—and the sharing economy’s brightest star. Its “hosts” offer rooms, flats or houses for short stays in 34,000 cities. On April 18th Airbnb reportedly raised between $450m and $500m in a venture-financing round that valued it at $10 billion.

Not everyone is as delighted by the rise of the sharing economy as its participants and investors. Taxi drivers on both sides of the Atlantic have complained loudly (and, at least in Milan and Paris, violently) about the intruders who, they say, not only undercut their fares but are poorly vetted and underinsured. They have found ready listeners among officials and judges.

On April 15th a court in Brussels prohibited drivers from accepting passengers through UberPOP, on pain of a本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。