Sharing and collaborative consumption online

In this article Russell Belk brings into discussion the idea of collaborative consumption that we saw on the video in class but takes it a step beyond from what the video stated. The idea of collaborative consumption and sharing goods and services is a very interesting one, even though I believe that the idea itself is very elitist and the "world" or the "market" they talk about, both in the video and the article, is actually just a minor piece of the real world or the real global market.

If more than 50% of the population of the world does not have internet access, and more than 75% is digitally illiterate, why these concepts are applied as blanket terms to the whole world?

That is why I think these are elitist ideas and does not provide any real alternative for a global economy. The scholars that make them are so comfortable in their ivory tower that is impossible for them to even acknowledge that the everyday reality they experience is not the same for everyone in the world, not even to the majority of the world.

That being said, I think that  the idea of an economy based on sharing some key resources and services is powerful but more complexity has to be added for it to be valid, or even to present an alternative.