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Technology is transforming the economic landscape. The rise of connected devices is facilitating what The New York Times’ Tina Rosenberg calls “collaborative consumption,” an increasingly popular purchasing model that lets consumers save money by paying for access rather than ownership. Thousands of businesses have already jumped on the bandwagon, including a San Francisco-based startup called ScootNetworks. As the name suggests, ScootNetworks offers Bay Area commuters the option of renting scooters for half the price of a taxi ride. [...] Riegel views mobile as a major catalyst for his service: “Now, you couple that with the super computer that we all carry around in our pockets and you can get this really quite premium experience without a whole lot of capital investment, without putting a lot of risk on the line.” Mark Norman of Zipcar, an international car sharing firm, also credits the widespread adoption of mobile devices for making lended goods more attractive and accessible for consumers.
