Communal consumption in the non-sharing economy

jo.littler.1@city.ac.uk

CouchSurfing

from Zeena Feldman, Belonging in a Social Networking Age: On hospitality, sharing and togetherness (forthcoming, 2017)

Disgruntled prosumers:

• 'I disagree with the looting of what was created by dedicated members and volunteers and my couch and hospitality are not for sale. Therefore, while I still host via CouchSurfing, I now give preference to hosting requests from BeWelcome, my favorite, member driven, non-profit hospitality network’. (9 May 2014)

• 'CouchSurfing has been misrepresenting the nature of the business as “half-way between a non-profit and a for-profit” when in fact the legal form is a conventional for-profit C-Corporation (like Coca Cola or Microsoft)'. (27 October 2011)

Conjuncture

• a space where both established interests might defend themselves and ‘the terrain upon which the forces of opposition organise’ (Gramsci 2005)

• “When a conjuncture unrolls, there is no 'going back'. History shifts gears. The terrain changes. You are in a new moment. You have to attend, 'violently', with all the 'pessimism of the intellect' at your command, to the 'discipline of the conjuncture’” (Hall 1987)