P2P: The New Not-So-Underground Economy

Chapter 1

Coming to San Francisco for the first time ever, I laid my eyes on a massive structure that made me feel like a child again. The Lending Club HQ building off Stevenson blew my mind. This building encompasses an ideal that has come about for a long time, but is much more prominent than it ever was before. The ideal that information is more existent than ever before, and that people are willing to be socially responsible and invest in other people, in order to create a win-win situation for many people in the world we live in .

The world has become so much more of a different place than it used to be years ago.

Back in the 1990s, business was booming. Everything was going great, people were hustling, investors and those in the financing sector were banking big time on the internet before the bubble burst. Times were incredible and people were joining the 1 percent like never before.

Then there was the arrival of the economic crash, Y2K, and global democratization.

Nowadays, people trust each other unlike any other time in history, allowing strangers to jump in their car and creating a separate revenue just for giving them simple rides from Point A to Point B. Along with the rise of social media, companies like Uber and Lyft are changing transportation and making rideshare an every-day household need, and not just a luxury. Mint.com and Personal Capital have made easier for folks to connect all their banking institution logins in one place, entrusting these companies with all of their personal information.

Information is no longer a private matter, and rather a hot commodity that mega-corporations are willing to pay millions of dollars for by way of paid advertising and video marketing. However, it’s no longer traditional, in the sense of television commercials and billboards that dominate this sphere. Rather it’s through Facebook and YouTube that businesses are trying to distract consumers short attention span in any way possible to get the customer to trust the company enough to click “Buy” and earn their business.

In the 1990s, the process from engagement to revenue was much longer. Nowadays, engagement to transaction happens within seconds.

The world we live in now, is definitely much different than ever before. However, we want to dive deeper into how you can truly take advantage of a multiplex of industries that have adapted to these changes. To do so can truly change your life.

Sources

TBD