09.09.13
The newest sharing economy app: Shidt!
Today, more phlogiston on the “sharing economy” at the New Yorker, where swell James Suroweicki explains that in the new American economy, your possessions are your portfolio of assets.
If you’re dead broke, unemployed and on food stamps you still have a portfolio!
So start looking to see what’s in it: The couch (good to rent to other bums to sleep on), your bathtub and shower (for obvious rental and more esoteric purposes, like a containerized room for making shake-and-bake methamphetamine), etc!
You can rent out your home theatre or your lawnmower (although in soCal the latter would never work; the illegal gardener force has it covered much cheaper than any theoretical crowd-sourcing app to put spoiled white people in the 1 percent servant force in touch with others like them who wish to rent their’s).
No need to make so many consumer goods anymore. No need to buy them. Just use your smartphone to locate someone who will rent you stuff, stuff — like a hammer or a power drill or a pipe wrench — you used to use free by borrowing from a neighbor or a friend.
Now you fire up the ol’ iJunk, log on to some shnazzy-named site, find something to rent from a total stranger in the new economy, have a payment electronically taken from your account, get in the car to drive across town at rush hour to pick it up, bring it home and use it, then drive it back. All much better than getting to know someone, going next door and engaging in a bit of door-knocking.
And now if you’re shopping or strolling in my section of Pasadena and feel the urge you’ll find public toilets are few and far between. But I have leveraged the sharing economy to help you out.
You can activate your smartphone and with my app, almost instantly access Shidt, which locates my toilet in my apartment and notifies me you’ll be coming and going in a minute or two. It deducts a $2 fee automatically so all you have to do is knock, come right in, follow the arrows, do your thing in complete privacy and leave.
If you don’t like the experience you can give me a bad review on the Shidt trusted network because ratings on the Internet are the best way of judging all things.
Shidt is to semi-public restrooms what AirBnB is to the hospitality industry.
Shidt expands doing the business nationwide by instantly and frictionlessly using previously underutilized and hard-to-monetize personal assets. Shidt is now rapidly coming to most American urban centers. Since I invented it, a small ten percent transaction fee is deducted from all Schidt partners for use of this sharing network.
I got the idea from seeing all the business going on in the plastic outhouses trucked in for the Rose Bowl/Parade New Year’s holidays in Pasadena. They are impersonal and ugly, unsanitary, plus nobody likes them because the new breed of consumer wants a more customized and personalized business service experience.
And Shidt is that customized, personalized experience nationwide, disruptive toward the old doing the business model of the large and uncaring American corporation in charge of installing and maintaining portable sanitary facilities.
Already Shidt has 222,000 rentals worldwide, which is 5 times the capacity of public toilets in LA County.
The New Yorker:
“[Digital technology] has made it much easier for buyers and sellers to find each other quickly, and to evaluate the people they’re trading with. The effect has been to make sharing a much more plausible business model. We now have hundreds of millions of consumers who are carrying in their pockets powerful computers that are always connected to high-speed networks … That makes it possible for people to rethink the way they consume.???
Or in this case, Shidt!
(Next week, Tom Friedman is coming to interview me in Pasadena. We will drink strawberry lemonades at the Caltech Athenaeum & I will tell him all about Shidt.)
Chuck said,
September 9, 2013 at 4:14 pm
When’s the IPO?
Floormaster Squeeze said,
September 10, 2013 at 6:40 am
My first review after using Shidt:
I was at home the other day and I decided to use Shidt. First off, I had used Shitr before but I felt the inventory was not that great (particularly in my neighborhood) so I wanted to give Shidt a try. At first it did not look like they had a great selection of locations nearby but then I saw one only 5 blocks away. That is not an ideal distance but not messing up my own bathroom is important to me so I decided to drive over.
At first I was pleasantly surprised, the house appeared small from the outside but well kept. I knocked loudly and went in. Again, I was surprised that the place, while modest, was neat and tasteful. There was some colorful art which I did not look at but the colors were pleasant under indirect view. The app guiding expertly to the bathroom as advertised. I had been feeling more and more sphincter stress on the way over so I was very relieved to be in there and have the door locked (this was going to be a substantial relief). The bathroom was very neat and the toilet very clean. I enjoyed myself immensely. The fragrance they chose for deodorizing (only a modest gesture toward reducing odor in this case) was a bit dated but there was a handy can on top of the tank.
It was then I discovered to my horror several volumes of subversive reading material. I am not going to mention the authors or names of these books and pamphlets (lest you think I peruse such unAmerican material) but suffice it to say that my advanced education had alerted me to these names and thankfully I have never even read one out of curiosity.
Anyway, I have to give this Shidt location 1 out of 5 stars for the terribly inconsiderate choice of reading material (however pleasant the rest of the experience was).
George Smith said,
September 10, 2013 at 8:29 am
Thanks for your input. That Shidt partner will either correct the problem or be pinched out.
Michael said,
September 15, 2013 at 6:34 am
At risk of pillaging someone else’s Intellectual Property, you can also post your requests on Shitr.