The sharing economy is changing the world. That doesn’t just go for the US and Western Europe, that means everyone, everywhere.
Recently there has been an explosion of apps and services that connect people and enable them to earn additional money through work or sharing on demand. While these apps, like Uber, used to only be available in San Francisco, they are now popping up even in emerging markets.
The benefits of the on demand economy are hard to deny. People virtually anywhere can place a request for what they’re looking for, then that request is transmitted to people who have the excess capacity and ability to perform services to fulfill the request. It is just a matter of what services they’re looking for, whether its grocery delivery or information gathering.
People fulfilling the requests benefit by monetizing their assets and time.
For examples of how this works, take a look at the following three companies that provide people with the opportunity to earn money through the on demand economy.
Uber – Otherwise known as “Your Private Driver,” Uber is a fast way to hail a taxi cab. When someone requests a car, drivers nearby will receive a notification, accept it, and then pick up and drop off the passenger.
- Pros – If you’re an Uber driver, it’s super simple to earn extra cash just by driving people around when you have spare time.
- Cons – The drawback to Uber is that the only way you can earn money is if you own your own car.
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk – Turk is a marketplace for tasks that involve human intelligence. In other words, these are tasks that a computer could not do, such as search for ambiguous itemsor conduct psychological surveys.
- Pros – The tasks do not require any training and you do not need a smartphone to complete the request.
- Cons – The amount of money one can earn is very low on Mechanical Turk, sometimes as low as a few cents per answer. This is partly due to the fact that hackers can write scripts that can automate responses, driving prices down.
Findyr – Findyr is an offline search engine that connects anyone looking for new information or custom media content with people around the world who have access to it.
- Pros – Users get paid to find new information, take photos and capture videos for people from other countries. Users get paid and the tasks can provide good experience, such as market research or photography, which can go on a resume.
- Cons – It requires a smartphone and the Findyr app.
As more people in emerging markets own smartphones, there is even greater opportunity for them to increase their income by using on demand apps. While the income might not make for a full-time job, it does have the potential to have a significant impact on their wallets. If you would like to get started earning money with your smartphone on Findyr, just sign up here.
