Diminishing Space - Peer-to-peer Sharing As a Transition Practice

A regenerative thriving future within limits will require a change of social practices. Such a change will however not come by itself, and it is safe to state that computing in different forms and shapes will be critical. In this paper we evaluate a start-up in the form of an online platform supporting peer-to-peer storage space rentals. We will present and analyse their service and discuss the current and future prospects for systems in this genre, in light of the transition to a post-carbon future society. The analysis is grounded in a user study evaluating the system in its current form. We argue that services like the one offered by these types of companies could function as a type of 'transition service' in the sense that they are perhaps an interim self-obviating system that enable people to get accustomed to a new way of thinking about current unsustainable practices (in this case storage practices and sharing of storage), but eventually might become unnecessary/superfluous as a new ecology of storage practices comes into place. Hence, it might be important for these services and the companies behind them to prepare for this eventuality, for example by diversifying their business offer.