Photo by Via Tsuji on Flickr.

Many of the services that call themselves “sharing,” like “ridesharing” (Uber, Lyft), “car sharing” (Zipcar, car2go), bikesharing (Capital Bikeshare), “home sharing” (Airbnb), and others, are not really “sharing” as we typically think of the term. Do we need up with better words to describe these new business models?

The “sharing economy” (early on called “collaborative consumption”) is a rapidly-growing sector. Most of its businesses allow people to temporarily use some good for a fee where typically, and formerly, people would own it (like a bike, a car, or an apartment).

But many commentators have pointed out that the term “sharing,” at least as we learned it as children, generally means letting people use something you have for free, not renting out something you have, and definitely not a company owning a bunch of things which it rents to people or paying someone to do work on your behalf.

Companies like Uber and Lyft have been dubbing their services “ridesharing.” These companies contract with drivers who can make money by offering rides. Jason Pavluchuk from the Association for Commuter Transportation argued that calling these services “rideshare” made it harder to advocate for other models that more aptly deserve the term, like carpool and vanpool services where people actually ride together.

There’s also slugging, a longstanding practice where people commuting, such as on I-95 in Virginia, pick up other people at a designated spot who are going to the same destination. (The drivers don’t charge for this; they do it to get the right to use the carpool lane.)

Uber and Lyft are really new variants on taxi service. They let people use a car they might already own (though Uber is also offering loans to drivers to get new cars), but they are still doing it as a job. If you use such a service, you’re not sharing someone’s car; you’re paying them to give you a ride.

Other companies like Sidecar have envisioned a model where people already driving from one place to another offer rides to someone who happens to be going the same way. That’s a little bit more “sharing” than the app-based taxi-like services.

Services like Zipcar and Capital Bikeshare also could have somewhat more of a claim to the term “sharing.” In those cases, at least, there is a pool of vehicles which multiple “members” all use together. They all pay, but basically are pooling money to have a shared resource instead of owning.

What do you think counts as sharing? Is there a better term for these services?

Abigail Zenner, is a former lobbyist turned communications specialist. She specializes in taking technical urban planning jargon and turning it into readable blog posts. When she’s not nerding out about urban planning, transportation, and American History, you may find her teaching a fitness class. Her blog posts represent her personal views only.