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One of the key advantages of a sharing economy is that it brings such positive features of the Internet as the instant matching of supply and demand or the availability of information on every participant through the process of individual reviews and references into real everyday life.

The first sharing economy businesses appeared in Lithuania only a couple of years ago. Therefore, there is not enough economic data to evaluate how significant it has been to the Lithuanian economy. The sectors that the sharing economy business models emerge in are rather different and completely separated.

Complaints regarding Airbnb can be split into two distinctive parts. One part is regarding noise, disruption of local communities and other externalities. These complaints are legitimate, but relate to tourism in general, not to the sharing economy in particular.

Our freedom is fragile and must be protected. Polish citizens must feel safe in the modern world that does not look safe at all. Recent years show that threats come from many directions, the most ominous ones from the East and from the South. Terrorism in its broadest sense has become the biggest challenge for the Western world.

If ever there was an example of an unregulated free market approach to the development of a new type of social relations in Bulgaria – it is the spread of the Internet in the country. Bulgaria currently has one of the most developed broadband infrastructures in the EU and frequently makes it in the top 10 of various global connectivity speed rankings.

A sharing economy represents technological progress in all its purity. It is a new way of collaboration between various agents; an efficient way of transforming an existing network of assets into more economic activity. A sharing economy is not a thing, it means thinking!

Sharing economy services are no stranger to controversies. Supporters claim ride-sharing services to be easy to use, good quality and safe, while opponents argue that government-backed compliance measures are in place for a reason and these illegal services undermine hardworking law-abiding taxi drivers.

The sharing economy is a relatively new phenomenon. It combines various ideas and technologies in order to provide new value to market participants who were previously excluded from the market or had limited access to it. At the same time, it increases competition resulting in lower prices, increases entrepreneurship and household incomes.

We proudly present you a collection of articles and analyses devoted to (first and foremost) the sharing economy and secondly, to the digital challenges our region faces. Because as the fictional but nonetheless real Ayn Rand once said, “If you don’t know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn”. And, after all, sharing is caring, right?

The emergence of the sharing economy shook things up in many sectors and within their regulatory frameworks. The greatest upheavals are currently being experienced by the taxi and accommodation services, since these are the services where the sharing economy has managed to compete with traditional service providers by (re-)employing idle capital.