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With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, however, things changed.\u00a0 Cities grew, manufacturing scaled, and the cost of production decreased exponentially making individual ownership of goods more attainable.\u00a0 Most importantly though, the tight connection that once existed between neighbors within communities frayed and the bedrock of trust on which small rural sharing economies were founded began to slowly crumble.\u00a0 If you no longer knew the people you lived near, how could you lend them your possessions?\u00a0 If you didn\u2019t feel somehow mutually connected, why would you spare your time or efforts to help them?<\/p>\n

By the mid-twentieth century, individual ownership of goods was not only the norm but was steadily becoming a pre-occupation with many consumers.\u00a0 As the modern middle-class came into existence, ownership and accumulation of goods became the aspiration of an entire generation of post-war consumers. Sharing was all but dead.<\/p>\n

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