ABSTRACT
The business practices of many prominent "sharing businesses" have little to do with the romantic ideal of sharing as joint (psychological) ownership, prosocial intentions and the absence of expectations of reciprocity. Among the plethora of peer-to-peer service offerings, two popular cases in the new Sharing Economy appear particularly well suited for investigating the sociality of shared moments: the hospitality platforms CouchSurfing and Airbnb. With a focus on the social ideology of sharing, this chapter examines such shared moments within one market-based versus one non-market-based sharing system in order to understand how the notion of sociality is produced and shaped through each system's market-based or non-market-based sharing ideology. The chapter draws on participant observation and 14 in-depth interviews that were conducted with Airbnb hosts renting out rooms while they are present, CouchSurfing hosts, and individuals who host on both platforms in Europe and the Americas.
