Collaborative Consumption

Michael Wesch recently tweeted about the growing trend of "Collaborative Consumption". This YouTube video explains the concept:

We are at the start of the "Big Shift" away from the 20th century defined by hyper-consumption towards the 21st century, an age of Collaborative Consumption.
But just how LARGE and FAR-REACHING is this groundswell? Watch & listen.

It seems to me that this ties in with the notion of "cognitive surplus" as explained by Clay Shirky. He argues that the time Americans once spent watching TV has been redirected toward activities that are less about consuming and more about engaging—from Flickr and Facebook to powerful forms of online political action. And these efforts aren’t fueled by external rewards but by intrinsic motivation—the joy of doing something for its own sake. I think that the enthusiasm for saving resources and sustainable living are a part of this shift.