In a perfect world, collaborative consumerism seems ideal. A network that exists to help people share, declutter, and connect sounds like exactly what we need. However, I feel like when you break the idea down, it doesn't seem so black and white. In today's society, we are incredibly focused on consumers, not specifically talking about Americans. I believe we strive to have the complete package, not just the physical appearance as we discussed earlier, but also the car and the expensive handbag. As Americans, some would say that many of us are living beyond our means. It’s not uncommon for my generation to have credit card debt in the thousands of dollars. I think this phenomenon has greatly impacted my generation. We live in a technology-driven, reality show-induced tunnel. Everywhere you look there are ads pushing the latest and greatest version of a product we love. Many of us idolize the people we see on television and in the movies. If a celebrity is seen holding a certain brand of handbag and we acquire the same bag ourselves, it can raise our status in the eyes of some people. The well-known Apple brand is a good example of our consumer orientation. Apple makes phones, laptops, and iPods that many of us love. The crazy thing is, it seems like every year they release a new model of the same product with only slight improvements. These newer models can easily cost hundreds of dollars. Personally, as an Apple user, I don't see the point in upgrading every time an upgrade is available. Why pay hundreds of dollars for something so similar to what I already have? It amazes me, how many people will literally queue up just to buy the new one when the old version they have works in the middle of a sheet of paper...... Answering the original question is collaborative consumerism . an improvement in corporate consumerism, I say no. There are many benefits and I would be lying if I said that with all our recent technological advantages it has made it incredibly easy to consume, too easy in fact, with just the click of a button. By providing a virtual community where we can do commerce, it doesn't help us declutter or alleviate our consumerist tendency, it just looks different. Trade and barter have existed for centuries, and they do not seem to have affected our consumerism. I think the idea of ​​commerce is strong, as I've been involved in it myself, but I don't think collaborative consumerism will be an improvement. If we can share things like books and movies virtually inexpensively, we still have money burning a hole in our pockets that we can and will find a way to spend..