---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: David Week (Assai) <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 2:46 PM Subject: The anti-commons To: Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> Sorry, startups: Selling public parking places is illegal | TechHive http://www.techhive.com/article/2366983/sorry-startups-selling-public-parkin... The so-called sharing economy has had its share of head-scratchers. No one wants to pay for your leftovers, no matter how much you’d like to monetize your unused pizza assets. But this one takes the cake. On Monday, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera had to issue a cease and desist letter against a startup called MonkeyParking that enables its users to auction off access to public parking places. Yes, public parking places, on the street—spaces that belong to everyone and are illegal to sell or rent. Duh. Of course they are. Here’s how MonkeyParking works: I get in my car, which is legally parked at a metered or unmetered parking spot. I don’t need that space any longer, but instead of just driving away and leaving the space vacant for someone else, I fire up the app and “publish” the space. Other users with the app can see that about-to-be-vacant space, and name a price to entice me to save the spot expressly for them. Someone could offer $10, I would accept, and then I’d just sit in the space sending Slingshots or playing Candy Crush until the mystery driver shows up, and only then would I pull out of the parking space so he or she could take it. MonkeyParking handles the transaction part, and presumably takes a cut, although those kinds of pesky details are conveniently absentfrom both its website and the app itsel -- *Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..* P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/