In praise of the sharing apps of the future—共享的未来

Sometimes, change happens without youreally noticing it.

It can be so incremental as to be almostimperceptible, but change, as Sam Cooke used to sing, is going to come.

That's especially true with technology, a sectorwhere innovation is so prized, and indeed necessary, that at times it can seemlike each new thought is being killed by anticipation of the next.

See, I'm of an age where I can just aboutbe classed as a "millennial", though as this term seems synonymouswith "digital native" now, I'm not too sure I want to be tarred with thesame brush.

I didn't grow up using laptops andsmartphones, or even the humble old PDA.

But I can remember the first time I saw aPC. It was at primary school - one machine to share between 200 of us. At thattime, all I knew about PCs was that they could connect to this magical newthing called the internet.

Neither I nor my classmates had any ideahow this worked, of course, but that never stopped us trying to "dialup" ‑ little knowing we needed  amodem , or even that the computer had to be connected to a telephone line.

It seems ridiculous now, two decades on.Especially in this era of 4G mobile internet and permanently-connected homebroadband modems. But for a lot of my formative years, the only internet I knewwas dial-up ‑ and it was, quite frankly, rubbish.

Not that I minded, of course. The veryconcept was mind-blowing. I used it to make new friends in far flung places and,for the first time, I could easily communicate with those outside my limitedsphere of existence.

 Ifelt the same way about the early mobile internet - in practice it wasdemonstrably terrible, but the idea of it was not.

Smash cut to today, and not only canhandheld devices stream high definition movies and play augmented realitygames, but they can also order you a cab, pay for your shopping or even findyou a public bike that is almost free to use.

The last item in that list is the latesttechnological advance here in China to truly enthrall me. Now, with a simpleapp, I can find a bike, scan the attached QR code and ride it to the nearestsubway station, all for less than the price of a bottle of water.

As someone who doesn't own a bicycle, I'vefound this to be a revelation. So long as I have my smartphone on me, mymobility is assured.

It still requires that I cycle of course,something that the slightly better established ride-hailing apps do not. Andwho knows if these bike-sharing companies will actually be able to turn aprofit?

But as a cheap and cheerful way of gettingme from my house to the subway, my only wonder is why someone didn't think ofit before.