Recently, a family discussion turned to the car service Uber.  As we generally informed ourselves how it worked, a fear reared its head:  stranger danger.

My sister-in-law, particularly, expressed that she’d never use the service.  She was afraid of the idea of getting into a car with a complete stranger.

I had another conversation with her – about 15 years ago.  She said then that she’d never put her credit card onto an ecommerce website.  There is no way she’d trust such sensitive information to a strange, unknown business.

Today, she’s spends more money shopping online than anyone I know.

We are now witness to the growing trends of the sharing/connection economies.  The rise of websites like Airbnb, Uber, dating websites, and much of social media point towards a new paradigm of trust with online services and lifestyles.

My sister-in-law is instructive with this shift.  Many shoppers feared putting their credit cards online in the early days of ecommerce.  The services had to go through an adoption cycle that jumped from a few early users to trust from the majority.

It didn’t just jump – it soared.  Amazon is the result, leading vast ecommerce success in our economy.  As people began to understand online businesses were legit and their payment was encrypted, they realized an online purchase was as safe as any.

We speculate today that a similar, paradigm-level shift is happening in the way people trust others online with personal information.

Airbnb and Uber are tangible examples of how this trust is developing.  More and more people are getting rides and staying in homes with people who – other than their shared information online – are total strangers.

My sister-in-law is still afraid to use this type of service.  But give it 10 years.  When it’s the norm, she’ll trust her internet community as much as her next door neighbor.

And why not?  This shows as much as anything the revolutionary power of internet communication.  Distances between us are bridged, and even more, so are information gaps that lead to mistrust.

Joe Gebbia of Airbnb really drives the point home when he talks about the sharing economy.  His work in designing their website (meaning how it’s used as much as how it looks) for trust is a major breakthrough in shifting real behavior.

As he says, showing the world where you sleep, eat and even crap is a remarkable act of sharing.  And it takes as much trust for someone to arrange to stay with you, confident you’re not Ted Bundy – or Ted Nugent (although he’s so honest you’d know exactly who you’re staying with).

The paradigm has clearly changed in dating.  People are willing to share more personal details than ever about themselves, and start a romance with someone they only know from an online profile.  It’s a blind date – and yet it isn’t.  You may feel you know this person better from their online profile than acquaintances you’ve met many times.

On social media, we find ourselves having to hold back; we’re all but ready to divulge too much personal detail as we search for more and more sense of connection.  We have a generation growing up in the new paradigm of trust who we (their parents) don’t want to be too trusting too soon.

Their online profiles are a repository of selfies, personal videos, and endless posts that delve into their lives, often in intimate detail.  Their taste in art, music, entertainment, sports, politics, religion – in society – are captured online.

With so much information about our personal lives coalescing in our digital presence, we need this new level of trust.  The people we connect with and the way we do business with them is forever altered.

Of course some will abuse this trust.  There’ll be disturbing stories about how it’s breached for profit or exploitation.  But as we’ve already seen with so much internet technology, this is a one way road.  Your “digital self” already exists, and it’s only going to become more detailed, specific, and accessible.  Our new paradigm means people will want to know you well enough to trust you before they meet you in person. It’s no small feat to bridge that gap.

Likewise, businesses are being held to a higher standard.  At this time, most large brands and advertising entities are grappling with how they’re losing control of the connections – and the conversation about their own brand.  They no longer control the level of trust people have for them.  It’s dictated by the online community.  Just ask VW, Whole Foods, and Chipotle how fast a brand can lose trust today.

Can I trust you?  It’s a vital new question in modern commerce and interpersonal relationships.
When the answer is yes, the internet has the power to bring people together with remarkable intimacy.  If the answer is no, you have a problem that will effect every other connection you try to make.

My sister-in-law would never stay with Ted Nugent.  But for others, it would be the experience of a lifetime.  The new paradigm of trust online offers a way to get those connections right.

By:  Scott Yoder