asset-light generation

is the idea that the incoming generation of digital interfaces and peer-to-peer borrowing is catalyzing the descent of our industrial-era structures.

Meeker, a pioneering technology analyst during the 'dotcom' era of the late 1990s, has been issuing this influential annual report since 1995. Her supplement emphasized how we are now reimagining everything from interfaces to lending in a way that foreshadowed the ascent of an 'asset-light' generation. In settings that ranged from commercial real estate and corporate labor to personal banking, travel, entertainment, and transportation, Meeker illustrated a range of digitally enabled business models and consumer experiences that were catalyzing the descent of our industrial-era structures. A series of juxtaposed contrasting images in her PowerPoint slides pictured the stark differences between the so-called asset-heavy versus asset-light generations: an elderly vinyl enthusiast amid boxes and boxes of records versus screenshots from the streaming music services Spotify, Pandora, and iTunes... a highrise Ramada Inn versus a tree house for rent on the peer-to-peer accommodation platform Airbnb... full-time workers seated ear-to-ear in endless rows versus an Internet-based freelancer marketplace.

asset light generation, n.Definitions

asset light generation