The access economy is a business model where goods and services are traded on the basis of access rather than ownership: it refers to obtaining the service of something temporarily rather than purchasing it for permanent ownership.  The access economy has been described as what emerges when access to (x) becomes cheap, satisfactory, convenient and reliable enough that the premium on ownership of (x) disappears. For example, instead of owning one’s music on CDs one has access to a music service that streams them, or instead of owning movies you have access to them on demand via an online streaming service. Instead of owning a car one has access to transportation via a car sharing service.
