Reuters article on the “sharing economy” in China:
China’s slam dunk ‘sharing economy’ booms, but can it last?
“Twelve firms renting out power banks – typically compact, mobile battery chargers – secured 1.13 billion yuan, while newer businesses such as basketball and umbrella-sharing took in about 25 million yuan ($3.65 million) combined.” 
Although starting a company to share power banks sounds silly initially, upon reflection:
- power bank and phone manufacturers might might want to buy your company, customer list, or acquihire a proven ecommerce team
- the power bank “business” might be good training wheels for different or more products later. Even breaking even would indicate that you can operate an online store, ship products, manage staff and handle payment processing
- there could be an upsell for phones and other accessories.
HN comment: “There are lots meaningless ‘sharing economy’ projects out there are for the solo purpose of getting cheap VC money. The whole ‘sharing economy’ term is just an convenient slogan used to sell their meaningless & never profitable project. The most stupid one I’ve ever seen is the the shared power bank rubbish. You can buy a brand name highly reliable power bank from jd.com for $7, if that is too expensive, jd.com has $3 power bank available as well. Yet, people still started numerous shared power bank companies asking for $15 deposit to rent their dirty & ugly power bank for a fee.
That being said, it does offer some good entertainments for the public – Wang Sicong, the only child of the richest Chinese promised to eat poo should such power bank sharing schemes can end up being successful.”