Agreed. In the past 6 months alone, companies with expansive networks are truly attracting the critical mass of people with all different ages and interests (these "sharing" businesses are no longer have user-bases consisting of early tech adopters). This is proving itself with the enormous valuations for companies such as Groupon for shared buying power, Facebook for shared social news, Zynga, etc.
Rachel Botsman gave a TED talk on the same topic. It's worth a watch.
http://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_botsman_the_case_for_collabo...
I've owned houses, cars, lots of things, and now that I rent almost everything, I feel so much freer from things...
http://www.amazon.com/Mesh-Why-Future-Business-Sharing/dp/15...