[holografix]

Can't help but think of the obvious time and time again with the faux-sharing economy. Sharing is a pathetic use of neural linguistics, you're not sharing, your not doing anyone a kindness, you're making money and you're providing a service.

Uber and Airbnb will be regulated legislative or through unions. Ask yourself just wtf are cabs so much more inefficient than Uber and hotels more expensive then Airbnb?

Few drivers depend completely on Uber for their income, Airbnb is still on a legal gray zone.

This won't last forever. Uber drivers will unionise, tenants who live around Airbnb hosts will pressure the government for legislation and so will hotel providers.

Uber is pivoting to logistics. What's Airbnb doing? Wouldn't surprise me if they soon build their own hotel.

[freyr]

> [why] are cabs so much more inefficient than Uber...? Few drivers depend completely on Uber for their income

Also, few cab companies subsidize rides with borrowed money in the name of growth.

[spikels]

Sharing may not be the best name but there is clearly value to be gained by using valuable assets like cars, housing and spare time more intensively. What's fundamentally wrong with this?

[geebee]

Well, this is the angle that airbnb likes to push, that people are renting out a "spare" bedroom that wouldn't otherwise be used, or are renting out their place while they're on vacation. In other words, there is no displacement, there is just efficiency.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working out that way - housing that was used for permanent residence is now getting converted into airbnb rentals. People are now acquiring properties in order to have a "spare room" - ands those "spare rooms" would absolutely be occupied by a long term resident if they were not being used as short term hotel-like rentals. For instance, people are now using the anticipated income from a spare kid's bedroom to outbid a person who would have otherwise used that bedroom for, well, a kid. Kids cost a bundle, and they don't pay anything like a well heeled tourists for the right to occupy their bedrooms. In a place like SF, where everything goes to a bidding war, a family with the extra costs of kids has very little hope going up against an investor who plans to convert the house into a hotel.

BTW, I absolutely agree that some of this really is efficiency (spare rooms, people on vacation). But at this point, I think it's pretty clear that airbnb is driving displacement and conversion on a large scale.

It is immensely reasonable (yes, in my opinion) for cities to pass laws that ensure a proper mix of housing, including housing for families with children. These laws are not obsolete just because someone wrote a Rails app where you can type in an address and click a "Create Hotel" button.

I overwhelmingly agree that SF needs to build more, but I don't think this basic reality will change. SF's population of children has plummeted in my lifetime, from about 22% to below 14% now. Airbnb is hardly the only factor, but I believe it is making the problem worse.

[ap3]

Look, no one has a right to live in a particular city. You can buy or you can rent, and if you can pay then you can stay.

To your complaint about people factoring in future rental income - what about people betting on future price increases like during the housing bubble? Should people not do math?

As to your last stat, maybe kids just grow up and then more adults moved in to work in tech - would that explain the pct drop or are you blaming airbnb?

[matthewowen]

Sure, no-one has a right to a particular city. But cities do get to set zoning laws, and do get to say things like "no, you can't turn houses into quasi-hotels". If you don't believe there should be zoning laws or restrictions on use, make the case for that. Otherwise, this is a pragmatic question of how we best shape cities to balance individual liberties against people's reasonable expectations of quality of life.

[bobthepanda]

Housing has the issue that someone who is there for a few days at most does not really have any incentive to care about their neighbors or the property they are staying in. Most people would not buy an apartment next to a hotel room.

[wvenable]

My co-worker rents a condo on VRBO and the condo board is perfectly fine with the short-term renters as they have far more trouble with long-term renters.

The real issue is how much real estate isn't available for long term renters because short term rentals are so much more profitable and easy. It's killer on vacancy rates and drives up rents for everyone.

[matthewowen]

I'm sure the condo board is fine: short term renters are probably less demanding in terms of services provided by the condo board. I suspect the buildings fellow residents might differ: they're the ones that suffer quality of life issues from (eg) party rentals.

For reference, co-op boards tend to outright ban short term rentals.

[DanBC]

It's not "spare" housing. People who buy apartments for use with AirBnB are reducing the housing stock available to people who want long term rents or to buy to live.

[kofejnik]

and this is wrong exactly why? My buying groceries reduces groceries available to other people.

[wool_gather]

Bad analogy. If the grocery store runs out of celery it doesn't have anywhere near the impact on your life as not being able to find a home reasonably close to other important things.

[kofejnik]

Perfectly good analogy. Not living in the exact place you want does not cause unreasonable suffering ("nearest starbucks is 2 miles away, oh horrors" ?), so it should be subject to market forces.

[wool_gather]

No, being close to Starbucks does not count. Job, family, friends, school, church. Those count.

[DanBC]

I didn't say it was wrong.

[mc32]

My recollection might be off, but I think the term was popularized by the tech press not so much the tech companies described as such.

However, the argument can be made that the sharing, while not in the classical sense, does reduce the impact on resources through efficiencies. So in that sense, people are sharing resources (as in sharing a bus ride --you both pay) and making less impact on earth's resources.

Small cab companies in that sense were more inefficient, among other things, because an idle car (one without a medallion) could be put to use to taxi people around. Same for AB&B. People arguably maximize the use of a house --by renting their spare rooms (the use case has morphed since inception, granted). I think you can see where this model, whatever it's called makes more efficient use of our resources.

[collyw]

I would argue that Airbnb is doing the opposite. Using residential housing for tourists, reducing the supply, when perfectly good hotels are available.

[meric]

The hotels's profitability will reduce, and the marginally profitable ones will be converted into apartments, increasing residential supply.

[Naritai]

To avoid being laughed out of the room, you'll have to prove that the growth in residences due to hotel closures is greater than the loss of residences due to AirBNB.

[meric]

Let me clarify, the increase in housing supply is a reaction towards an increase in AirBNB's and may not cancel out the decrease in housing supply due to those AirBNB's. I made the comment to say the decrease in long term residences is not as great as the number of residences allocated as AirBNB's.

One hotel converted into condominiums create 1100 residences,[1] out of < 30000 AirBNB rentals in NYC. It's such a "problem" the council wanted to ban it. [3]

[1] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/waldorf-astoria-hotel-to-be...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11992112

[3] http://nypost.com/2015/05/11/council-plan-would-limit-changi...

[collyw]

Yet, this study says that NY housing stock is down 10% down to Airbnb.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/27/airbnb-new-y...

[r00fus]

Tech press? Where do these outfits get their talking points? Hint: http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html?ref=ep

[mc32]

They don't have to take it and run with it. Obviously the problem is with their editorial integrity. Never the less, we can look beyond the words and discuss the actual things.

[wool_gather]

This is true given that ride sharing is actually displacing under-used personal vehicles (and/or taxis), and not higher-efficiency public transit, or other alternatives. (Suzie goes across town to a bar every Friday night now because she can take an Uber. She used to just walk up the street to the one near her house.)

I don't know whether it is or not (and I assume the answer is different in different places), but it bears mentioning.

[bduerst]

I don't think unionization will be possible with Uber drivers. Uber doesn't own the cars and doesn't technically employ the drivers (in most states) - so there isn't any way for the Uber drivers to organize, collude, and force ranks.

[mkhpalm]

Plus, its fairly well set up for "scabs" to make anything unionized ineffective. Uber will just respond: "no thanks" to any union strikes. Without the union colluding with the city or state governments to monopolize or cartel the industry... Part time drivers will just see "surge pricing" and "more pickups" to make part time easy money on.

[Bombthecat]

Why should they unionize ? There are so many firms and corps and people who should do that. But they don't.

Why should they be different?

[bogomipz]

neural linguistics? Care to elaborate?

[telotortium]

He might be thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming.