[dsl]

Airbnb, like Uber, took advantage of regulatory inefficiencies instead of market inefficiencies. The model is do something (in the minds of regulators) illegal, quickly enough that you can become large enough to get a seat at the table when the regulations are reworked.

The counter example to these companies are the ones that quickly raised capital to dump scooters on public streets before they could be shut down by cities. None of the players were able to grow large enough to have a say in the reforming of the laws that regulate them (SF learned its lesson from Uber and moved quickly, limiting their participation to asking for proposals).

This is framed to present a VC as "missing out" in the financial sense. Ultimately a VC is liable to its capital partners in far more ways. If Airbnb had all of its assets seized by the federal government as an illegal enterprise (just as an example), we would be applauding their foresight and brilliance in avoiding this otherwise lucrative opportunity.

[zimablue]

I think there's some truth that these guys dodge/ignore/lobby down regulations, but there's this narrative now that that's all they do. Being able to flag a taxi through an app is amazing, so is being able to rent a flat from a stranger with confidence that it will be give and work out. Regulation arbitrage is only a fraction of their value, and the regulations are often just rent seeking by those with power. Insane taxi Union/medallions, ban on flat renting to preserve property values etc.

[justtopost]

Its not all they do. But it is the bedrock on which their whole profit model is based. So critisism seems apt.

I find corprate overrule of law for 'benefit' of the consumer facinating, but dont have a dog in the fight. But I can't help feeling its like shooting the moon in a card game. It only works when unexpected, and already on a roll.

[lexs]

At least in Europe there were apps to call a taxi and sites to book vacation homes before either Uber or AirBnB came over. But sure ruthlessly minimising personnel responsibilities and costs can be another "value".

[presscast]

>At least in Europe there were apps to call a taxi

Where?

In France the taxis never accepted debit cards (= tax evasion), and generally provided piss-poor service. They've stepped their game up massively since Uber arrived.

In the UK I never saw a taxi app that wasn't an utter heap of garbage.

Sweeping generalizations about EU countries are almost always wrong or meaningless.

[rusk]

> In the UK I never saw a taxi app that wasn't an utter heap of garbage.

Hold on now. Hailo was amazing. Pity they broke themselves trying to take on the big apple.

[presscast]

Really? On par with Uber? Because that's the goalpost that's been set, here.

Hailo was often fully booked when I tried using it, and I had several previous-day reservations evaporate into thin air. It wasn't (as) reliable.

London taxis have always been slightly better than the FR/ES/BG/IT taxis I've taken, but not that much better. And the apps have either gone bust, not worked, or both.

[rusk]

Yeah Hailo worked flawlessly for me here in Dublin. Right up until they started to flail commercially.

[meowface]

As someone currently living in a German area with almost no Uber service, mytaxi (the equivalent Uber-like taxi app) is inferior to and much less reliable and functional than Uber and Lyft.

[timmy-turner]

I tried mytaxi during a vacation in Italy. Went through the whole onboarding, including checking the trips expected fare and entering CC details only to get told after pressing the 'call taxi now' button by a popup that the service is not available in this area. WTF? Also the whole app looked very cheap and felt fragile.

In my hometown I'm just calling taxis off the street or via plain old phone.

[vasilipupkin]

Not like Airbnb. We had sites like VRBO before Airbnb. The big difference was that you deal with Airbnb, you aren’t signing contract with the host.

[the_clarence]

Come on. These apps were not reliable AT ALL. There is no comparison here.

[inostia]

I took a MyTaxi in Germany and it was terrible. I absolutely missed Uber when I was in Berlin, MyTaxi was a joke, same with most other taxi apps (i.e. Flywheel here in the Bay Area)

[ur-whale]

You quite clearly never lived in Europe.

Taxi apps before Uber were either non-existent (still are for most places) or unusable.

[briandear]

..in the case my my experience living in the south of France, taxis wouldn’t show up at all. That happened to me more frequently than they actually showed up.

[dang]

> You quite clearly never lived in Europe.

Can you please edit personal provocations like that out of your posts to HN? They add no information and are often wrong. The comment would be fine with just the second sentence.

[throwawaymath]

Great observation.

> The counter example to these companies are the ones that quickly raised capital to dump scooters on public streets before they could be shut down by cities.

I live in NYC, and I’m frequently in Westchester (the county immediately north of NYC, for those not familiar with New York). There’s been a large influx of Lime bikes in the past several months. My opinion on Lime - the bike/scooter company - has quickly evolved from idle curiosity, to weak dislike, to outright disdain. That evolution started happening when I saw Lime bikes being parked in arbitrary places that blocked pedestrian foot traffic, but I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was when someone parked a Lime bike directly in the spot I usually place my garbage.

Sometimes the hustle of skirting regulation seems to be a net positive. Company culture notwithstanding, I’m happy overall that Uber exists as a concept. I don’t have a savvy opinion about their future, but I enjoy Uber rides significantly more than yellow cabs. Likewise I’ve stayed in Airbnbs before and enjoyed the experience, though I wouldn’t say it’s changed my day to day life as much.

But other times it seems like companies are being actively negligent in their awareness of the legislations they’re flippantly ignoring and the consequences of doing so. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for a system being disrupted which depends on the artificial scarcity of taxi medallions. On the other hand I find it very frustrating when my sidewalk or park is “disrupted” by a random bright green bike that yells at you if you try to move it without paying.

I wish there were a way to easily categorize the behavior of companies - between those whose cavalier approach to disruption mostly impacts existing incumbents, and those whose approach is actually a pain to end users. Sometimes the laws are legitimately outdated or very inefficient, and disregarding them vastly improves the user experience. But other times - like with Lime - it feels as though companies are pointing to those examples so they can get away with a “product” that automatically opts you into a “new normal” just because a subset of people use it.

[oftenwrong]

Uber's disruption subverted the artificial scarcity of for-hire vehicles.

Lime's disruption did not change the artificial scarcity of public space that isn't dedicated to cars.

Public space in the NY metro area is largely devoted to car driving and car parking. An Uber car can tap into this vast resource, but a Lime bike cannot. Things that are not cars are forced to compete for the scarce non-car space. This includes pedestrians, Lime bikes, and garbage bins. Note that Uber is only significantly controversial in places like Manhattan, where car-dedicated space is most scarce.

I think this is part of why these two types of companies have (mostly) fallen on opposite sides of public opinion.

[Reedx]

> but I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was when someone parked a Lime bike directly in the spot I usually place my garbage

Granted that's a problem and hopefully they're working to discourage bad behavior. But traffic and pollution are bigger problems that bikes and scooters help with. Does the fact that they're sometimes misplaced mean it's a net negative?

[emodendroket]

The scooters might be good for this, but Uber is likely encouraging more people to either drive around looking for fares or hail a ride when they would normally use the train or walk. So the brave new world of no regulation doesn't necessarily trend toward a greener world.

[zaphod12]

I agree with almost everything you've said, but have to mention that Lime bike was entirely endorsed by White Plains - https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/white-pla...

Not sure if they're winding up in other towns nearby (inevitable, I guess), but in this case the city was totally on board with them showing up!

[throwawaymath]

Yep, they end up as far south as the Bronx, and are pretty ubiquitous even in Yonkers. Curiously, I have not observed Lime bikes being strewn around haphazardly in White Plains. I would venture a guess that's because the company pays more attention to the city that explicitly sanctioned them.

[julianwachholz]

I wonder did the person parking the bike in your garbage disposal spot know that it was your personal spot?

We don't throw our trash bags out in the street but put them in larger containers. Can't park a bike on those.

[throwawaymath]

I use containers as well, but do you keep them outside your home at all times? There's no substantial difference between a trash container and a garbage bag if you're talking about the containers that fit three - five bags of garbage or so. In my locality you can be fined for leaving the container - or loose bags, or anything really - out on non-pickup days.

[paulcole]

> the straw that broke the camel’s back was when someone parked a Lime bike directly in the spot I usually place my garbage.

Is this spot on your property?

[throwawaymath]

That's a good question - I'm not sure. It's about 10 feet from my door. Technically speaking I'm "responsible" for maintaining it under NY law, but I don't know if it's strictly private property. The city can (and does) ticket homeowners when something is blocking their curb if it's 1) a tortious danger to pedestrians (i.e. snow) or 2) interfering with municipal activity, like garbage pickup.

That being said I'm not really concerned about being ticketed because it happens so rarely. I'm more concerned about neighborhood appearance and being able to place my garbage in a consistent spot. For context, this is in an area which is more suburban than urban. Having a regular bike chained to a sign outside my door would be equally out of place.

[sethherr]

Is having cars parked on the street out of place? I agree that bikes blocking pedestrian right of way is bad and needs to be stopped. The easiest way to do that is to replace some of the car parking with bike parking.

The concept that a bike parked on your street would be bad for your neighborhood is an opinion you should rethink - bikes are great!

[vasilipupkin]

Seems to me people often confuse something being illegal with something being an actual crime. They had the insight that these minor regulations can be easily broken to deliver value with very few repercussions

[collyw]

Could you explain the difference to me, as I am clearly in the minority in thinking that the two are synonymous.

[vasilipupkin]

sure. My town has a paid beach with lifeguard and a free beach without. It is illegal to swim on the free beach. It is not a crime. Worst case that happens is they kick you off the beach.

[otterley]

Lawyer here! Crime is the general term, and describes any offense against the people or the sovereign. Offenses are divided into severities, ranging from felony (worst) to infraction (least), with penalties to suit.

In this case, swimming on the free beach is probably an infraction, much like failing to use your turn signal. The worst penalty you’ll face in the usual case is a fine. But if you swim on the free beach, get yourself in trouble, and a rescue party has to come save you, the fact that it’s a “crime” now gives the state the ability to recover their costs from you afterwards.

[collyw]

Not sure that actually makes things any clearer to me. Is it actually illegal, or is it just "not allowed"? (Is the free beach public?)

What would make it "a crime" as opposed to just being "illegal"?

[vasilipupkin]

Illegal means against the law or against the rules. A crime is a function of how severe your illegal action is.

Put it another way, people think if something is illegal, punishment for that must be a felony or something. But often times, it’s just an infraction so punishment is at most a fine or a minor action like getting kicked off the free beach

[dionidium]

> Put it another way, people think if something is illegal, punishment for that must be a felony or something

I can't imagine that anybody thinks that. We're all familiar with parking tickets, for example.

[fendy3002]

Illegal can be things that hasn't yet regulated or made legal. Autonomous driving car, advanced ai even travelling to mars are things that yet not exists, thus are illegal at time they exists.

Recent examples are GDPR, where before it isn't regulated to track user information without consent, now being prohibited with clear penalty. Next they should regulate personal assistance like alexa and siri

[emodendroket]

Well, no, that's not the case. To the extent any of those things are illegal it's because they're doing things that are prohibited by existing law.

[mbesto]

> quickly enough that you can become large enough to get a seat at the table when the regulations are reworked.

It also makes sense to do this in areas where no one is watching. For example Monkey Parking got shut down almost immediately during the same time SF was probably at it's height of negotiating what it was going to do with Airbnb rentals in SF. https://www.wired.com/2014/06/app-that-lets-users-sell-publi...

Also, Airbnb, like many other companies who tout "growth hacking", illegally (in the eyes of the craigslist ToS) used a technique to basically leverage Craigslist audience to grow their own.

Mind you, this technique is also being encouraged by a partner at one of the most prominent VC firms in the valley. https://andrewchen.co/how-to-be-a-growth-hacker-an-airbnbcra...

Point is - it's very easy to blindly select what you feel is "right" vs "wrong" or "bad" vs "good"[0][1] when your money is on the line.

[0] - http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html

[1] - http://www.paulgraham.com/ronco.html

[subroutine]

I think this is a great observation, and well put.

FWIW, had you made the same comment a year ago, I'd have only seen Uber, not Airbnb, matching precisely the model you describe. The lore was (and perhaps still is) that Airbnb has a platform substantially different & far better than Uber (e.g. http://archive.is/kE5hq). MSM painted Uber as this ultra-aggressive startup in terms of both company culture and taking on regulators; meanwhile Airbnb was just this wholesome startup simply trying to help student's travel on a shoestring budget and helping people pay rent by letting someone sleep on their couch.

Anyway, that was my interpretation back then; but clearly I'm no Paul Graham. It's clear from his blog post that Paul never saw it this way. To him, Airbnb was always destined to be a platform that disrupted the hotel market. Of course if you're going to 'disrupt' the hotel market in any medium-to-large city, that means thousands of residential homes will need to be converted into short-term vacation rentals.

It was either a carefully planned timing, or merely circumstance, but Airbnb has scaled at exactly the right pace to (like you mention) "become large enough to get a seat at the table when the regulations are reworked". And unlike Uber they have powerful/wealthy friends who piggyback on the Airbnb platform. It seems like almost overnight Airbnb went from an airbed in some student's loft to Corporation-Owned-Whole-Home-No-Host-punch-in-a-pin-code-to-open-the-front-door-fully-automated "STRs".

Living in San Diego I couldn't hate it more. After city council passed a regulation to limit Airbnb's to primary residences (which I believe most SD residence were happy about), Airbnb & HomeAway, and other parties formed a coalition, and hired a bunch of people to gather signatures to skirt our city council's ruling and put this action on a ballet as a referendum (http://archive.is/Yf6GP). In theory I'm not opposed to voter referendum; but here is a case where Airbnb is clearly undermining the ability of our elected official's to govern our city. The voted regulations will now be put on hold until 2020; and there will be nothing but carpet-bombing adverts for the next two years brainwashing san diegans. There's no hope.

[Reedx]

> Airbnb, like Uber, took advantage of regulatory inefficiencies instead of market inefficiencies.

How quickly we forget... There were huge inefficiencies and Uber was an order of magnitude better than what we had.

Getting a taxi was difficult and unreliable. Ask anyone who used to use them in SF. Uber was like magic in comparison.

[emodendroket]

Part of what I wonder is how much worse the experience would really be if you were using an app to hail a yellow cab.

[slededit]

Just like when you'd call in dispatch they might come or they might not. Who knows.

[emodendroket]

No reason you couldn't copy the whole accept, show map, etc. feature set

[waylandsmithers]

I see the regulatory inefficiencies as being totally different though.

It didn't make that much sense apart from protecting holders of medallions for it to be illegal to pay someone for a car ride, but I would actually like there to be laws protecting guests and innkeepers, and preventing the apartment across the hall from turning into a hotel.

[spectrum1234]

Its not just regulatory efficiencies. Its more market efficient than using craigslist as many on the sell side previously were.

[cft]

Also you might want to notice that the last email from Fred is at 4:26am. In France that would be illegal in itself, sending a work email outside of the working hours. /s

[bpizzi]

What do you mean exactly by illegal? Nobody's going to jail for sending an email outside of working hours, even in France.

Edit: actually, for anyone wondering, the law is that a >50 employee's company should document it's own recommendation about how not to harass your colleagues during out-of-work hours. When fully applied, the worst case scenario would be that, as an employee, you can officially (ie. under a legal base, not legal right, but IANAL) ask your employer to have workaholic colleagues to step down on their out-of-hours emails. Nothing more, nothing less, very very far from "in France it's illegal to send a work email outside of the working hours".

[sctb]

> Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html