[damnencryption]

PG was cheering lambda school's free 4 weeks developer intern trial a while ago. If he doesn't think that is exploitative, maybe huge difference in morality.

Airbnb spamming forums early on, sketchy marketing techniques, avoiding commercial regulations that hotel has to go through for good reasons and displacing genuine local rent seekers is not exploitative then maybe the bar is high enough for YC.

Should the founder have to think about whether the idea could potentially be exploitative or he just needs to think about what is good for the users aka not exploiting the tourists?

[an_opabinia]

Airbnb feels like a very bad example. It’s rich people renting out their homes to other rich people. You’re saying that’s more exploitative than rich people renting out those same homes to poor people? How do you think that really pans out?

[damnencryption]

No. Residential areas are different from commercial areas in good parts of the world for a reason. This is not a bad example.

Many people took loans to buy airbnb to aggressively rent them. Criminal activity go through roof with tourists in the neighborhood. You don't know who your neighbors are because they keep changing. It doesn't feel safe to let your 10 year old son out for many.

Drugs, garbage on the road, covid hot spots. Hotels also have to pay taxes which airbnb avoids. Price in the area goes up for locals. People move out to surrounding areas and have to commute more.

[an_opabinia]

Would you say this collection of things you’re describing is, “AirBnb is exploiting someone?”

Anyway, there’s basically no evidence for any of what you’re saying, especially the crime part. The one not-yet-peer reviewed paper trying to show Airbnb’s causal effect on rents found a $9/yr increase (1), which is laughably, hilariously small - it could not possibly be playing a significant role in rent pricing in the biggest markets, and the researchers specifically excluded the possibility of AirBnb reducing supply. And this factual criticism is the one you actually omitted!

(1) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3006832

[mellavora]

I think there is quite a bit of evidence that "Residential areas are different from commercial areas in good parts of the world"-- they operate under different regulatory regimes. For example, insurance, and health & safety standards.

Hotels have to have commercial liability insurance. Hotels have to maintain certain levels of fire safety, and food sanitation, etc.

[mellavora]

My brother works for HUD. They have many examples of people (ab)using Airbnb to operate as slumlords; a type of exploitation which is outlawed. The corporation Airbnb has historically not been cooperative in assisting the HUD in this process.

So no, it is not just rich people renting to rich people. In many cases it is rich people using the platform to avoid regulations which prohibit exploitative renting to poor people.

And the corporation which enables this actively hinders investigations. Because Airbnb is also getting a cut of these rents.

[an_opabinia]

But for people that poor, isn’t the alternative not living there at all? Or a different slumlord?

I have nothing but empathy for someone who can’t drive and cannot afford normal housing in the same place they receive services. I totally understand how some of those people would choose to have fewer services and leave, or god forbid be homeless.

But do those people you’re describing, who actively login into AirBnb - if they didn’t get something they paid for in-platform, or if the listing is lying, are you saying Airbnb doesn’t come through? It almost certainly does. A giant corporation is honestly better equipped to go to bat for a wronged customer simply because it has the money to provide a remedy and a case manager does not - the case manager must get all remedies from the richest institution of them all, the government.

Personally I believe Airbnb should just design a high minimum rental cost and ban all transactions that are too cheap. But I wouldn’t describe Airbnb as exploiting these people, they are obviously victims of landlords?

[throwaway2245]

Airbnb is banned where I live, because it exploited democratically agreed norms of short-term rents in the city.