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by harrison_clarke 493 days ago
shouldn't there be a lot of political will from the traditional hotels and taxis, and their lawyers? i can see that the answer is "no", but i don't know why

especially with hotels, i would have expected there to be small enough oligopoly to overcome the freerider problem (taxis are more regional, so i don't expect them to be able to fight an (inter)national company very easily)

plus the president owning a hotel chain

2 comments

> shouldn't there be a lot of political will from the traditional hotels and taxis, and their lawyers?

Yes there is, I am reminded of this every time I take an uber by the yellow cab medallion buyout fee that I’m charged because of the lobbying power of the TLC lobby in NYC

There are a lot more people who own a few properties as investments than there are hotel owners. Even if these people don't plan to rent through Airbnb, the way Airbnb distorts the housing market is still beneficial for their investments. Also, by the time Trump became president Airbnb was already entrenched for years.