[antonymoose]

Not to mention the entitlement of startups to just flaunt laws and regulations.

Still kills me to this day Uber and AirBNB running illegal billion dollar operations. I suppose one can at least say Uber mitigates drunk driving tendencies. As far as AirBNB goes, it can rot straight in hell. My hometown is now 20% AirBNB, they ran illegally for many years, and this completely prices out normal folks trying to live near their families.

[RHSeeger]

I don't have a problem with them actively choosing to break laws to protest the laws themselves; to try to get them changed. Civil disobedience is a long standing practice. However, part of doing that is facing the consequences of breaking those laws; being arrested, etc. Just because _you_ think the law isn't just doesn't mean it's not a law - it just means you think it should be changed.

And the companies in question break the law and then whine and complain like they shouldn't need to face the consequences; like the law shouldn't apply to them because they don't think it's fair.

[AnthonyMouse]

> However, part of doing that is facing the consequences of breaking those laws; being arrested, etc.

This form of civil disobedience is effective against bad laws that nevertheless assign punishments proportional to the nominal offense. If "demonstrations without a permit" is punished by a week in jail and they won't give you a permit then you do the demonstration and spend the week in jail. A week later you're back out there demonstrating again. MLK Jr. was arrested 29 times in a span of 11 years.

It doesn't really work in the modern system which is tuned for coercing plea bargains and full of three strikes laws, because then "pissing off the government" is an aggravating factor that causes them to stack more charges until you're facing years instead of days. Then you're not making a point through a willingness to spend a few nights in a cell before your next press conference, you're getting taken off the board.

It also never really worked against bad economic rules because the nature of bad economic rules is to make good economic behavior uneconomical, like converting units to types in higher demand or funding new construction. The deleterious effect of the rule is that instead of it costing $50,000 to add a housing unit, it costs $500,000. But doing civil disobedience by building it anyway would catch you >$500,000 in fines and penalties, or carries penalties like demolition of the structure. So the bad law acts as an extremely effective deterrent against doing the good thing by making it uneconomical regardless of whether you follow the law or you don't. A bankrupt company can't continue to advocate for change or serve as an example of doing something good.

And if they actually did pay the fines then instead of people saying "that's not real civil disobedience" they would be saying "look at these lawless corporations paying token fines as a cost of doing business" and arguing for the penalties to be increased to a level that would bankrupt them wherever that isn't already the case.

So the remaining option is to break the law and then argue that the law is harmful and shouldn't be enforced.

[watwut]

Meh. What they are doing is NOT civil disobedience and protest. What they are doing is just normal breaking the law for profit thing.

That being said, I also dont think that civil disobedience means you have to accept whatever harsh punishment whatever authoritarian is using. It is actually ok to avoid those.

[mcmcmc]

Yep. This would be like saying illegal dumping of hazardous waste is the same as protesting environmental protection laws. It’s just for-profit crime.

[Forgeties79]

>I don't have a problem with them actively choosing to break laws to protest the laws themselves

Do you truly believe this is some protest action by Airbnb? Because I think most of us rightly characterize it as "intentionally breaking the law for profit" and little more than that.

I'm not sure I like seeing their behavior compared to legitimate protests and activist work. That seems rather insulting to the people and organizations who actually take real risks for the public good. This is a silicon valley startup, a VC-funded profit machine disrupting communities around the world by breaking the law. To paint this as somehow altruistic is a novel take to say the least.

[gosub100]

The taxi medallion racket in NYC was pretty bad. I do agree it must be regulated but their system was broken. I am interested in the legal maneuvering they employed to actually win in court, but I've never seen a breakdown.

That said I mostly agree with your points. But why didn't cab companies innovate and provide us with the same service? A yellow spandex cover that converts any car into a cab, a points program giving discounts, a ride share app that carries 5 people who all ride the same route? They instead provided nothing, other than dirty cabs with bullet proof glass (in "gun free" zones nonetheless)

[AnthonyMouse]

> My hometown is now 20% AirBNB, they ran illegally for many years, and this completely prices out normal folks trying to live near their families.

If people are getting priced out, that implies that either the cost of a unit is more than the cost of construction, or that the cost of construction is unreasonably high. If it's the first one the higher demand should just lead to more construction instead of higher prices, because units that sell for more than they cost to build are profitable to build and supply expands until the price falls below the cost. If it's the second one, the actual source of your problem is high regulatory costs and NIMBYism rather than AirBNB.

[lopsotronic]

If you can figure out a Gig Economy way to get robot/remote/AI pilots into airline cockpits, you will make a mint. "What? I can save ten bucks on airfare if I accept a robot pilot? GIVE ME THAT TICKET"

A mint we will then need to spend on bribes to ALPA. DoT is almost entirely captured now, so that's less of a problem.

In fact, here's a much better get-rich app / scheme: use AI to find regulatory situations that are both easy to break and profitable to break and where enforcement is usually just done to poor people. The Ubermaker. Why dig a gold mine when you can sell the shovels.

[AnthonyMouse]

> In fact, here's a much better get-rich app / scheme: use AI to find regulatory situations that are both easy to break and profitable to break and where enforcement is usually just done to poor people.

How about a less cynical alternative: Use it to find ways to defeat regulatory capture so that you can enter a large market which is currently locked up by incumbents, or make more in an ancillary market from doing "commoditize your complement" on the one which is currently captured.

[b40d-48b2-979e]

This comment severely lacks second-order thinking. The regulations exist for a reason. Removing them because some billionaire wants to make a buck is not a good reason.

[Animats]

"Flout", not "flaunt".