[2drew3]

I'm not saying the shared economy is racist by design. Nor am I accusing mentioned companies as being racist. But as companies build trust through profiles and links to social networks, they should be wary of the unintended consequence.

[badman_ting]

OK, but as dublinben points out, one must consider the businesses these services are meant to replace. He mentions taxicabs which are notoriously racist, do you suppose Bed and Breakfast owners might have different answers about vacancy depending on who asks?

If the goal is to observe racism as it functions in our society, cool. If the goal is guilt-driven self-flagellation about the distinction between startups' marketing copy and the reality of the situation, less cool.

[jiggy2011]

I haven't used either of these services, but perhaps it is possible that these apps provide more information about the customer in advance than a traditional B&B or taxi driver would have access to. You can't necessarily tell somebody's race over the phone.

[theorique]

Uber certainly does this - it provides my photo to the driver, and provides me a photo of an African or Arab guy.

[volume]

since you have the time to clarify, perhaps you should update the post's title. :)

[2drew3]

Perhaps you're right. Still, the title isn't accusing either company as racist. AirBnB created artificial trust between strangers to allow them to share homes. That's a HUGE accomplishment. On one hand, AirBnB has to keep investing dollars (marketing/dev/support) at their core user group - perhaps the "Student Universe" segment or the "Business traveler" segment. As they continue to grow, plan for an IPO, take market share from hotels... they need to think about these unintended consequence and work harder towards creating a "open, trusted, diverse community."