[mturmon]

From the press release:

"Prostitution wasn't really at the top of our minds when we passed the 2010 law helping NYC enforce against illegal short-term rentals, but in hindsight it seems kind of obvious."

You have to admit, I think the enterprising minds here at HN also failed to foresee this.

[sadfaceunread]

The retroactive obviousness of it does seem quite incredible. People get hotel rooms to do things they don't want to do at home. AirBnB is a hotel substitute.

I wonder if AirBnB internally had some risk assessment of this.

[Terr_]

Or to quote Terry Pratchett in Going Postal:

> Everyone knew it happened. Actually, the new management probably didn't, but wouldn't have done anything about it if they'd found out, apart from carefully forgetting that they'd known.

[bri3d]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2801400 is a great thread in many ways considering AirBnB's recent press.

I think "potential illegal uses" is a pretty common argument against short-term rentals, and prostitution isn't exactly a non-obvious one. It's just generally a bit easier on the neighbors than, for example, crazy parties or drug houses, which are both commonly-touted (and valid) arguments against short-term rentals.

[nailer]

TBH from the moment AirBnB was announced, with it's inital focus on couch surfing from strangers (and the lack of traditional 'quiet enjoyment' as a result) I expected a serious sexual assault to occur.

A prostitution ring is pretty low on the list of things that could go wrong.

[fleitz]

You mean that people would use AirBNBs for the same things they use normal apartments for?!?!?!?

Most likely it's that most of HN doesn't care what consenting adults do on their own time.

[sjtgraham]

"When have you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage?"

Weeeeeell…