4 ms·

Airbnb to purge illegal hotels from San Francisco listings

28 points by juanplusjuan 11y ago

stale2002 11y ago
This whole controversy is all over "500 listings" !?!? What if the city just allowed people to build 500 more homes?
- beatpanda 11y ago
  But then Tim Redmond might have his view of the Bay obstructed, and his personal view of the Bay is a "public resource!" OFF THE GENTRY etc etc
nxzero 11y ago
Let me get this right, to subvert the system, all that's required is not to put the listings under in there own accounts going forward and not use a name that Airbnb had seen before; am I missing something?
- aquadrop 11y ago
  Well, they also should think of the way they will accept money, which is harder to fake.
  - nxzero 11y ago
    Not following, do you have an example transaction that might provide some context?
    - superuser2 11y ago
      It may be possible to distribute properties across several fake Airbnb accounts. It is harder to create fake identities with which you can accept payment.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  Hasn't that always been true? A company has to enforce the system in order to remove itself from liability from the enforcement of the rules, it does that by following the strict letter of the law. I don't believe the San Francisco laws put any burden on AirBnB to investigate each of its hosts to verify they are not false fronts protecting the same entity. Once an entity has done that, AirBnb is not liable for them breaking the law (no doubt they require the hosts to sign an affidavit that they are complying with the existing laws) Ideally Airbnb will be good citizens and monitor things like multiple hosts having the same mailing address or telephone number, that is something all businesses should do. But you can't burden them with the investigative requirement to identify people who are willfully acting as bad actors.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > Ideally Airbnb will be good citizens and monitor things like multiple hosts having the same mailing address or telephone number, that is something all businesses should do. Why should that be suspicious? It's conceivable that someone would run a rental management business with multiple clients that would each list the management company as their mailing address and contact number. It also doesn't seem like it would do much good, since it's a simple matter to get arbitrarily many different phone numbers or PO box numbers (or PO box equivalents that don't parse as PO boxes if PO boxes aren't allowed).
methodover 11y ago
I think it's incredibly ironic that San Francisco, the source of so much innovation lately, also seems to hate letting the free market just work. If people want to rent out their place, just let them. Economic freedom used to be a liberal value, didn't it?
- ryguytilidie 11y ago
  You believe its "ironic" that a group of people whos foundation is "liberty and equality" don't want to "just let free markets work"? Seems like a bit of a stretch...
- Spivak 11y ago
  I suppose it depends on how you think laws like these developed. There are people who will place value on living in a purely residential area in which businesses don't operate. In a classically liberal or libertarian society (since they agree here) this would be solved by such people grouping together and/or making contractual agreements with their neighbors compensating them in some way for giving up their right to operate a business at their residence. Then people come to the conclusion that making these contracts individually or via HOAs is cumbersome, so citizens and their representatives voluntarily vote on laws which grant their local government the power to zone certain areas for certain purposes like residence and business. This is good in a sense since there is less effort spent to maintain the contracts and disputes of the self-regulated system. But it's bad because individuals cant negotiate with their neighbors for different terms (like if they wanted to run a BnB), but in the past few people wanted to negotiate different terms, so there was more gained than harmed. But the times they are a 'changin and now a non-trivial number of people want an exception but the law is applied globally. So now we're stuck since what should be a discussion and negotiation occurring on a neighborhood level is happening on a city/state level and the current proposed legislation is all-or-nothing. Since it seems that a majority prefers having residential districts it seems like the most reasonable solution would be having an "as long as your neighbors are okay with it" type law where would-be businesses owners can negotiate some compensation or additional restrictions to assuage their affected neighbors. I will agree that an essentially default-deny system is probably less liberal than a default-allow system but I'm not sure how to balance with the preferences of the majority and the economic disconnect between individuals and businesses. In a default-allow system a business could essentially make money by harming their neighbors by being dirty, loud, and disruptive and demand that their neighbors pay for it to stop.

28 points by juanplusjuan 11y ago

stale2002 11y ago

This whole controversy is all over "500 listings" !?!? What if the city just allowed people to build 500 more homes?

beatpanda 11y ago
But then Tim Redmond might have his view of the Bay obstructed, and his personal view of the Bay is a "public resource!" OFF THE GENTRY etc etc

nxzero 11y ago

Let me get this right, to subvert the system, all that's required is not to put the listings under in there own accounts going forward and not use a name that Airbnb had seen before; am I missing something?

aquadrop 11y ago
Well, they also should think of the way they will accept money, which is harder to fake.
- nxzero 11y ago
  Not following, do you have an example transaction that might provide some context?
  - superuser2 11y ago
    It may be possible to distribute properties across several fake Airbnb accounts. It is harder to create fake identities with which you can accept payment.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
Hasn't that always been true? A company has to enforce the system in order to remove itself from liability from the enforcement of the rules, it does that by following the strict letter of the law. I don't believe the San Francisco laws put any burden on AirBnB to investigate each of its hosts to verify they are not false fronts protecting the same entity. Once an entity has done that, AirBnb is not liable for them breaking the law (no doubt they require the hosts to sign an affidavit that they are complying with the existing laws) Ideally Airbnb will be good citizens and monitor things like multiple hosts having the same mailing address or telephone number, that is something all businesses should do. But you can't burden them with the investigative requirement to identify people who are willfully acting as bad actors.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > Ideally Airbnb will be good citizens and monitor things like multiple hosts having the same mailing address or telephone number, that is something all businesses should do. Why should that be suspicious? It's conceivable that someone would run a rental management business with multiple clients that would each list the management company as their mailing address and contact number. It also doesn't seem like it would do much good, since it's a simple matter to get arbitrarily many different phone numbers or PO box numbers (or PO box equivalents that don't parse as PO boxes if PO boxes aren't allowed).

methodover 11y ago

I think it's incredibly ironic that San Francisco, the source of so much innovation lately, also seems to hate letting the free market just work. If people want to rent out their place, just let them. Economic freedom used to be a liberal value, didn't it?

ryguytilidie 11y ago
You believe its "ironic" that a group of people whos foundation is "liberty and equality" don't want to "just let free markets work"? Seems like a bit of a stretch...
Spivak 11y ago
I suppose it depends on how you think laws like these developed. There are people who will place value on living in a purely residential area in which businesses don't operate. In a classically liberal or libertarian society (since they agree here) this would be solved by such people grouping together and/or making contractual agreements with their neighbors compensating them in some way for giving up their right to operate a business at their residence. Then people come to the conclusion that making these contracts individually or via HOAs is cumbersome, so citizens and their representatives voluntarily vote on laws which grant their local government the power to zone certain areas for certain purposes like residence and business. This is good in a sense since there is less effort spent to maintain the contracts and disputes of the self-regulated system. But it's bad because individuals cant negotiate with their neighbors for different terms (like if they wanted to run a BnB), but in the past few people wanted to negotiate different terms, so there was more gained than harmed. But the times they are a 'changin and now a non-trivial number of people want an exception but the law is applied globally. So now we're stuck since what should be a discussion and negotiation occurring on a neighborhood level is happening on a city/state level and the current proposed legislation is all-or-nothing. Since it seems that a majority prefers having residential districts it seems like the most reasonable solution would be having an "as long as your neighbors are okay with it" type law where would-be businesses owners can negotiate some compensation or additional restrictions to assuage their affected neighbors. I will agree that an essentially default-deny system is probably less liberal than a default-allow system but I'm not sure how to balance with the preferences of the majority and the economic disconnect between individuals and businesses. In a default-allow system a business could essentially make money by harming their neighbors by being dirty, loud, and disruptive and demand that their neighbors pay for it to stop.