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The meaning of trust in the age of Airbnb
- untilHellbanned 10y ago> “it would explain basically all the difference between the per capita income of the United States and Somalia”. In other words, without trust — and its vital complement, trustworthiness — there is no prospect of economic development. Well said. It's the same problem with Bitcoin. While it is cool to think about trustless digital currencies I think what we're seeing over the last 5 years about probably about 20 is establishment of trust in blockchains. It's all a human psychology thing, not about technology. It's not gonna happen overnight. It may also never happen in the same way many countries never have gotten their sh*t together.
- adrianratnapala 10y agoThis is a little backwards. Trust might be the cause of societal wealth. But it is also an effect of the system of laws. Americans are not more trusting/trustworthy because they are more cuddly and friendly -- Somalis probably have and deserve more of that kind of trust. The kind of trust that makes America rich is the kind of trust you place in strangers who know they are doing commerce under the rule of law. The promimse made by Bitcoin and such is to add a new component to that sort of enforcement -- increasing trust.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoIronic that bitcoin has been subject to such corruption and crime, despite the fundamental blockchain security.
- dorfsmay 10y ago> Why bother to steal when you are already comfortable? This is more important than the author makes it to be. If nobody needs to turn to crime to eat and live, then they don't, and slowly everybody let their guard down more and more. Edit: I should have said theft instead of crime. Need affect theft, theft affect trust.
- geon 10y ago> If nobody needs to turn to crime to eat and live, then they don't Provably false. Plenty of crimes are committed by well off persons. There is probably a causality, though.
- dev1n 10y agowell off persons commit very different crimes from poor people. I don't think the author is talking about white collar crimes here.
- sdoering 10y agoOh believe me, how often it happens, that well off people just "accidentally" drop some little stuff in their purse. Really lots of minor crimes, like shoplifting is done by people who do not have the necessity to do so. Not to talk about (nearly) criminal behavior while driving. Might be confirmation bias, but when I do my daily commute, most of the time it is the big car that does 100 in a 60 zone. Or the mothers, driving their kids to school, doing 60 to 70 in our 30 residential zone. Directly next to a school with kids lining the pathways. For me, these are just anecdotal examples, but I do not believe, that crime happens out of necessity (sure a lot of crime does, or does because it seems to be the easier way). But just making everybody well off will not end criminal behavior. People are aholes. Imho at least 2 standard deviations (and oftentimes I count myself into this range - but working on myself).
- anexprogrammer 10y agoThere's a lot of sweeping generalisations there! I can't put speeding in the same category as crimes of poverty, so I won't mention it further. There's dozens of causes to crime - lack of opportunity, not caring of consequences, greed, upbringing, education, peer pressure, depression or other issues (often held up as a cause of affluent shoplifting) and many others. The simple fact remains that poverty or a recession indicates a clear rise. If you can't put food on the table for the kids, and feel you have no other choices left, you may reach the point that you steal. Crime often happens without need too. From stealing a little stationery from your well paid job, fiddling expenses (£100k a year MPs have been caught doing this, whilst legislating to send the scum to prison for years for some triviality). They can be because you're pissed at your job. So it goes on for more premeditated and higher value crimes. Giving folks a decent baseline might end crimes of poverty and necessity, but would have little effect on the rest of the causes.
- miguelrochefort 10y agoThe world needs a global reputation system. This needs to keep track of every commitment, every promises. It should become important enough that people completely stop lying. After a while, interesting things will happen. You will be able to let people use your car, use your house, use your tools, use your bathroom, use your money, without having to watch them. The workforce will become completely liquid, as you will be able to hire people without having to test them. If they're not fit for the job, they will quit on their own. Sadly, those privacy enthusiasts are making everything they can to prevent that from happening.
- jtr1 10y agoAh yes, our old friend the panopticon. If human beings are watched thoroughly enough, eventually they will internalize the gaze and watch themselves. The perfection of the human condition! What ever happened to those? ;)
- CPLX 10y agoWe do, it's called the legal system. It's just expensive and slow. What the author is describing is a system of frictionless very low cost trust, which is a more challenging goal.
- new299 10y agoThat sounds undesirable, unworkable, and easily open to exploitation. Takes all sorts though... Would be interesting to read a worked out example of how such a system might operate.
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- tomjen3 10y agoIn that case identity theft will just go up - plus people who are not trustworthy will now have absolutely nothing stopping them from being criminals, since nobody is going to trust them anyway. It also doesn't deal with the background trust level in society - which is what you consider when you decide whether you should lock your door or not.
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- franciscop 10y agoI have been in Japan for about 1 year and here it's taken to the extreme. Japanese people leave the bags and phones unattended on the table to reserve the seat while going to the other floor of the starbucks to order. Being from Spain, this is crazy. But it does encourage better behaviour and positive thinking. There was a theory about broken windows, so I assume the opposite also happens: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
- agibsonccc 10y agoThat's actually 1 of my favorite parts of living in Tokyo. It makes me think of how many things have been ruined because of "the 1 event that ruined it for everyone else" A lot of things are more relaxed because people actually DO follow the rules. It's kinda nice after being in SF for a long time...
- visarga 10y agoYep, saw that too in Japan. People leaving their cell phones to "reserve" a table, and going to get something to eat. I couldn't believe my eyes. Also, bikes unchained everywhere. Even electric ones.
- ekianjo 10y agoBikes get stolen fairly often though, even in Japan. The police is going around these days to warn about unsecured bikes.
- todd8 10y agoThis reminds me of a strange crime spree that occurred when I was in college in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One winter, car batteries began to be stolen, soon many of my friends (I did't own a car) had to chain the hoods of their cars. Apparently, the victims, upon discovering that their car was missing a battery would become the next generation of thieves stealing batteries to fix their own stranded vehicle. I suppose bikes are a bit that way, whereas phones are not; it doesn't make a lot of sense to steal a phone because yours has been stolen, even to someone with questionable morals, because you can't simply pick it up and start to use it. Bikes and batteries on the other hand are easy to steal and use to replace your own bike or battery stolen only a hour ago.
- awt 10y agoTrust is cheap. And people should be able to and will trust or not trust whoever they wish.
- sleepychu 10y agoThe last example is absolutely heartbreaking. That someone would be so comfortable being so overtly racist in front of a complete stranger who is also a customer.
- cwilkes 10y agoHow would you have preferred the shopkeeper acted?
- mooreds 10y agoI'm a "rules are rules" guy, so I would have preferred the shopkeeper to enforce the rules the same for everyone.
- orf 10y agoShe may be racist, but if in the course of her shopkeeping she sees that a much higher portion of kids from certain backgrounds break glasses, what is she to do? She's obviously seen more kids handle sunglasses than you or I ever will, and she can draw whatever conclusions she likes from that sample. She could have phrased her conclusions a little better though. Of course she could just be a racist with a bias against minorities which she chooses to express through the medium of sunglass handling rules.
- mulligan 10y agoconfirmation bias?
- adwn 10y agoThe shopkeeper sounded like the sign arose from previous incidences. Sure, maybe it's wrong to generalize, but I can understand that she wants to protect her wares, and it seems that in her experience, children from different cultures behave in different ways. > That someone would be so comfortable being so overtly racist in front of a complete stranger who is also a customer. In the spirit of the article, by being so open, the shopkeeper demonstrated trust in a complete stranger.
- known 10y agoTrust, But Verify;
- soneca 10y agoI remember myself thinking about examples of lack of societal trust in Brazil, where I live, comparing to richer countries. Like european countries (Japan also I guess) where you don't have a barrier entering the subway where it is verified if you paid the ticket. Only randomized sample checking. Then a relative told me a surreal example from Angola. There, public distribution of electricity is unreliable to say the least. So everyone who can afford has a gas fueled electric generator at home. But, in any apartment building, instead of having a big generator, at ground level, with all residents sharing the bill (like we have in several upper class buildings here in Brazil); each resident has their own small generator just outside their doors. So there is constant loud noise and constant smoke at the stairs and elevators (and a higher individual cost). The only reason for this (according to this relative) is lack of trust that everybody would consistently pay their share of the common bill. There is always several people who try to take advantage. So, I agree with the idea that societal trust is a requirement for economic development.
- RodericDay 10y agoMan, I feel the same way. I grew up in Peru, and throughout my life it was very common to talk about "gringos" as if they were incredibly naive, trusting idiots that could easily be swindled every which way. I swear the national motto could easily have been "el que no es conchudo muere por cojudo" (if you're not trying to take advantage of someone, you'll get punished for being an idiot). I was intrigued by this because, being pretty bad at haggling and swindling, I thought that trust is what let these "gringos" carry on with their business with a bit more focus, not look behind their backs at all times, trying to haggle everyone lest they get swindled by someone. Eventually I moved to Canada, and I was sort of validated in terms of things being so much better when ie: you don't have to haggle with every cabbie, or cop. Unfortuantely, in terms of social trust, I cannot really tell whether Peru is becoming more like Canada, or Canada more like Peru.
- berntb 10y agoI'm Scandinavian and live in Romania right now. I have quite good experience with the computer people, but the other locals... If I go to two dentists and ask what needs to be done, it is ~ 30% risk they both insist on expensive treatments -- but different ones... If they don't realize I live there, the stores often screw themselves out of a good customer. And so on. I'd describe it as the locals like more to screw people over than they like to earn money. I assumed it was some remaining cultural damage from the dictatorship, with short sightedness a good strategy since they couldn't plan? But maybe it is a more general thing?
- jguimont 10y agoThis reminds me of my philosophy classes. Rousseau believed all human are fundamentally good vs Machiavelli which thought people will act narcissistically and you need leverage on them to make them behave. Trust vs non trust. We vs I. The futur vs the present.
- brooklyndude 10y agoAs a social experiment years ago, I interviewed 1000s of NYC taxi passengers. Just zillions really over a few years. My conclusion, based on my data collection (WASP here). The most friendliest people on the planet were Pakistani. Number 2? Egyptian. Always found that kind of interesting for a 5th generation New Yorker. Of course your mileage my vary. But that's what I discovered. As far as I know, no one else has ever conducted that survey, before or since.
- dazc 10y ago"Airbnb makes personal connections but uses online reviews to keep people honest: after our stay, we reviewed our host and he reviewed us." The host reviews you after you have reviewed him/her. This is a big disincentive to leave a bad review, especially when you haven't already established a good reputation for yourself. I've used Airbnb 3 times and, if I were being honest, I wouldn't have given any of them a good review.
- mooreds 10y agoRating inflation is always a worry, but maybe they hope it will come out in the wash once you have a large enough population?
- ghaff 10y agoI don't know. Any of these peer rating systems seem to devolve to give 5 stars unless they did something horribly bad and wrong. Back when eBay was more of an online flea market, the culture was certainly that anything other than a glowing A+++++++++ positive was a black mark that people took as indicating you actively swindled someone. And retaliatory low ratings were certainly a thing people discussed. And, with Uber, I'm acutely aware that even somewhat lower ratings can have a big impact on drivers so I'm not that inclined to give 4 star rather than 5 star ratings even when the service is a little bit subpar.
- mooreds 10y agoYes, maybe instead of a 5 star system we really need: * exceeds expectations * met expectations * did not meet expectations And then just ding the folks in the last category. Because what we have right now is really: * 5 stars == exceeded or met expectations * < 5 stars == did not meet expectations However, it still won't address the issue of mutual rating. What you really need to do there is have the ratings hidden from each other until both have been submitted, and, frankly, not to penalize either side for ratings unless they are consistently negative. The latter is the only way to make them constructive rather than destructive.
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- omonra 10y agoI imagine the store keeper had enough experience with arab kids breaking stuff that wasn't paid for by their parents. So it's not a call on clumsiness of one set of kids vs another but personal experience on whether their parents can be trusted. Which seems to be the point of the article.
- thedevil 10y agoFraud triangle: http://www.acfe.com/fraud-triangle.aspx http://www.acfe.com/fraud-triangle.aspx Fraud is usually a combination of opportunity, pressure, and rationalization. It sounds like a bad powerpoint slide, but it changed the way I think. People are untrusting and dishonest partly because they're poor or desperate (pressure). (edit: someone who makes 100K but can't make debt payments is also under high pressure and a fraud risk, as is a CEO who may get fired for missing his numbers). And reputation systems decrease opportunity, making people more honest. And a personal touch (e.g. a walmart greeter) makes it harder to rationalize cheating. One thing the fraud triangle is missing though is culture/learned behavior. If you're around other people who steal, you're more likely to think stealing is normal. And when you've stolen in the past, your mind has also learned the pattern of stealing and you're more likely to steal in the future. Reputation systems plant into people's minds the patterns of trust and honesty. Cash registers, credit reports, and star ratings have likely made people more honest.
- kbuchanan 10y agoTrust is also an important component in a labor market: trust that an employer will treat employees fairly, and trust that an employee will meet their obligations.
- fatdog 10y agoMost of the examples of trusting strangers I have seen reduce to some kind of internal notion of tribe and tribal continuity. Conference goers are a great example population, since they are from everywhere and have no connection other than a shared interest in the conference proceedings, but the degree of trust among them is extremely (if recklessly) high. Ethnicity, or "race," is a strong indicator of trust, since what is trust but a default line of credit you extend to someone with the belief that it will be reciprocated. The U.S. has an american tribe, which includes anyone who seems american enough, and it can easily cross ethnic boundaries. A middle class black person, or an ethnic japanese person whose family has been in america for a few generations can become a part of a "white" trust network with only a few words in the right accent, with the right cultural references. People trust each other based on their shared and demonstrated perceptions of power and authority. Belief in the same god is often enough, but barring that, alignment to the same institutions (rule of law, english "fair play," property, marriage, etc) will make someone initially trustworthy. Here, being able to code gets you a long way because it has demonstrated a commitment to understanding, work, incremental success, among other things. Someone who signals alignment to, or directly against those shared perceptions and institutions will make themselves untrustworthy. If you dress like a criminal, people will treat you like one. Similarly, if you dress like an oppressor, people will treat you like one. There is nothing mysterious about trust. It only becomes complicated when untrustworthy people insist that they deserve your trust and that you are somehow deficient for declining to extend it.
- Wintamute 10y agoGreat insight! I feel like this line of thinking could shed light on many causes of social friction. Edit: and like my comments sibling says, some uncomfortable truths to be unearthed...
- qj4714 10y agoTrust is something that I think is often taken for granted as something that is naturally occurring, but as you say it is based on shared culturual/religious background. The un-pc question, the uncomfortable question, is whether diversity/immigration contributes towards lack of trust and lack of assimilation.
- ilaksh 10y agoThis is just another disguise for racism. There is less trust in relatively poor countries because there is more day-to-day crime. There is more crime because the entire country is poor. The country is poor because rich countries hog money and resources and use badly disguised racism to justify it.
- arjie 10y agoDavid Graeber in Debt: The First 5000 Years posits that debt and credit appeared before money or barter. These are things that can exist only meaningfully in a society with some degree of trust. I haven't evaluated the truth of this yet, but I'm firmly of the belief that high-trust societies will be economically prosperous and that there is a feedback loop at work here that starts with high trust enabling business and social interactions. Like other commenters here, I'm from South Asia, and this is one of the most significant differences I've noticed from my home country (India). No-questions-asked return policies make my life so much easier and not having to share the store with too many unethical people makes this possible.