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Because, like Uber, for customers it is a massive improvement over the alternative. ... The level of myopia here is staggering. It is indeed. You, the host, an
by bradleyjg 9y ago
Because, like Uber, for customers it is a massive improvement over the alternative. ... The level of myopia here is staggering.
It is indeed. You, the host, and AirBnB are splitting the gains from ignoring laws designed to internalize externalities. Instead you celebrate privatizing benefits and pushing costs onto others. Yes, it benefits you in the short run. Most anti-social behavior does.
Do you teach your children that it is okay for a company to dump toxic waste in a river as long as they pass along some of the savings to their customers?
- closeparen 9y agoThe externalities are... what exactly? Too much foot traffic to your door? That's hardly analogous to toxic waste dumping. (Assuming you are talking about single room rather than whole home rentals. Whole home rentals certainly do have the toxic effect of lowering housing supply in cities starved for rentals).
- bradleyjg 9y agoDo you think the grandparent poster is renting a single room when he takes his family to Atlanta next week? Also, what percentage of AirBnB revenue do you think comes from single room rentals?
- gordaco 9y agoThe main externality is driving the price up and shrinking the pool of homes for actual residents who need to rent a place to live. This is already happening in some parts of the world. For example, people from Barcelona are starting to protest (see [1], and [2] by the way. In Spanish, sorry!). In my city, Málaga, it's starting to happen as well. I personally know a person who had to move out because the landlord wanted to use their flat for Airbnb. [1] https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2017/08/03/companias/1501774445_329587.html https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2017/08/03/companias/... [2] http://www.lavanguardia.com/local/barcelona/20170626/423707143344/directivo-airbnb-piso-ilegal-barcelona.html http://www.lavanguardia.com/local/barcelona/20170626/4237071...
- zimablue 9y agoI don't think that you can actually call increasing property prices a negative externality. It's a natural consequence of making that tourism more efficient. It's like someone invented a way to turn fruit into gold and you're complaining that it drives the price of fruit up. Well, OK that has some bad effects but they're almost by definition (like, how economics works) less than the positive effects of now having more gold.
- wpietri 9y agoThat is very much a rich person's answer. It's certainly "more efficient" for the wealthy if they can drive poorer people from their homes when the rich find it convenient. But that's not what it feels like if you're on the other end of it.
- chii 9y agoif the demand for property in an area grows, the poor is going to get priced out no matter what. Whether it's airbnb doing it, or some other factor (like tech investment money or something to such an effect). The problem to solve isn't to stop airbnb from working, but to increase the opportunity for the poor to get out of poverty. Otherwise, the next airbnb-like disruption will cause the exact same problem for the poor.
- wpietri 9y agoThere's no reason we can't do both.
- closeparen 9y agoWhat? If people who are currently housing-insecure started making more money, rents would rise accordingly. There are always going to be people who can't afford to live somewhere (particularly major world cities attractive to tourists) and just above them, there are always going to be people barely afford to live somewhere. We can and should lift the currently housing-insecure to comfortable homeownership, but just as many housing-insecure people will rise from the previously totally-priced-out to take their place.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]