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> it's also ok to say that the success of AirBnB has had huge negative consequences for many people. It’s not clear to me what these are. I really don’t mean

• kblev 6y ago
  In many cities the choice for long term rentals is very narrow therefore expensive because most flats are AirBnBs for tourists. This has a detrimental effect on the locals. Pre-COVID that is.
  • tick_tock_tick 6y ago
    It's that just blaming Airbnb for the failures of the local government?
    • redmattred 6y ago
      Most cities have laws against individuals running unlicensed hotels out of their apartments. AirBnb chose to ignore those laws and encourage others to do so as well.
      • jbverschoor 6y ago
        Same with uber, and others..
    • monsieurbanana 6y ago
      Why not both? Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Airbnb being a company, and a company seeking profits over everything else, one could argue that it's not their job to care about how they affect people. Doesn't mean we can't criticize it for it. We could go even further and say it's by criticizing Airbnb that we will push governments to regulate this new market.
    • trimbo 6y ago
      Yes, of course. That's part of the cycle. Democratically elected officials are not proactive, they respond to pressure. Calling out corporations that are acting irresponsibility creates enough pressure to have democratic governments act upon those corporations.
    • kyletns 6y ago
      Airbnb ran huge marketing campaigns against local governments (including in SF) and lobbies, as well. Very aggressive stuff.
    • TeMPOraL 6y ago
      No, it's blaming AirBnB for making a bad situation much worse. Local governments worldwide may be inept at securing enough housing for people (perhaps because it turns out to be a hard problem), but it's not helpful to sabotage the allocation of whatever housing that was made available.
• almost_usual 6y ago
  Look up why cities are limiting Airbnb or banning it outright.
• MartianSquirrel 6y ago
  1. They disrupted the hospitality industry, which used to be much more powerful than it is today, as it now weighs less in tourism numbers. I don't necessarily think this is bad, disruption is often a sign of optimization. 2. Then there are markets where airbnbs have caused apartment buying and rental prices to go up much faster than what they should have, bringing millennials further away from home ownership. (not going to go into people getting evicted for landlords to open airbnbs, but deserves a quick mention) This one is more tricky, as it is not strictly bad, but definitely not good. It tends to be good for some sectors of the economy (i.e. tourism, restauration, culture, etc.) As a whole(and in theory) it should drag -with some delays- the construction industry into building more housing units at a faster pace. Now, considering the economy as a whole was very good pre-pandemic and we were near full employment, construction companies likely had trouble finding more qualified workers to fulfill the demand. Government incentives were also either not present or not strong enough for new 'affordable' housing to be build in cities. I know I went up fairly quickly over these issues, there is so much more going on, I strongly suggest reading/researching more about the various issues as there are definitely valuable startup ideas hiding in there. Overall, I have no doubts the balance will be reached in the following decades: (i)Regulations to limit the numbers of airbnbs, coupled with permits and taxes. (ii)Strong government incentives to build more housing as I doubt people leave the cities for good following the pandemic, let alone remote working remaining the standard. (iii)Airbnb modifying it's business model. i.e. keeping the actual airbnbs, but potentially acquiring hotel chains amongst other things.
  • piokoch 6y ago
    "it should drag -with some delays- the construction industry into building more housing units at a faster pace". But how? How can you build more apartments in Lisbon or Amsterdam, where every inch is already used? Houses can be build in more distant areas but this forces people to commute longer making their live much worst.
    • MartianSquirrel 6y ago
      The demand gets higher, therefore a healthy market will move towards a supply/demand equilibrium. There are creative ways to go around most problems, given the incentives are strong enough. i.e. we all live underground /s On the other side, too much regulation can prove to be a strong disincentive. In this case I expect architecture or density requirements, amongst other things, in cities like Amsterdam to cool down the market, maybe a bit too much.
• andrepd 6y ago
  Short term rentals being more profitable than actual homes for people, this means that (i) rents, already a grueling expense for many people, are pushed up, the consequences being (ii) people either cough up and become even poorer, or more likely move away from the city centres and spend time and money commuting, meaning (iii) popular destinations become hollow theme parks for tourists, while actual residents are shafted in every possible way. In short, in a city like Lisbon, good luck being a student for example. Pay upwards of 500$/mo (or for perspective, 75% monthly minimum wage) for a room in a shared house, or live a 1h30 commute away from campus.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • santoshalper 6y ago
    So I've heard this argument before, but I'm not sure I entirely get it. Wouldn't people coming to Lisbon just stay somewhere else if short-term rentals didn't exist - like a hotel that is likely owned by a massive corporation? How would that be better? I guess that way I look at it is that people want to visit cities for a variety of reasons. Those people need to stay somewhere. Wherever they stay will take up space, thus driving up rents through land scarcity. I am not really sure how people staying in someone's apartment is much worse than staying in a hotel. If rents are going up, it's because there is more demand than supply. Unless Airbnb is actually increasing demand (perhaps?), I don't see how it is really affecting this equation.
    • fnordian_slip 6y ago
      Of course they are increasing demand by being cheaper (because they can ignore fire safety regulations and a ton of others that hotels have to follow, therefore having an unfair advantage). They are increasing demand in the same way more and bigger roads do not reduce but instead increase traffic. This paradox is well-known among city planners (but often ignored by those who make the decisions because it is counterintuitive). In addition to that they can ignore zoning laws and therefore move rent prices up in areas where hotels are not allowed to be.
• sellyme 6y ago
  It's yet another contributing factor to people thinking that they need to own 10 properties as an investment while significant chunks of the population are forced into sleeping on the streets. Of course it's not AirBnB's fault that there's no regulatory oversight on the hoarding of basic life necessities, and the original pitch ("couchsurfing but for money") clearly did not have that intent, but at this stage they're going to push back pretty hard against any restrictions on that kind of behaviour.
  • est31 6y ago
    > people thinking that they need to own 10 properties as an investment I wonder what would happen if housing were not an investment but construction would be legalized that turned housing into a commodity. Right now many attractive cities are often captured by home owners who collude against against new housing because that pushes prices down. I hope the company that comes after Airbnb disrupts the construction industry, allowing cheap but high quality housing for everyone, and not just anywhere but in places of demand.
    • skewart 6y ago
      The big problem is that land value tends to fill any void created by lower construction costs. If buyers are willing to pay $100 for a home in a given location, then land will typically sell at 100 minus the cost of construction (and a small risk/profit premium). So even if you lower construction costs you’ll just increase what people are willing to pay for land. That said, that kind of balancing takes time in practice, so if you did find a way to deliver a lot of housing at a much lower cost you could exploit the delay and build a lot of housing quickly, which would increase supply, which would lower what buyers are willing to pay. Basically you’d have to flood the market with so much cheap housing that buyers willingness to pay goes down. I think a better approach to fighting high housing prices is to make more different cities and towns appealing places to live. There already is a ton of housing in this country but it’s in places where not many people want to live.
• jasonv 6y ago
  See South Lake Tahoe.
• throwaway03857 6y ago
  Airbnb, backed by VC money, were willing to enable the breaking of local laws on a mass scale. These laws, about the standards that bed and breakfasts and other short term lets must meet (things like meeting fire and health and safety regulations) and also limiting the number of short term lets in an area to retain actual, functional cities people can afford to live in rather than tourist traps were and are intentionally bypassed by the Airbnb founders and their funders as part of their business plan. Airbnbs, contrary to the "ooh its helping people meet their rent" narrative pushed by PG are often owned by rich multiple property owning rentiers who are profiting off rich tourists by driving out poorer people who would like to actually live in these areas. Airbnb is a blight in cities all over the world.
  • darawk 6y ago
    It sounds like what you actually mean is that there is not enough housing supply to meet the demand. Demand which has been augmented by AirBnB. This is a zoning and infrastructure problem, and it was not created by them, nor can it be fixed by them.
    • throwaway03857 6y ago
      No it was created by them because they ignore those zoning laws and are willing to go to court to fight attempts to enforce them against their clientele. Finding a creative way to help people break laws with little chance of their being any consequences for yourself because you are a) in another jurisdiction and b) backed by billionaires like PG who believe they have a divine right to "disrupt" societies against the wishes of the people who live in them in the name if profit, is not something to be applauded. There is nothing "natural" about the creation of demand by Airbnb and it has brought little but misery to the poorest members of society while enriching those at the top.
    • TeMPOraL 6y ago
      There's indeed not enough housing supply to meet the total demand. There are various reasons for that, but that's the ground state. What AirBnB does is add to this an incentive for existing supply to further shift from serving city residents to serving tourists. Since housing supply isn't limited by low demand but by external and difficult to change factors, what AirBnB does is just making a bad situation much worse for cities worldwide.
• niels_bom 6y ago
  I live in Amsterdam where there’s a lot of AirBNB and I see and hear two big negative consequences: (1) rent and house prices have gone up because people can make more money with AirBNB than regular renters and houses being bought as investments. (2) I know some people in the center of Amsterdam that see (before the pandemic anyway) a lot of trash on the streets (discarded mattresses) from “homes” that are being AirBNB’ed. And lots of noise complaints as well.
• haspok 6y ago
  The core problem is the same as with Uber: they are playing on a field where other players have to play by strict rules (just think about what regulations apply to a hotel, for example), but they do not. In other words, it all started as an opportunity for private people sharing their rooms, now there are more and more businesses operating in this space, reaping all the benefits, but giving nothing back in return, paying no taxes, ignoring all safety measures etc. Give people the opportunity to abuse the system, and abuse they will. Local rental prices skyrocketing is one side-effect, destroying the neighbourhood is another. There are positives too, like I now have the opportunity to easily rent a room or flat with a kitchen so I can cook myself (with various food intolerances/allergies this is important), this would not have been possible - or would have been really expensive - in the pre-airbnb world.
  • paulie_a 6y ago
    I'm not sure what strict regulations cabs have to follow, but for safety I'll take an Uber over a cab any day. The yellow cab industry might be tightly regulated, but It doesn't seem to benefit the consumers. Cabs suck, plain and simple. Even the worst uber I've personally had was far better than a cab In general the yellow cab monopoly got smashed apart with a sledgehammer.
    • skewart 6y ago
      I agree with you about cabs in the US compared to ride hailing apps. But AirBnB is very different, and worse. The hotel industry is nothing like the cab industry. And residential real estate is nothing like roads. Hotels face lots of regulation not only on how they operate (fire safety, egress, food safety, etc) but also where they can operate. AirBnB lets investors get around all these regulations and tap into tourism demand at a much lower cost.