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Releasing stats on race of renters and which race has the most problem renters would help ease fears... if the stats show that all groups behave the same on the

by filed 5y ago

Releasing stats on race of renters and which race has the most problem renters would help ease fears... if the stats show that all groups behave the same on the whole and there is no financial motivation to be biased. Or if there is a difference then Airbnb could say if anything bad happens to your home then we got you.. then you wouldn't be afraid of anything.

aeternum 5y ago
Some kind of damage insurance definitely seems like the right way to solve this. It's interesting that we are okay with discrimination in some cases but not in others, for example young males pay higher car insurance premiums (because they legitimately represent more risk). It's still pretty unfair for those young males that are very careful drivers.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > because they legitimately represent more risk Do they? Two equivalent ways of approaching the problem: Risk is the same for everyone and decreases with age OR risk stays the same for every member of the population throughout their lives. What's interesting with fatal car crashes is that they can happen only once in a driver's life (you can't die twice). So when looking at an age cohort, the young male who dies at 18 can't die again at 36 and is therefore going to be excluded from his age cohort. Now the question is how could we predict the individual risk level (parent income? Education? Zip Code? Race?). Doing it accurately would probably be illegal, so we accept that the young careful drivers will just foot the bill for everyone.
  - aeternum 5y ago
    Fatal crashes make up something like 0.27% of accidents so I doubt it even factors into the insurance cost. Almost all the insurance payouts are accidents that significantly damage the car or require expensive medical attention, but those can definitely happen more than once for a young male (or anyone).
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      > Almost all the insurance payouts are accidents that significantly damage the car or require expensive medical attention I would be curious to see the numbers on this.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  It’s just true that stereotypes are pretty accurate for entire populations but unfair to individuals. If you as an Airbnb owner decided to only rent out to old grandmas, you would see a lower risk and less damage. Because as a population, grandmas are less likely to throw a party.
jollybean 5y ago
"Or if there is a difference then Airbnb could say if anything bad happens to your home then we got you." Wow, no. If the data shows that 'people of certain groups are more likely to cause damage' it's 'game over' ... they could never release the data. In fact, they probably don't want to even see the data, internally, it's explosive. There would be a big fuss over it, and maybe even some court cases. "if anything bad happens to your home then we got you." AirBnB can't afford to cover you getting raped or killed by someone staying in your home. People on this thread have misrepresented the issue by focusing on rentals as though they are commercial spaces, but a significant portion of rentals are merely places in people's home which is a giant difference. Moreover, what sane person would trust a giant corporation to support them in the event of some kind of severe or traumatizing thing, let alone just property damage? I almost wonder if the 'rent a room in my home' should be a completely different line of business from apartment rentals.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  There are endless stories of hosts having their house trashed and Airbnb support going silent on them.

by filed 5y ago

aeternum 5y ago

Some kind of damage insurance definitely seems like the right way to solve this. It's interesting that we are okay with discrimination in some cases but not in others, for example young males pay higher car insurance premiums (because they legitimately represent more risk). It's still pretty unfair for those young males that are very careful drivers.

908B64B197 5y ago
> because they legitimately represent more risk Do they? Two equivalent ways of approaching the problem: Risk is the same for everyone and decreases with age OR risk stays the same for every member of the population throughout their lives. What's interesting with fatal car crashes is that they can happen only once in a driver's life (you can't die twice). So when looking at an age cohort, the young male who dies at 18 can't die again at 36 and is therefore going to be excluded from his age cohort. Now the question is how could we predict the individual risk level (parent income? Education? Zip Code? Race?). Doing it accurately would probably be illegal, so we accept that the young careful drivers will just foot the bill for everyone.
- aeternum 5y ago
  Fatal crashes make up something like 0.27% of accidents so I doubt it even factors into the insurance cost. Almost all the insurance payouts are accidents that significantly damage the car or require expensive medical attention, but those can definitely happen more than once for a young male (or anyone).
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > Almost all the insurance payouts are accidents that significantly damage the car or require expensive medical attention I would be curious to see the numbers on this.
Gigachad 5y ago
It’s just true that stereotypes are pretty accurate for entire populations but unfair to individuals. If you as an Airbnb owner decided to only rent out to old grandmas, you would see a lower risk and less damage. Because as a population, grandmas are less likely to throw a party.

jollybean 5y ago

"Or if there is a difference then Airbnb could say if anything bad happens to your home then we got you." Wow, no. If the data shows that 'people of certain groups are more likely to cause damage' it's 'game over' ... they could never release the data. In fact, they probably don't want to even see the data, internally, it's explosive. There would be a big fuss over it, and maybe even some court cases. "if anything bad happens to your home then we got you." AirBnB can't afford to cover you getting raped or killed by someone staying in your home. People on this thread have misrepresented the issue by focusing on rentals as though they are commercial spaces, but a significant portion of rentals are merely places in people's home which is a giant difference. Moreover, what sane person would trust a giant corporation to support them in the event of some kind of severe or traumatizing thing, let alone just property damage? I almost wonder if the 'rent a room in my home' should be a completely different line of business from apartment rentals.

Gigachad 5y ago
There are endless stories of hosts having their house trashed and Airbnb support going silent on them.