4 ms·

Uber, AirBnb, Door dash etc. have added tremendous value to my life and society in general. That’s not a Ponzi scheme. At worst you could call it a social wealt

Uber, AirBnb, Door dash etc. have added tremendous value to my life and society in general. That’s not a Ponzi scheme. At worst you could call it a social wealth redistribution program of sorts.

p0pcult 4y ago
>have added tremendous value to ... society in general [citation missing]
- bergenty 4y ago
  All those rides, vacation housing and home deliveries? It’s not rocket science. I mean people support themselves using Uber/Airbnb alone.
  - p0pcult 4y ago
    You mean, the fucked housing and rental markets? Or perhaps you were referring to the rent seeking on the restaurant industry? Or do you mean the "contractors" who subsidize Uber with their cars? Or was it the taxi drivers whose livelihoods were destroyed?
  - z9znz 4y ago
    Rent-seeking, profiteering people taking local resources inordinately and making a bit extra for themselves? Nobody who has ever lived in a popular (unregulated) area that has a lot of Airbnb activity would ever be ok with this. Suffice to say, your opinion means you are one of these airbnb owners or simply don't know what it's like.
rjsw 4y ago
I live next to an AirBnB, it hasn't added tremendous value to my life.
- z9znz 4y ago
  You aren't enriched by people coming and going all the time, making a lot of random noise, and raising your local property values???
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Value to your life but a lot of pain to locals of tourist heavy towns who have been outpriced out of their town by Airbnb investors
lmm 4y ago
If you take out all the crime (unlicensed taxis/hotels) and subsidies, is there any value left? I never used them but I've seen a lot of people saying that e.g. airbnb isn't actually any cheaper or easier than a hotel nowadays.
- z9znz 4y ago
  Once in a while you can find a good Airbnb which you would not find an equal to in the many hotel apps. But over time, more and more legitimate 'homestay' rooms can be listed on real hotel apps. I'm a hotels.com or booking or agoda user, and I've booked dozens of stays in the last few years. My partner has some hippie fetish which leads her to start with Airbnb in searches for stays. 9 times out of 10, the Airbnb opportunities are far less than they appear to be. Less often, the hotel options are. The ancient original Airbnb idea was good - someone comes and stays at your place (while you are there), and you make a little extra money while they get a decent place to stay. But unsurprisingly that got corrupted into maximizing profits. Airbnb also recognized early that they could not make $$$ with their original idea, so they pivoted to the broader "take my whole apartment" concept which is the current norm.
z9znz 4y ago
Look at Uber's funding rounds. They have had round after round, and each round increases the valuation such that previous rounds' investors make a "profit" (their stock value increases). Yet, Uber isn't making a profit. Airbnb did the same on a much smaller scale. Ignoring the investment round topics of both companies, they also both made their actual financial progress by blatantly ignoring local laws. Airbnb walked right past hotel laws even though their hosts were clearly party to those laws. Uber drove right past the local taxi laws. On the human side, life got far worse for people living in cities where Airbnb became popular. I lived in Amsterdam for a few years as Airbnb was growing, and very rapidly you started to see people buying apartment just to rent out for tourists through Airbnb. That pushed apartment rates up, and it added a lot of really shitty short term visitors to the neighborhoods. Every tourist destination has confronted this problem, and now many laws exist specifically because of Airbnb. I would not tout this as a "success". And in some parts of the world, the ability to sign up and become an Uber driver has resulted in harm to passengers. Prior to Uber, many of these places had regulations which made it difficult enough to become a commercial driver that no driver would risk their business for the opportunity to rob or rape a passenger.

Uber, AirBnb, Door dash etc. have added tremendous value to my life and society in general. That’s not a Ponzi scheme. At worst you could call it a social wealth redistribution program of sorts.

p0pcult 4y ago

>have added tremendous value to ... society in general [citation missing]

bergenty 4y ago
All those rides, vacation housing and home deliveries? It’s not rocket science. I mean people support themselves using Uber/Airbnb alone.
- p0pcult 4y ago
  You mean, the fucked housing and rental markets? Or perhaps you were referring to the rent seeking on the restaurant industry? Or do you mean the "contractors" who subsidize Uber with their cars? Or was it the taxi drivers whose livelihoods were destroyed?
- z9znz 4y ago
  Rent-seeking, profiteering people taking local resources inordinately and making a bit extra for themselves? Nobody who has ever lived in a popular (unregulated) area that has a lot of Airbnb activity would ever be ok with this. Suffice to say, your opinion means you are one of these airbnb owners or simply don't know what it's like.

rjsw 4y ago

I live next to an AirBnB, it hasn't added tremendous value to my life.

z9znz 4y ago
You aren't enriched by people coming and going all the time, making a lot of random noise, and raising your local property values???

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Value to your life but a lot of pain to locals of tourist heavy towns who have been outpriced out of their town by Airbnb investors

lmm 4y ago

If you take out all the crime (unlicensed taxis/hotels) and subsidies, is there any value left? I never used them but I've seen a lot of people saying that e.g. airbnb isn't actually any cheaper or easier than a hotel nowadays.

z9znz 4y ago
Once in a while you can find a good Airbnb which you would not find an equal to in the many hotel apps. But over time, more and more legitimate 'homestay' rooms can be listed on real hotel apps. I'm a hotels.com or booking or agoda user, and I've booked dozens of stays in the last few years. My partner has some hippie fetish which leads her to start with Airbnb in searches for stays. 9 times out of 10, the Airbnb opportunities are far less than they appear to be. Less often, the hotel options are. The ancient original Airbnb idea was good - someone comes and stays at your place (while you are there), and you make a little extra money while they get a decent place to stay. But unsurprisingly that got corrupted into maximizing profits. Airbnb also recognized early that they could not make $$$ with their original idea, so they pivoted to the broader "take my whole apartment" concept which is the current norm.

z9znz 4y ago

Look at Uber's funding rounds. They have had round after round, and each round increases the valuation such that previous rounds' investors make a "profit" (their stock value increases). Yet, Uber isn't making a profit. Airbnb did the same on a much smaller scale. Ignoring the investment round topics of both companies, they also both made their actual financial progress by blatantly ignoring local laws. Airbnb walked right past hotel laws even though their hosts were clearly party to those laws. Uber drove right past the local taxi laws. On the human side, life got far worse for people living in cities where Airbnb became popular. I lived in Amsterdam for a few years as Airbnb was growing, and very rapidly you started to see people buying apartment just to rent out for tourists through Airbnb. That pushed apartment rates up, and it added a lot of really shitty short term visitors to the neighborhoods. Every tourist destination has confronted this problem, and now many laws exist specifically because of Airbnb. I would not tout this as a "success". And in some parts of the world, the ability to sign up and become an Uber driver has resulted in harm to passengers. Prior to Uber, many of these places had regulations which made it difficult enough to become a commercial driver that no driver would risk their business for the opportunity to rob or rape a passenger.