4 ms·

Congrats for building something!!! Too bad it feeds into the affordability crisis though.

idoescompooters 3y ago
People often forget that locals are actually willingly choosing to host their places on these platforms themselves to make money. It's not as one-sided as you think.
- Thin_icE 3y ago
  You forget that the people who can afford to have a place to rent, usually are not the majority of the population of the place where the rental is located. I live in a city that was very welcoming to tourists before airbnb, and where locals are now starting to behave in a hostile way towards non-locals, due to the affordability crisis (myself included, I had a 70%+ rent increase this month). You can try to make yourself feel better by saying you're not the problem, but you are, and locals everywhere are starting to hate people like you. My advice, unsolicited as it might be, is to relocate yourself to near where you're working for, as it's the economy for which you are being paid, and continue building great software, but with the world (and not yourself) in mind.
  - idoescompooters 3y ago
    Tourism is providing these local economies with money. Shoo-ing away the tourists is not the answer. They are providing significant money into some very bad economies, and in some cases such as resorts, hiring locals and paying them decent wages (I see this in Indonesia). I assure you suburban US does not need your money.
    - Thin_icE 3y ago
      Tourism provides money to these local economies, true. But what airbnb, and digital nomads, did was to subvert these local economies to depend on the to survive, turning whole cities (some of which are world heritage sites) into amusement rides for tourists. Have you ever stopped to think what is life like for the locals who work in the resorts (to take your example), and can't afford to live nowhere near their workplace, having to commute for over an hour (in the best case scenarios) only to smile at tourists that become upset because they can't speak their language? It's lovely to say that businesses should pay locals a decent wage, but that very rarely happens, the "decent" is a very debatable number. And anyway, no one in the world needs your suburban US money, please keep it to yourself and your suburban US economy.
      - midasuni 3y ago
        How does a “digital nomad” differ from a resident that works from home?
        Thin_icE 3y ago
        A resident that works from home earns a salary that is calculated according to the economy where he resides, whereas a digital nomad, tipically chooses a destination with a lower cost of living, while earning a salary that was calculated for the economy of his original whereabouts. The digital nomad creates inflation and makes it impossible for locals to live on their own region, while someone who works from home does not have that ability to tip the economy.
- oldtownroad 3y ago
  That’s not true. The Airbnb industrial complex is mature, “locals” renting out a spare room have been replaced by profiteers evading tourism taxes. Ethical tourism involves using locally licensed accommodation (which is mostly hotels). Any money you save by using Airbnb is pushing the cost of your tourism onto locals. Pay for a hotel (or other licensed accommodation) or stay home.
  - jazzkingrt 3y ago
    I am an airbnb host, and exclusively rent out my own apartment on the handful of weeks per year that I'm traveling. If airbnb was banned, my apartment would be vacant during that time. This would push tourists into hotels, driving up the cost of a hotel room, and furthering the affordability crisis since developers would see more upside in hotels rather than residential development.
    - jjulius 3y ago
      Sample size: 1
      - constantly 3y ago
        A single counterexample is thankfully enough to disprove a false statement.
        monsieurbanana 3y ago
        It would only be a false statement if the person meant that it's true for 100% of the time, always, rather than some kind of majority of the time. Which is the least charitable way of interpreting their comment and as such against hn guidelines.
        jjulius 3y ago
        Only if the counterexample is the majority. That doesn't seem to be the case here.
    - 3y ago
627467 3y ago
Whoa. Travellers are now responsible for all political and macroeconomical decisions on all countries/cities in the world. #shutdownTravelling
ajmurmann 3y ago
If locals would vote to relax zoning and simplify regulations we wouldn't have the crisis in the first place.
- ktosobcy 3y ago
  I'm sorry but what are you rambling about? Barcelona for example is flooded with tourists and "nomads" and save for basically banning short term rentals and eradicating cancerous Airbnb there is not that much that can be done...
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    If there is demand for a thing and its exceeded such that people who want that thing can’t get it, just make more of that thing. Barcelona should build like Tokyo does until demand is satiated. The solution exists, people are just generally in favor of how things presently look and feel like and fear the unknown, so policies on land use tend to reflect these feelings.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    Is the problem in Barcelona that the ration of tourists to locals is broken (I agree it is and didn't like it there when I visited because of this) or is the problem affordability as called out by the parent comment? If the issue is affordability this can be addressed by increasing supply. If the issue is simply too many tourists flooding the city and changing the character, it's a different point than I was responding to and I don't have any well-formed thoughts on potential solutions and causes.
    - ktosobcy 3y ago
      It's both actually and they are compounding. For the latter one there exists tourist tax that could curb a bit the overflood but AFAIR it was harder to enforce / collect with Airbnb and short term rentals (as opposed to typical licensed hotels and hostels) that only exasperated the situation by pushing more people to try to cash on the airbnb
- 3y ago
throw__away7391 3y ago
If you are a digital nomad you are still only occupying one space at a time. Bigger picture though, there’s a major contradiction in housing around the world and that is that owners who tend to be older and more likely to vote benefit enormously from rising home prices and governments which collect property tax as a percentage of property value receive more revenue when prices rise. Both groups have grown to depend on perpetually rising property values and factored it into their long term financial plans. There are numerous ways this is achieved that vary somewhat from location to location but the result is the same. After years of housing simply eating up more and more of renters and new homebuyers income we are reaching a breaking point and governments are looking for something other than their own policies (which they have every intention of continuing) to blame. Governments if so motivated have numerous tools at their disposal to reduce home prices, which all in all is probably easier than the reverse. There are a handful of governments which have successfully done this, but the ones that haven’t won’t do this because they’d simultaneously anger both property owners and recipients of government spending which would need to be cut.
- midasuni 3y ago
  In the U.K. there is no tax related to house prices, just relative prices. If prices double from 250k to 500k government doesn’t get any more money. The fault is entirely with those who don’t want more housing built. The government can use this as a wedge issue and blame immigrants (the ones who work and pay taxes) rather than the wealthy retirees
  - throw__away7391 3y ago
    I don’t think we disagree. The details do vary from place to place, but I think the overall dynamics remain. The established lot has grown accustomed to feeding on ongoing price increases in an unsustainable manner. Any changes that would make housing more affordable would disrupt their financial expectations in ways that are unthinkable to them, so they’re trying to squeeze every other option available.

People often forget that locals are actually willingly choosing to host their places on these platforms themselves to make money. It's not as one-sided as you think.

Thin_icE 3y ago
You forget that the people who can afford to have a place to rent, usually are not the majority of the population of the place where the rental is located. I live in a city that was very welcoming to tourists before airbnb, and where locals are now starting to behave in a hostile way towards non-locals, due to the affordability crisis (myself included, I had a 70%+ rent increase this month). You can try to make yourself feel better by saying you're not the problem, but you are, and locals everywhere are starting to hate people like you. My advice, unsolicited as it might be, is to relocate yourself to near where you're working for, as it's the economy for which you are being paid, and continue building great software, but with the world (and not yourself) in mind.
- idoescompooters 3y ago
  Tourism is providing these local economies with money. Shoo-ing away the tourists is not the answer. They are providing significant money into some very bad economies, and in some cases such as resorts, hiring locals and paying them decent wages (I see this in Indonesia). I assure you suburban US does not need your money.
  - Thin_icE 3y ago
    Tourism provides money to these local economies, true. But what airbnb, and digital nomads, did was to subvert these local economies to depend on the to survive, turning whole cities (some of which are world heritage sites) into amusement rides for tourists. Have you ever stopped to think what is life like for the locals who work in the resorts (to take your example), and can't afford to live nowhere near their workplace, having to commute for over an hour (in the best case scenarios) only to smile at tourists that become upset because they can't speak their language? It's lovely to say that businesses should pay locals a decent wage, but that very rarely happens, the "decent" is a very debatable number. And anyway, no one in the world needs your suburban US money, please keep it to yourself and your suburban US economy.
    - midasuni 3y ago
      How does a “digital nomad” differ from a resident that works from home?
      - Thin_icE 3y ago
        A resident that works from home earns a salary that is calculated according to the economy where he resides, whereas a digital nomad, tipically chooses a destination with a lower cost of living, while earning a salary that was calculated for the economy of his original whereabouts. The digital nomad creates inflation and makes it impossible for locals to live on their own region, while someone who works from home does not have that ability to tip the economy.
oldtownroad 3y ago
That’s not true. The Airbnb industrial complex is mature, “locals” renting out a spare room have been replaced by profiteers evading tourism taxes. Ethical tourism involves using locally licensed accommodation (which is mostly hotels). Any money you save by using Airbnb is pushing the cost of your tourism onto locals. Pay for a hotel (or other licensed accommodation) or stay home.
- jazzkingrt 3y ago
  I am an airbnb host, and exclusively rent out my own apartment on the handful of weeks per year that I'm traveling. If airbnb was banned, my apartment would be vacant during that time. This would push tourists into hotels, driving up the cost of a hotel room, and furthering the affordability crisis since developers would see more upside in hotels rather than residential development.
  - jjulius 3y ago
    Sample size: 1
    - constantly 3y ago
      A single counterexample is thankfully enough to disprove a false statement.
      - monsieurbanana 3y ago
        It would only be a false statement if the person meant that it's true for 100% of the time, always, rather than some kind of majority of the time. Which is the least charitable way of interpreting their comment and as such against hn guidelines.
      - jjulius 3y ago
        Only if the counterexample is the majority. That doesn't seem to be the case here.
  - 3y ago

627467 3y ago

Whoa. Travellers are now responsible for all political and macroeconomical decisions on all countries/cities in the world. #shutdownTravelling

ajmurmann 3y ago

If locals would vote to relax zoning and simplify regulations we wouldn't have the crisis in the first place.

ktosobcy 3y ago
I'm sorry but what are you rambling about? Barcelona for example is flooded with tourists and "nomads" and save for basically banning short term rentals and eradicating cancerous Airbnb there is not that much that can be done...
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  If there is demand for a thing and its exceeded such that people who want that thing can’t get it, just make more of that thing. Barcelona should build like Tokyo does until demand is satiated. The solution exists, people are just generally in favor of how things presently look and feel like and fear the unknown, so policies on land use tend to reflect these feelings.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  Is the problem in Barcelona that the ration of tourists to locals is broken (I agree it is and didn't like it there when I visited because of this) or is the problem affordability as called out by the parent comment? If the issue is affordability this can be addressed by increasing supply. If the issue is simply too many tourists flooding the city and changing the character, it's a different point than I was responding to and I don't have any well-formed thoughts on potential solutions and causes.
  - ktosobcy 3y ago
    It's both actually and they are compounding. For the latter one there exists tourist tax that could curb a bit the overflood but AFAIR it was harder to enforce / collect with Airbnb and short term rentals (as opposed to typical licensed hotels and hostels) that only exasperated the situation by pushing more people to try to cash on the airbnb
3y ago

throw__away7391 3y ago

If you are a digital nomad you are still only occupying one space at a time. Bigger picture though, there’s a major contradiction in housing around the world and that is that owners who tend to be older and more likely to vote benefit enormously from rising home prices and governments which collect property tax as a percentage of property value receive more revenue when prices rise. Both groups have grown to depend on perpetually rising property values and factored it into their long term financial plans. There are numerous ways this is achieved that vary somewhat from location to location but the result is the same. After years of housing simply eating up more and more of renters and new homebuyers income we are reaching a breaking point and governments are looking for something other than their own policies (which they have every intention of continuing) to blame. Governments if so motivated have numerous tools at their disposal to reduce home prices, which all in all is probably easier than the reverse. There are a handful of governments which have successfully done this, but the ones that haven’t won’t do this because they’d simultaneously anger both property owners and recipients of government spending which would need to be cut.

midasuni 3y ago
In the U.K. there is no tax related to house prices, just relative prices. If prices double from 250k to 500k government doesn’t get any more money. The fault is entirely with those who don’t want more housing built. The government can use this as a wedge issue and blame immigrants (the ones who work and pay taxes) rather than the wealthy retirees
- throw__away7391 3y ago
  I don’t think we disagree. The details do vary from place to place, but I think the overall dynamics remain. The established lot has grown accustomed to feeding on ongoing price increases in an unsustainable manner. Any changes that would make housing more affordable would disrupt their financial expectations in ways that are unthinkable to them, so they’re trying to squeeze every other option available.