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I'll take a shot and someone with domain expertise can opine on my low-effort take. In kaibee's first paragraph, there's a missing question: Is it collusion to

I'll take a shot and someone with domain expertise can opine on my low-effort take. In kaibee's first paragraph, there's a missing question: Is it collusion to pay someone to set rates accordingly by using information and decision-making processes you yourself could not have gotten on your own? I think this is the key. E.g., looking at Zillow could tell a given landlord that they need to charge more rent for a given unit. But looking at Zillow couldn't tell that same landlord to, say, keep that unit vacant for months in the hopes there is a multi-landlord unit-vacancy plan to increase prices across a city. And IIRC, these kinds of decisions have been made by a lot of landlords in a lot of these markets. In fact, if I'm a landlord, I'm not going to take that risk unless I've got a good reason to believe that a) the software I'm relying on is used by the vast majority of other landlords, and b) the software is advising and strongly incentivizing everyone else to do the same thing. (And possibly that there are penalties if the other landlords don't make that move.)

cptaj 3y ago
I think the problem here is that marketplaces need to be neutral and regulated as public utilities. The same thing happens with amazon stealing vendor business, and arbitrarily banning people without legal recourse. When you set the market, you can't be allowed to dictate who participates. Its the same core problem. These private marketplaces grow to the point where everyone depends on them and then shenanigans ensue
renewiltord 3y ago
I agree. I think the crucial functionality is the common knowledge of common knowledge that no one else will renege on the deal. That’s effectively cartelization.
WalterBright 3y ago
Part of this may be driven by the laws that prevent landlords from evicting tenants or raising rates.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  The US court system is really dropping the ball here. Simple evictions for nonpayment should take a week and almost no legal costs. Instead, I am looking at 6+ months of lawyer and court costs in some of the states. And this is at hotels. Our solution? Force all hotel guests to checkout before reaching the statutory number of nights that afford them tenant protections. Which is massively inconveniencing responsible people, all because the government wants to protect scammers.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    In general, all of these "protections" just result in higher costs for everybody.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Somewhat, some people suffer more costs than others. Scammers benefit from the protections, and responsible people shoulder the cost. Politicians should be providing housing to people if they want them to not be homeless, or paying the housing vendor. It’s easier to get elected by promising housing and low taxes though, and punt the costs onto select portions of the populace who play a game of trying to determine who is going to use the laws to scam them, which ends up resulting in discrimination.
      - WalterBright 3y ago
        What do you think would happen if the government offered free middle class housing?
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Conversing about anything involving the term “middle class” without an extensive definition of it is a waste of time. Obviously, free too much of anything skews incentives. But the consequences of homelessness should not be borne by select portions of the population.

cptaj 3y ago

I think the problem here is that marketplaces need to be neutral and regulated as public utilities. The same thing happens with amazon stealing vendor business, and arbitrarily banning people without legal recourse. When you set the market, you can't be allowed to dictate who participates. Its the same core problem. These private marketplaces grow to the point where everyone depends on them and then shenanigans ensue

renewiltord 3y ago

I agree. I think the crucial functionality is the common knowledge of common knowledge that no one else will renege on the deal. That’s effectively cartelization.

WalterBright 3y ago

Part of this may be driven by the laws that prevent landlords from evicting tenants or raising rates.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
The US court system is really dropping the ball here. Simple evictions for nonpayment should take a week and almost no legal costs. Instead, I am looking at 6+ months of lawyer and court costs in some of the states. And this is at hotels. Our solution? Force all hotel guests to checkout before reaching the statutory number of nights that afford them tenant protections. Which is massively inconveniencing responsible people, all because the government wants to protect scammers.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  In general, all of these "protections" just result in higher costs for everybody.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Somewhat, some people suffer more costs than others. Scammers benefit from the protections, and responsible people shoulder the cost. Politicians should be providing housing to people if they want them to not be homeless, or paying the housing vendor. It’s easier to get elected by promising housing and low taxes though, and punt the costs onto select portions of the populace who play a game of trying to determine who is going to use the laws to scam them, which ends up resulting in discrimination.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      What do you think would happen if the government offered free middle class housing?
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Conversing about anything involving the term “middle class” without an extensive definition of it is a waste of time. Obviously, free too much of anything skews incentives. But the consequences of homelessness should not be borne by select portions of the population.