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That is an absolutely terrible lesson to draw from this episode. First and most importantly, Airbnb and Uber are not disrupting industries burdened primarily b

That is an absolutely terrible lesson to draw from this episode. First and most importantly, Airbnb and Uber are not disrupting industries burdened primarily by consumer safety regulations; they are disrupting industries burdened primarily by barriers to entrance that are designed to direct economic rents to politically favored actors. Huge difference. There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story for preventing licensed livery cab drivers from picking up curb hails, whether on the iphone or otherwise. The law is there to protect the incomes of people who buy cab licences. There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. The law is there to protect hotel operators from vacation rental competition. So let's not compare Bitcoin with Uber and Airbnb, because they are completely different animals. Bank security regulations, OTOH, ARE designed to protect consumers, although I'd argue that they're mostly unnecessary in practice. Legitimate banks don't get hacked because there are billions of dollars at stake for the banking institution, and their business literally depends on their ability to secure payments. The incentives are there with or without bank regulations. Bitcoin sites, on the other hand, regularly get hacked because they are fly-by-night operations written by idiots who are probably also trying to steal from you. It's the fake-money equivalent of using www.send-monie-through-me.co.in and then being surprised when you get ripped off. Bottom line: there is nothing wrong with regulation designed to protect consumers from actual threats. There is everything wrong with regulation designed to protect business from competition. The latter is what needs to be 'disrupted'.

rprasad 14y ago
I disagree 100% with your non-Bitcoin factual assertions because they are demonstrably false but I do not have the time to address them point-by-point. But I will address this one major factual error: Legitimate banks don't get hacked because there are billions of dollars at stake for the banking institution, and their business literally depends on their ability to secure payments. Banks are not in the business of securing payments; that is what payment processors like Mastercard and Visa do. Banks are in the business of investing money which has been deposited with them. As a result of (state and federal) legislation, banks are liable for making depositors whole in the event of theft, so they are motivated to invest significant sums in security.
Eliezer 14y ago
Legitimate banks don't get hacked? Is that true?
- jspthrowaway2 14y ago
  You don't hear of any high-profile bank disclosures, which I imagine is probably because they have security teams that keep up with everything religiously. Most old brick banks have internal systems architected in ways that a younger intruder in the Anonymous mold wouldn't know anything about, as well; you're starting to get into big iron Cobol land. That said, I don't think it's an impossible task (is anything?), and I'm sure some day there will be a large disclosure through some means, internally-assisted or otherwise.
  - makomk 14y ago
    There was actually a high-profile incident not too long ago with one of the big banks' online banking system. Users could view other people's account information just by incrementing an integer in the URL as I recall. It's not necessarily so much that banks are secure, but hacking them is much riskier than hacking Bitcoin sites, especially for white-hats.
    - tedunangst 14y ago
      Are you thinking of Heroku? Heroku isn't a bank.
      - lclarkmichalek 14y ago
        It was probably Santander: http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Santander-s-online-banking-keeps-passwords-in-cookies-Update-1730364.html http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Santander-s-onlin..., though there have been other instances of bad bank web practices.
        tedunangst 14y ago
        Putting plaintext passwords in a cookie doesn't sound anything like incrementing an integer in a URL.
dougmccune 14y ago
Claiming hotel regulation has no benefit to consumers is simply not true. Consider the perspective of a resident of San Francisco (like me). SF has a very limited amount of housing. We can debate all day about ways to fix that and impediments to building more (and more affordable) housing, but the simple facts right now are that there are a LOT more people who want to live in SF than there are housing units. Additionally, there are a lot of tourists that visit SF. Those two demands for places to sleep, from tourists and residents, are at odds. The price you can charge for a hotel room in SF is substantially greater than what you can charge on a nightly basis in stable rent. So what we're seeing happen in SF is people who have rental units that would normally be on the rental market are now pulling those off the rental market and putting them on the AirBnB market, which serves tourists instead of residents. Because frankly, why wouldn't you? If you can rent your place for $200/night to tourists you can make a hell of a lot more money than you can renting to someone for a year. The hotel regulations aren't only to help hotel consumers, they're to help the renters too. Now, you could argue the natural market economics should just play out and the city should allow as many hotels to exist as the market will support. But that's not a city I want to live in. I value prioritizing housing for residents instead of tourists.
- tomjen3 14y ago
  You may value that prioritization, but that isn't strange as you are a renter and so prefer things aligned as close as possible to your personal benefit. That is simple egoism, don't coat it in nice language.
  - jrochkind1 14y ago
    Um, in exactly the same way that tourists prefering their interests to be prioritized is also 'egoism', right? Or property owners preferring their incomes to be maximized, just like renters preferring their rents to be minimized. So?
    - davidw 14y ago
      I'm not a "market fundamentalist" by a long shot, but markets generally do a pretty good job of balancing various interests like this. They're a lot better in a case like this than the government attempting to decide how many units must be available for which uses.
tptacek 14y ago
There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. The law is there to protect hotel operators from vacation rental competition. This is not a very thoughtful comment. There are obvious reasons why properties zones for permanent residence aren't appropriate for transient residence; the latter type of occupancy is accompanied by crime and abuse. You seem to be falling into the trap of considering "consumer protection" only from the perspective of the tenant.
- sskates 14y ago
  Is there any evidence that apartments rented out with AirBnB are more prone to crime and abuse of non-tenants than apartments not rented out with AirBnB?
  - tptacek 14y ago
    You're effectively asking whether apartments rented to unchecked strangers for days at a time are more prone to abuse than apartments rented months or years at a time. There is a reason hotels require "special use" zoning exceptions in cities, and it's not because Mariott and Hyatt have captured the city council; it's often the residents who create uproars when those exceptions are granted.
    - sskates 14y ago
      I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing, we might be, we might not be. You are talking about renting apartments to unchecked strangers for days and I am talking about people renting out their apartment on AirBnB. There's some relationship between the two sets but I don't think they're equivalent. Regardless, is there evidence for the claim that crime and abuse of non-tenants is higher for either the set you're talking about or the set I'm talking about than in the general population?
      - ynniv 14y ago
        I haven't looked, but my intuition is that the differences are so pronounced that finding data should not be difficult. I would not want my neighbors regularly renting their apartment while they are out of town. There is already a substantial enough difference in decorum and responsibility between owners and renters that condo associations as well as the mortgage industry (as well as FHA) establish maximum renter to owner ratios. I live in a high rise that also contains a hotel, but with different lobbies and elevators, and that doesn't bother me. I think this is because a hotel has a management staff that maintains common area decorum and holds occupants responsible for their actions during their stay. An apartment rented on airbnb has no similar oversight or responsibility for common facilities. [http://delmar.typepad.com/brianbrady/2011/06/owner-occupancy-ratio-in-condominium-complexes.html http://delmar.typepad.com/brianbrady/2011/06/owner-occupancy...]
netcoyote 14y ago
I think it's important to use language that's fair and reasonable when arguing your point. When you say "There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story for preventing licensed (sic) livery cab drivers from picking up curb hails" (I think you meant unlicensed) it's easy to dispute that point. Here is the first hit on Google for "cab rider ripoff": http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/taxis_taking_wBtAr13EzaKS8ZVrkxjgxN http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/taxis_taking_wBtAr13EzaKS... - "At least a dozen hacks have been caught hitting unsuspecting passengers with pricey tolls for bridges and tunnels that the cab never actually crossed". And the result: "We are confirming these data, and if appropriate, will likewise seek to revoke their licenses," Yassky said. "We will continue to comb the GPS data for any similar incidences." That type of legal solution is not possible if taxi drivers are unlicensed. And the well-publicized instances of Airbnb problems (e.g. prostitution) are already demonstrating that at least some of the regulations are in fact necessary. Finally, the point about consumer bank regulation is, if your bank account does get ripped off, you're insured to $250K by the FDIC, which BitCoin doesn't have. Though perhaps that is a market opportunity for an aspiring YC company? In any event, you're overstating the case to make your point -- keep the language reasonable if you expect to make your point.
- MichaelSalib 14y ago
  That type of legal solution is not possible if taxi drivers are unlicensed. The original comment was very specifically worded to only cover licensed livery drivers, not random unlicensed drivers.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
AnIrishDuck 14y ago
> There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. The law is there to protect hotel operators from vacation rental competition. I think Uber and Airbnb stand on different ground here. The building codes issue is a red herring; Airbnb faces more severe problems. I can think of plenty of "traveler protection", "hotel protection", "tenant protection" and "landlord protection" stories. Real stories detailing Airbnb's failure to answer these issues are already circulating the internet: http://www.google.com/search?q=airbnb+nightmare http://www.google.com/search?q=airbnb+nightmare (to be fair, these stories seem to focus exclusively on bad tenants, while I can see bad landlords being an issue as well)
uptown 14y ago
"There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. The law is there to protect hotel operators from vacation rental competition." As an apartment owner in a multi-unit apartment building, I don't want the neighboring apartments being used as short-term rental properties - and the building regulations forbid it. It's absolutely a quality-of-living and consumer-protection issue protecting property owners from the risks associated with transients.
- montecarl 14y ago
  Why do you need to government to require that? How about you only rent from land lords that disallow tenants from renting out their apartment. Maybe some people don't mind this and would like to have that as an option.
  - uptown 14y ago
    I don't rent - I own my apartment. I've invested in a property and a neighborhood zoned for a specific purpose. Cities are generally configured with zoning laws designed to preserve a certain standard of living for the larger community that extends beyond just a single apartment or building. It helps to preserve the intended use of those properties for people that choose to buy in those neighborhoods. For instance it gives property owners in a residential neighborhood an assurance that a neighboring building can't decide to convert their rooftop to a nightclub potentially disturbing the neighboring buildings with noise, foot-traffic, car traffic, drunks, trash, fights, etc. If you gave individual landlords the right to make these decisions without wider oversight, you'd run into a lot more issues like these. Sure - today they can petition to override existing zoning regulations and that sometimes happens, but residential issues are larger than just an individual apartment or building.
    - erikpukinskis 14y ago
      I always wonder why people with this attitude live in cities. If you want peace and quiet, shouldn't you go get a few acres in the country? Living in the city means you're living right next to a bunch of other people. Living in the city and having the expectation of peace and tranquility and total control over your home just seems like expectations out of whack. Maybe it's just that I get peeved when people get all "landed gentry" and start thinking that somehow because they are privileged to have been able to buy a piece of property that they have a moral right to control the lives of their neighbors. That said, I support regulations "within reason" and I suppose it all comes down to a quantitative difference in where we draw that line.
yafujifide 14y ago
You had me until you claimed that bank regulations are different than other regulations.
Retric 14y ago
It's not always about the direct users. Having Airbnb people show up next door and have a 3 day party impacts people. Or from a health and safety standpoint, bedbugs easily spread though apartment buildings.
JPKab 14y ago
Thank you. As an Uber user in DC, I have yet to encounter, or hear of any news event in which Uber put people in a dangerous or even inconvenient situation. It's infuriating to see people compare Uber to a poorly secured Bitcoin site, as if the regulations in banking are somehow equivalent to those with taxi cabs. Uber only uses licensed sedan drivers. They are already subject to safety regulation, but unlike taxi cabs they are also checked by reviews from passengers. The most frightening experience I ever had in a vehicle was in a taxi cab taking me from the airport in San Antonio to my hotel. He was exceeding 90 mph, and driving recklessly, ignoring the turn signals of other drivers on the interstate. Where was your touted regulation then?
- vannevar 14y ago
  ...I have yet to encounter, or hear of any news event in which Uber put people in a dangerous or even inconvenient situation. Not surprising, considering that Uber currently carries a tiny fraction of the traffic that the cab companies do. As the company scales, it's not hard to imagine that they will need to bear more responsibility for background checks on their drivers, and assume liability for damages those drivers may cause. Full-time drivers will begin battling one another for preferred territory, and Uber will have to mediate the conflicts. In short, Uber will start looking more and more like a traditional cab business, and less and less like a peer-to-peer matchmaking service.
fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
re: "Legitimate banks don't get hacked because there are billions of dollars at stake for the banking institution. "Legitimate" financial institutions do get hacked, and to suggest otherwise is crazy talk. Look here where a financial institution has an exploited flaw ongoing since at least 2008. http://www.batstrading.com/alerts/ http://www.batstrading.com/alerts/ ( http://cdn.batstrading.com/resources/system_self_help/BATS_Notification_of_System_Issue-Sequencing.pdf http://cdn.batstrading.com/resources/system_self_help/BATS_N... ) Agree with you on your other points though.
DanBC 14y ago
> There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. Your home is your home, so if you die in a fire it's your look out. But a hotel, or a temporary residence, is not your home, and if you pay money to someone to provide a service they should meet minimum standards for safety. This is a good thing. It allows small businesses to compete but without using "safety" as an area which can be cut.

rprasad 14y ago

I disagree 100% with your non-Bitcoin factual assertions because they are demonstrably false but I do not have the time to address them point-by-point. But I will address this one major factual error: Legitimate banks don't get hacked because there are billions of dollars at stake for the banking institution, and their business literally depends on their ability to secure payments. Banks are not in the business of securing payments; that is what payment processors like Mastercard and Visa do. Banks are in the business of investing money which has been deposited with them. As a result of (state and federal) legislation, banks are liable for making depositors whole in the event of theft, so they are motivated to invest significant sums in security.

Eliezer 14y ago

Legitimate banks don't get hacked? Is that true?

jspthrowaway2 14y ago
You don't hear of any high-profile bank disclosures, which I imagine is probably because they have security teams that keep up with everything religiously. Most old brick banks have internal systems architected in ways that a younger intruder in the Anonymous mold wouldn't know anything about, as well; you're starting to get into big iron Cobol land. That said, I don't think it's an impossible task (is anything?), and I'm sure some day there will be a large disclosure through some means, internally-assisted or otherwise.
- makomk 14y ago
  There was actually a high-profile incident not too long ago with one of the big banks' online banking system. Users could view other people's account information just by incrementing an integer in the URL as I recall. It's not necessarily so much that banks are secure, but hacking them is much riskier than hacking Bitcoin sites, especially for white-hats.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    Are you thinking of Heroku? Heroku isn't a bank.
    - lclarkmichalek 14y ago
      It was probably Santander: http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Santander-s-online-banking-keeps-passwords-in-cookies-Update-1730364.html http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Santander-s-onlin..., though there have been other instances of bad bank web practices.
      - tedunangst 14y ago
        Putting plaintext passwords in a cookie doesn't sound anything like incrementing an integer in a URL.

dougmccune 14y ago

Claiming hotel regulation has no benefit to consumers is simply not true. Consider the perspective of a resident of San Francisco (like me). SF has a very limited amount of housing. We can debate all day about ways to fix that and impediments to building more (and more affordable) housing, but the simple facts right now are that there are a LOT more people who want to live in SF than there are housing units. Additionally, there are a lot of tourists that visit SF. Those two demands for places to sleep, from tourists and residents, are at odds. The price you can charge for a hotel room in SF is substantially greater than what you can charge on a nightly basis in stable rent. So what we're seeing happen in SF is people who have rental units that would normally be on the rental market are now pulling those off the rental market and putting them on the AirBnB market, which serves tourists instead of residents. Because frankly, why wouldn't you? If you can rent your place for $200/night to tourists you can make a hell of a lot more money than you can renting to someone for a year. The hotel regulations aren't only to help hotel consumers, they're to help the renters too. Now, you could argue the natural market economics should just play out and the city should allow as many hotels to exist as the market will support. But that's not a city I want to live in. I value prioritizing housing for residents instead of tourists.

tomjen3 14y ago
You may value that prioritization, but that isn't strange as you are a renter and so prefer things aligned as close as possible to your personal benefit. That is simple egoism, don't coat it in nice language.
- jrochkind1 14y ago
  Um, in exactly the same way that tourists prefering their interests to be prioritized is also 'egoism', right? Or property owners preferring their incomes to be maximized, just like renters preferring their rents to be minimized. So?
  - davidw 14y ago
    I'm not a "market fundamentalist" by a long shot, but markets generally do a pretty good job of balancing various interests like this. They're a lot better in a case like this than the government attempting to decide how many units must be available for which uses.

tptacek 14y ago

There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. The law is there to protect hotel operators from vacation rental competition. This is not a very thoughtful comment. There are obvious reasons why properties zones for permanent residence aren't appropriate for transient residence; the latter type of occupancy is accompanied by crime and abuse. You seem to be falling into the trap of considering "consumer protection" only from the perspective of the tenant.

sskates 14y ago
Is there any evidence that apartments rented out with AirBnB are more prone to crime and abuse of non-tenants than apartments not rented out with AirBnB?
- tptacek 14y ago
  You're effectively asking whether apartments rented to unchecked strangers for days at a time are more prone to abuse than apartments rented months or years at a time. There is a reason hotels require "special use" zoning exceptions in cities, and it's not because Mariott and Hyatt have captured the city council; it's often the residents who create uproars when those exceptions are granted.
  - sskates 14y ago
    I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing, we might be, we might not be. You are talking about renting apartments to unchecked strangers for days and I am talking about people renting out their apartment on AirBnB. There's some relationship between the two sets but I don't think they're equivalent. Regardless, is there evidence for the claim that crime and abuse of non-tenants is higher for either the set you're talking about or the set I'm talking about than in the general population?
    - ynniv 14y ago
      I haven't looked, but my intuition is that the differences are so pronounced that finding data should not be difficult. I would not want my neighbors regularly renting their apartment while they are out of town. There is already a substantial enough difference in decorum and responsibility between owners and renters that condo associations as well as the mortgage industry (as well as FHA) establish maximum renter to owner ratios. I live in a high rise that also contains a hotel, but with different lobbies and elevators, and that doesn't bother me. I think this is because a hotel has a management staff that maintains common area decorum and holds occupants responsible for their actions during their stay. An apartment rented on airbnb has no similar oversight or responsibility for common facilities. [http://delmar.typepad.com/brianbrady/2011/06/owner-occupancy-ratio-in-condominium-complexes.html http://delmar.typepad.com/brianbrady/2011/06/owner-occupancy...]

netcoyote 14y ago

I think it's important to use language that's fair and reasonable when arguing your point. When you say "There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story for preventing licensed (sic) livery cab drivers from picking up curb hails" (I think you meant unlicensed) it's easy to dispute that point. Here is the first hit on Google for "cab rider ripoff": http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/taxis_taking_wBtAr13EzaKS8ZVrkxjgxN http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/taxis_taking_wBtAr13EzaKS... - "At least a dozen hacks have been caught hitting unsuspecting passengers with pricey tolls for bridges and tunnels that the cab never actually crossed". And the result: "We are confirming these data, and if appropriate, will likewise seek to revoke their licenses," Yassky said. "We will continue to comb the GPS data for any similar incidences." That type of legal solution is not possible if taxi drivers are unlicensed. And the well-publicized instances of Airbnb problems (e.g. prostitution) are already demonstrating that at least some of the regulations are in fact necessary. Finally, the point about consumer bank regulation is, if your bank account does get ripped off, you're insured to $250K by the FDIC, which BitCoin doesn't have. Though perhaps that is a market opportunity for an aspiring YC company? In any event, you're overstating the case to make your point -- keep the language reasonable if you expect to make your point.

MichaelSalib 14y ago
That type of legal solution is not possible if taxi drivers are unlicensed. The original comment was very specifically worded to only cover licensed livery drivers, not random unlicensed drivers.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

AnIrishDuck 14y ago

> There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. The law is there to protect hotel operators from vacation rental competition. I think Uber and Airbnb stand on different ground here. The building codes issue is a red herring; Airbnb faces more severe problems. I can think of plenty of "traveler protection", "hotel protection", "tenant protection" and "landlord protection" stories. Real stories detailing Airbnb's failure to answer these issues are already circulating the internet: http://www.google.com/search?q=airbnb+nightmare http://www.google.com/search?q=airbnb+nightmare (to be fair, these stories seem to focus exclusively on bad tenants, while I can see bad landlords being an issue as well)

uptown 14y ago

"There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. The law is there to protect hotel operators from vacation rental competition." As an apartment owner in a multi-unit apartment building, I don't want the neighboring apartments being used as short-term rental properties - and the building regulations forbid it. It's absolutely a quality-of-living and consumer-protection issue protecting property owners from the risks associated with transients.

montecarl 14y ago
Why do you need to government to require that? How about you only rent from land lords that disallow tenants from renting out their apartment. Maybe some people don't mind this and would like to have that as an option.
- uptown 14y ago
  I don't rent - I own my apartment. I've invested in a property and a neighborhood zoned for a specific purpose. Cities are generally configured with zoning laws designed to preserve a certain standard of living for the larger community that extends beyond just a single apartment or building. It helps to preserve the intended use of those properties for people that choose to buy in those neighborhoods. For instance it gives property owners in a residential neighborhood an assurance that a neighboring building can't decide to convert their rooftop to a nightclub potentially disturbing the neighboring buildings with noise, foot-traffic, car traffic, drunks, trash, fights, etc. If you gave individual landlords the right to make these decisions without wider oversight, you'd run into a lot more issues like these. Sure - today they can petition to override existing zoning regulations and that sometimes happens, but residential issues are larger than just an individual apartment or building.
  - erikpukinskis 14y ago
    I always wonder why people with this attitude live in cities. If you want peace and quiet, shouldn't you go get a few acres in the country? Living in the city means you're living right next to a bunch of other people. Living in the city and having the expectation of peace and tranquility and total control over your home just seems like expectations out of whack. Maybe it's just that I get peeved when people get all "landed gentry" and start thinking that somehow because they are privileged to have been able to buy a piece of property that they have a moral right to control the lives of their neighbors. That said, I support regulations "within reason" and I suppose it all comes down to a quantitative difference in where we draw that line.

yafujifide 14y ago

You had me until you claimed that bank regulations are different than other regulations.

Retric 14y ago

It's not always about the direct users. Having Airbnb people show up next door and have a 3 day party impacts people. Or from a health and safety standpoint, bedbugs easily spread though apartment buildings.

JPKab 14y ago

Thank you. As an Uber user in DC, I have yet to encounter, or hear of any news event in which Uber put people in a dangerous or even inconvenient situation. It's infuriating to see people compare Uber to a poorly secured Bitcoin site, as if the regulations in banking are somehow equivalent to those with taxi cabs. Uber only uses licensed sedan drivers. They are already subject to safety regulation, but unlike taxi cabs they are also checked by reviews from passengers. The most frightening experience I ever had in a vehicle was in a taxi cab taking me from the airport in San Antonio to my hotel. He was exceeding 90 mph, and driving recklessly, ignoring the turn signals of other drivers on the interstate. Where was your touted regulation then?

vannevar 14y ago
...I have yet to encounter, or hear of any news event in which Uber put people in a dangerous or even inconvenient situation. Not surprising, considering that Uber currently carries a tiny fraction of the traffic that the cab companies do. As the company scales, it's not hard to imagine that they will need to bear more responsibility for background checks on their drivers, and assume liability for damages those drivers may cause. Full-time drivers will begin battling one another for preferred territory, and Uber will have to mediate the conflicts. In short, Uber will start looking more and more like a traditional cab business, and less and less like a peer-to-peer matchmaking service.

fnordfnordfnord 14y ago

re: "Legitimate banks don't get hacked because there are billions of dollars at stake for the banking institution. "Legitimate" financial institutions do get hacked, and to suggest otherwise is crazy talk. Look here where a financial institution has an exploited flaw ongoing since at least 2008. http://www.batstrading.com/alerts/ http://www.batstrading.com/alerts/ ( http://cdn.batstrading.com/resources/system_self_help/BATS_Notification_of_System_Issue-Sequencing.pdf http://cdn.batstrading.com/resources/system_self_help/BATS_N... ) Agree with you on your other points though.

DanBC 14y ago

> There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. Your home is your home, so if you die in a fire it's your look out. But a hotel, or a temporary residence, is not your home, and if you pay money to someone to provide a service they should meet minimum standards for safety. This is a good thing. It allows small businesses to compete but without using "safety" as an area which can be cut.