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> Person rents out apartment to an individual who ended up lying to him. Is furious at AirBNB service for some reason. While I'm actually with you in that I th

by mpyne 13y ago

> Person rents out apartment to an individual who ended up lying to him. Is furious at AirBNB service for some reason. While I'm actually with you in that I think the apartment owner shouldn't have rented his apartment out, you have to understand that AirBnB's business model would be completely destroyed if this kind of thing consistently happens. The reason is that a random individual apartment owner has no way to independently vet someone trying to use AirBnB to sublet their apartment. AirBnB is the party with the aggregated information, not the apartment owner. If apartment/house owners see this business turn into "you have a 999/1000 chance of making $XXX and a 1/1000 chance of sustaining $XX,XXX in damages you are personally liable for, plus eviction", what do you think is going to happen to AirBnB?

sentenza 13y ago
They're going to be 'disrupted'? I'm not sure whether or not AirBNB should ever have come thus far. They're essentially offloading all the unpleasantness and liabilities of the hotel business on random schmucks that rent out their flats. There are two ways this could play out. AirBNB will have to start playing by the rules that everybody else plays by, or they'll completely deregulate the Hotel business and we'll all be in comment-spam ratinghell while planning trips in the future.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > They're essentially offloading all the unpleasantness and liabilities of the hotel business on random schmucks that rent out their flats. Exactly. The only question is whether they can convince the necessary number of "schmucks" that they're not actually schmucks.