Comment by geebee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by geebee | Hacker News Reader

I know this isn't the main point, but airbnb lost me a long time ago with statements like this:

“If it becomes law, this legislation would threaten thousands of low- and middle-income New Yorkers with fines of up to $7,500 simply for listing that they would like to share their homes,” Airbnb fumed.

By "share", do they mean a quid pro quo exchange of goods and services for money?

It's nuts to call this "sharing", and I don't think this is quibbling about words when people at pro airbnb rallies chant "sharing is caring". Of course they're trying to grab the emotional connotations of "sharing" that exist outside the commerce world, which include friendship, generosity, and a wish to help others. I don't expect airbnb to stop this bit of manipulation, but I do think the mainstream media should certainly stop referring to the contract "you may stay in my house on the condition that you pay me the price I have specified" as "sharing". An argument by ambiguity uses the fact that words have more than one meaning, but honestly, I'm not sure how "sharing" even applies at all to such a clear cut unambiguous example of commerce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation

There they go again, claiming that governments are regulating or fining "sharing". No, they are regulating commerce. They are threatening fines on businesses that fail to properly comply with regulations on commerce.

Airbnb's corporate-speak is pretty brazen.

I'm generally in favor of letting companies like AirBnB, Lyft, Uber, and Turo operate in cities. But I completely agree with you that it's infuriating to see the word "sharing" being used to describe them. They're platforms that make it easy for people to operate various kinds of small businesses - or sometimes maybe micro businesses.

I suppose they think it's good for PR to peddle the warm and fuzzy concept of "sharing" but in most people's eyes it just makes them seem more deceptive and untrustworthy. I'm generally a fan of what these companies are doing, and I worry that pushing a false description of themselves only sets them up for stronger backlash.

A much better term than the "sharing economy" for these kinds of two-sided marketplace platforms is the "access economy". The fundamentally new thing they provide is much easier access to both buyers and sellers. As a traveler, AirBnB gives me access to lots of vacation rental listings, many of the them reviewed and to some extent vetted by the crowd. As someone looking to rent out my home, AirBnB gives me access to millions of potential customers, who are, to varying degrees, vetted by other hosts.

Interestingly, I'd agree with you if you'd left airbnb out of that list.

I see something more menacing in airbnb, probably because I've witnessed families getting outbid for single family homes by owners who turn around and airbnb out the "spare" rooms - in a city where I grew up and where the percentage of children has plummeted from about 22% to below 14% in my lifetime (yes, I'm talking about San Francisco).

Airbnb and related services do convert the housing used for children, who don't pay rent and cost a bundle, into short term rentals for tourists. This isn't the only harm it does, but it's the one that worries me the most.

If this isn't true, by all means I'd love to see the data, provided airbnb doesn't scrub it of all evidence first, ahem.

BTW, I like airbnb style rentals fine if they are regulated properly. 75-90 days is a lot of time to get to rent out a house that is zoned for long term residence. If I go off on vacation for a couple of weeks, and I rent my place out, I don't see much harm there. But if a former kid's room is converted into a revolving door for tourists, one more kid is displaced from SF? There is tremendous harm if San Francisco ceases to be a place where people are from.

The problem is that airbnb is lobbying fiercely against meaningful regulation. I'm personally not against zoning to ensure a proper mix of housing in a city. I don't think that these regulations are obsolete just because someone wrote a rails program that allows you to type in your address and click the "Create Hotel Here" button.

Sounds similar to the problem of ticket prices and scalping. It absolutely sucks that families are getting displaced, but at the same time it's a correction in the market.

I'd be curious to know why family residences are more valuable as short-term rentals. My guess would be that there's just more people that want to stay in SF than there are hotels available at prices people want to pay. The tight housing market isn't helping that either. People are getting evicted and replaced by renters willing to pay more, regardless of Airbnb. There's premium on space, short or long term.

Airbnb's not helping, but I think it's more of a symptom of the bay's broken housing market than anything else. I'd wonder if regulating Airbnb rentals wouldn't have a negative effect similar to rent control. My understanding is that most economists agree that price ceilings on real estate only exacerbate the supply problem that places like SF are facing, and the best solution is to build.

On the other hand, why risk the capital to build a hotel, when you can just use the existing housing instead?

>more people that want to stay in SF than there are hotels available at prices people want to pay

The price discrepancy is enormous. Last time I looked, I could generally find a room on Airbnb in the neighborhood of $90-100/night. The shittiest national chain at the airport (I'm deliberately excluding the Tenderloin) was going to be at least $200/night.

"Hotel taxes" is an intellectually lazy explanation. If you actually price out a hotel stay in SF, you'll see "taxes and fees" are around 10%.

Sharing has some different meanings:

- give a portion of (something) to another or others.

- use, occupy, or enjoy (something) jointly with another or others.

The first one has a lot of positive connotations, and 'sharing economy' startups are definitely taking advantage of that, but I think the second is a totally valid use of the word when talking about 'home sharing' or 'car sharing'. It's actually hard to think of a better term to describe those.

I agree that there is some legitimate ambiguity in the term sharing. For instance, if my pal and I decide to order the extra large sandwich and pay for it jointly, it's part of the vernacular to say we are "sharing" it.

However, I couldn't disagree with you more that this is a good way to describe a pure quid pro quo money for services transaction. If this is sharing, then all commerce is sharing.

Unlike you, I almost can't think of a better example of something that isn't sharing than airbnb. It's a rental. If I let you play my violin for $5, I haven't shared my violin. If we purchase one jointly and use it, then sure, but that's not even remotely what is happening with airbnb. The line may be a little fuzzy at the margins, but airbnb is a mile away from this fuzzy zone, squarely and unambiguously in the realm of commerce.

Disagreements about airbnb do get contentious, and I don't enjoy adding to this. But I'm honestly bewildered that you can't think of a better term than "sharing" to describe "I let you stay in my house if and only if you pay me $100". Seriously? It's "hard to think of a better term"?

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