And you can't run an unsafe hotel.
On the other hand, some of my best travel experiences have been eating meals with hosts, staying up talking about life and drinking by a bonfire with hosts, and otherwise getting the authentic AirBNB experience. Of course I wouldn't say that the hotel-type experience isn't out there (it may even be cheaper than hotels) but that's not why I do AirBNB. It would be a shame (both for hosts and guests) to have fewer opportunities like this available.
You might not have changed the smoke detector batteries in a decade, though. Fine if you want to risk your own life that way, but we've decided as a society that renting a hotel room means extra safety requirements and checks to protect the guests.
Sorry, how did "we as a society" decide that? Governments are deciding the things you're talking about. What we as a society can do, is post and read reviews on hotels and Airbnb rentals, and we certainly do this.
If all you do is punch a ballot, yeah, that's lazy, and yeah, you're basically letting other people decide these things for you.
I certainly have and do, and it is a pretty frustrating thing with which to deal. Thank goodness society is not bound by what government can do.
>That's how "we as a society" decided it.
I think that's a pretty low standard for judging society's opinion on anything. You get a lot more feedback on what society thinks by examining the day to day transactions and exchanges we're all doing.
Governments are made up of our elected representatives and those our elected representatives appoint/hire. If we're unhappy with those decisions, we vote for someone else and tell them to change them. See Trump and the EPA for a current-events sample of this in action - the Right feels things are too regulated, they won the election, and now we're getting a bunch of regulations removed (to our likely detriment, IMO).
This paints a rosier picture about the possibilities of change in such systems than I think are warranted, though I know some might argue that the sclerosis of politics is a feature as much as it is a drawback. That said, we make decisions, sometimes daily, regarding things we want in life. It may be as simple as which kinds of coffee to drink, or which laptop to buy, and those choices result in areas of society that can and do change with some speed.
If people knowingly help that child labour scene to flourish, by what metric do we decide that "society" doesn't, in fact, like it, despite its actions? Election results? Pulling a lever or filling in a ballot every X years, by comparison, doesn't involve anything remotely close to that level of engagement and activity. Even writing the occasional letter to a legislator is a paltry amount of effort, by comparison.
I'm not intending to be glib here, I'm quite familiar with the arguments that equate society with representative government. I'm just interested in how representative such systems really are of said socieity.
Completely false premise. They're not "knowingly" helping the child labor scene - they're just picking the cheap shirt. Walmart doesn't put up a sign "this stuff made with child slave labor!" - they might not even know themselves.
If Walmart did put up such a sign, it might have a shaming effect. Obviously they don't and we shouldn't expect it. People who are aware of what's going on can go in and out while plugging their ears, doing the equivalent of singing, "naah-naah" to the origins of their products.
Meanwhile, government, which I'm to understand is to be equated with society, seems to take no issue with trade with countries where such conditions prevail. Every once in a while, a politician (like Trump) will decry how China (as an example) does business, but there seems to be little action on that front.
>Environmental health specialists inspect every hotel at least twice a year or more often as deemed necessary to ensure compliance with the Hotel, Food Service Establishment, and Public Swimming Pool Act of 1985* and the hotel rules and regulations. Current hotel permits must be displayed in a prominent location for the public to view and the inspection report must be available for public scrutiny.
https://www.tn.gov/health/article/eh-hotels#sthash.fTwnqZnV....
Because hotels are subject to those regulations. It's not optional for them. Why should it be optional for AirBnB hosts?
The distinction is purely legal - in this case, the semantics matter quite a bit.
At the end of they day they are directly competing with hotels. In order to ensure the competition is fair, they should be subject to the same regulations.
What if I just want to rent out one room in my home on the side, not as a business? Why, then, should I be subject to the same requirements as a huge corporation with dedicated multistory buildings, many more customers, staff, and so forth?
To me, it sounds like the taxi industry pre-Uber. Lots of questionable-value regulation created by incumbents that doesn't really hurt anyone in the real world when it's mostly ignored.
Of course they are. Are you paying the host to stay in a room they own? Hotel.
edit: for all you down voters, he is the dictionary definition of the word "hotel":
"an establishment providing accommodations, meals, and other services for travelers and tourists."
Which means every "Airbed and Breakfast" is a hotel.
Theres lots of places where AirBnB (or hosts on the platform) meets the definition of a hotel and simultaneously often fail to meet the legal obligations of a hotel.
I don't know whether it's the majority, but quite a lot of them are running hotels, though often illegal hotels under local law.
Just wait until an AirBNB customer dies in a fire because the property didn't meet fire safety requirements. AirBNB probably wouldn't survive the fallout.
As with most regulations, it drives up the cost a bit for the end user, but it's worthwhile - and when done properly, invisible to the consumer.
If a hotel room is just one of a thousand properties (the thinking goes) then the owner might be too casual about safety issues -- hence regs to force them to care. But if it's a room in the owner's very own house, there is no such "incentive incompatibility": a fire is much more than just a financial loss for them, so -- if anything -- they're overcautious! Thus, it's reasonable to exempt the renting out of one's primary residence from these additional safety regs.
With that said, your general point still stands: many of these hosts are "superhosts" who rent 3+ properties, which does (from the perspective of regulatory concerns) look like a hotel business and which therefore does merit similar regulation.
Who else has keys to the flat? Are you sure your electrical is up to code? How about plumbing, heating/cooling? Do you have a CO detector?
Safety regulations don't typically form out if nowhere. You grew up in a world where the previous generations lobbied for safety regulations in response to an actual lack of safety. It's like the new anti vaccinations movement- there's a whole generation who grew up not watching children be maimed and killed by what's now vaccine preventable infectious diseases so now suddenly vaccinations are poison. Absolutely no frame of reference.
In terms of safety hotel lobby is pissed because they have to follow regulations and pay associated taxes whereas AirBnB isn't. The hotel lobby certainly would be in favor of loosening safety regulations in general as compliance will certainly cut into their bottom line at least a little.
If it were actually about safety, the "hotel commission" would try to make it as easy and as cheap as possible to get inspected. The fact that they don't suggests it's more about gatekeeping.
Until you look at actual, individual, regulations–which tend to be codified common sense.
So even if most rules are common sense, that doesn't change the fact that most permit requirements are predatory business tactics.
I want to feed and house the homeless in my neighborhood but it's illegal due to "safety" concerns. Apparently them sleeping on the street and shitting in the bushes is safer than me building them a tiny house with a composting toilet and a wash basin.
Sure hope you're not talking about the tobacco lobby. Tell me which company paid for what safety regulation. I'd like to applaud these upstanding corporate citizens.
I'm pretty sure they would be in favor of tightening regulations as much as possible, as long as those regulations are draconically enforced. The incumbents can comply with anything and pass the buck to the customer while any potential competitor cannot enter the market because the upfront regulatory cost is so immense.
I'd like to address this. Not everyone can afford a new car complete with mandatory TPMS, side airbags, and traction control. When we as a society decide to put requirements on new cars, we price some marginal consumers out of a new car and into a less-safe used car.
As the price of new cars increases, so to does the price of those used cars. So there again, we're pushing less well off consumers into cars that aren't as safe.
Personally, I think manufacturers should have the ability to sell any car they want. At the same time, they should be required to put a notice on the window sticker that says "We used the value of $X to drive the design of our safety features" (or something like that). If you want an ultra-safe car, you look for one that has $1,000,000. But people knowingly buy motorcycles and Corvettes, so obviously not everyone has the same tolerance for risk.
Forcing unsafe cars out of the market through attrition has benefits for everyone else.
Airbnb isn't a hotel. It should have to live by "the rules", but those rules should be tailored to it's industry not a tangentially related industry threatened by its existence.
So in once camp, people are saying it should be regulated for what it feels like: a car. In the other camp, people are saying that it should be regulated for what it's made of: a motorcycle. There are good (and bad) arguments for both sides.