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Comment by smokeyj | Hacker News Reader

So the hotel lobby is taking away my choices.. to keep me safe? Now that's some seriously good hospitality. The hotel lobby is like the paternal figure I've always wanted.

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We are talking about safety here.

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.

Great observation. Fire inspectors perform an entirely different inspection on commercial property than that of a SFR or even multi family residence. There is a reason and it was paid in blood.

You can pretend the conversation is about safety but there's more to it than that. There are legitimate safety regulations, which could be monitored with a $100 random annual inspection. And then there are the actual regulations which are usually just encoding the business practices of the incumbent into law so that other companies with other advantages are impossible to make legal, regardless of safety.

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.

Sure, all regulations look like regulatory red tape strangulating the free market.

Until you look at actual, individual, regulations–which tend to be codified common sense.

Maybe on a per rule basis they tend to be common sense. But if even one rule out of 100 is an unnecessary encoding of business model, then requiring a permit is a de facto monopoly granted to the incumbents.

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.

> You grew up in a world where the previous generations lobbied for safety regulations in response to an actual lack of safety

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.

> 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.

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.

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