London’s rental market is being flooded by bargain Airbnb listings

Stocks will recover. Of greater concern are workers who cannot afford to miss a paycheck while being otherwise financially responsible, even more so if they have children to provide for.

Well, it sucks to have your savings halved, but holding stocks doesn't cost you thousands of dollars per month

I have ~100% of my net worth invested in ETFs around the world. You can always sell your stocks if you find yourself needing liquidity, as I've done multiple times.

Yes, it sucks to sell at a loss. But it's still a smaller loss than the opportunity cost of not investing that money.

I would probably qualify for that group, since I have about 80% of my net worth in stocks. Or, to be more correct: I had. Now it's 20% stocks, 80% cash. I sold a good part in December and January, because I considered that heavy upward price action to be unreasonable and a harbinger for at least a modest correction in the near-term, for which I wanted to have cash on hand to buy the dip. Turned out to be a bit early, I left some potential gains on the street, but I considered that Coronavirus situation (in China, back then) to be too risky for jumping back in, and when the first signs of uncontrolled Coronavirus outbreaks surfaced in Europe, I sold most of the remains at the beginning of the slide, while the market was still within 5% of its peak and just kept a few, some small positions that have been at huge losses already anyway and some larger positions in the healthcare sector (which have fared pretty well until now, I even realized some profits day-trading them in the meantime).

So: just because people have had most of their money in stocks doesn't mean they necessarily still have. The beauty of stocks, especially for small private retail investors, is that they are extremely liquid, and not everyone uses a "buy-and-hold" strategy.

“It’s only when the tide goes out that you find out who has been swimming naked.” -Warren Buffett

What I said applies to any airbnb rental, now and forever.

Right and that's essentially the point.

It's fantastic for "tourists" (even though you were there 6 months you were essentially a tourist) at the expense of residents.

Unfortunately see it every day as I'm based in New Orleans which is a tourism-dependent city and ABNB has just been devastating for locals who can't afford to buy property.

You get some extra legal protections with a normal landlord.

With an assured shorthold tenancy in England it's quite difficult to evict tenants in the first six months; deposits must be protected and held by an independent organisation; there are some legally mandated safety checks, etc etc.

They don't really need to "abuse" these relief regulations (I'm not sure they are even doing it, because I'm not sure if the protective regulations actually cover commercial rentals, which are generally much less protected by law than private rentals).

The landlords of these shops don't have any incentive to throw these merchants out because of a few months of missing rent during a time in which most retailers are forced to close. Where should they find any alternative tenants for these properties? Nobody could even move in right now, much less sell anything there. The first time at which they could potentially find someone to market these properties to is when the restrictions on the already-existing tenants are most likely being lifted as well, which means they will start paying rent again.

The only risk for the merchants is that the landlords might take them to court in order to make them pay the missing rent. But that is a rather calculable risk, these big merchants all have legal departments able to handle this risk, and even in the worst case (they are made to pay the full sum) these court decisions will take months until they come into effect, so the primary goal of conserving liquidity during the forced business shutdown time has already been achieved.

It might just happen. The government paying to have rental properties siting empty. I guess some new chapters in the economics textbooks need to be written on what comes after negative interest rates ...

Something in line with the claims of the copyright industry... "revenues not generated by the rental agreements".

People rented out holiday cottages long before Airbnb existed, even long before the internet. There were sections in classified listings in newspapers, and later specialised websites.

Counterpoint: This increased short-term rental market in a lot of cities displaces long-term renters who were priced out...and this disproportionately affects the poor who can't afford to buy property.

Airbnb are helping the little guy overcome social stigma?

You couldn't misrepresent the effect on regular working people more.

> It has been an enormous benefit to travelers of all kinds. It has made a huge variety of properties available for short-term rental, and because these rentals are often less expensive than alternatives, it has made travel possible for many who previously couldn't afford it.

At the expense of the local populations, especially the working-class and lower socioeconomic classes. Not to mention they've basically become hotels without any regulations. I wouldn't call this a good thing, and certainly don't think travellers should benefit over locals.

> Does a company in general have to provide benefit to the society overall?

Is your question one of corporate citizenship, or legal obligations?

If the former, yes.

If the latter, then some countries have legal requirements, like https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/company-repo... regarding reporting requirements about certain social practices, for large companies in the EU, or https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f2e36590-95bd... which suggests that Germany may "require businesses to establish a sophisticated compliance management system to protect human rights in their global supply chains."

> Airbnb seems to provide a service where their clients are fine with. .. Airbnb is just the consequence of ..

I don't understand your statement. Surely there's any number of organizations which provide illegal and/or immoral services, which their clients are fine with. That doesn't mean those services should be allowed to continue, does it?

In US history, the Pinkertons were a private detective agency/security force. Its clients hired them (among other things) as strikebreakers. Their anti-union activities included using machine guns, tear gas bombs, and clubs to break up union meetings.

Their clients were "fine with" their services, which were "just a consequence of a number of decisions made in the past" and which met "the current needs" of their clients.

I don't think these actions of the Pinks were beneficial to society, or morally correct, or something that should be allowed to continue.

While, if I understand it, your argument seems to accept that anything which happened (and was legal, and of benefit to its customers), should be allowed to happen in the future, rather than recognizing that some behaviors are so detrimental that they should be made illegal, even when they benefit some.