Safety concerns hit online rental agency Airbnb.com | Hacker News Reader

Safety concerns hit online rental agency Airbnb.com

cnn.com

46 pointsswombat9 comments

Please note this story is now blocked - it's no longer appearing on the front page (or indeed on any later page, so it's not just been "heavily flagged") of HN, even though it's still getting votes.

That's... lame.

I mean, if you're going to censor something, doing so AFTER it hits CNN is just... I'm getting vibes of Baghdad Bob from beyond the grave here...

Definitely something fishy going on, at my side it briefly disappeared from all pages..is this a new type of article ban?

New information from the article: "When asked how it screens renters and hosts, Airbnb spokeswoman Emily Joffrion would only say the company is working on a 'response to our community' that would be released Monday afternoon."

I'm sure many of us on HN will read that response closely.

Meanwhile, Wimdu thinks that it can beat Airbnb on customer service.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2829859

Maybe so. People who can't afford to lose the spaces they rent out will have to think twice about whether or not to participate on Airbnb.

After edit: blocking this story from the front page inconsistently with the number of comments and upvotes received doesn't seem explicable under any announced HN policy. This and another thread I mentioned recently

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2823020

both seem rather puzzling as applications of HN policy. It would be kind for someone from site management to let us know what is going on.

  > The startup is so hot that it has attracted actor 
  > Ashton Kutcher as one of its investors.

But does Ashton Kutcher actually use the service? It's one thing to invest money for anticipated returns, but Airbnb would have a lot more credibility if Kutcher stopped staying in hotels plus started renting out his home through the site.

Now that the big news outlets are reporting on the incident, Airbnb's future growth might really suffer. You only get to make a first impression once and this is a big negative first impression. It's going take a lot of time and cost a fortune to undo the damage.

This hugely benefits their competition, now people know a service like this exists and might explore their options. But they will likely stay away from Airbnb. Never understood how they haven't offered insurance as an addition, it doesn't take that much work to create a policy with an outside firm or two.

Is it really necessary to upvote every single article about this EJ incident? I think we all know by now...

Well, this one's on a small publication called CNN, which you may have heard of (along with a very large percentage of the world).

The story is now international and utterly mainstream.

tl;dr: this article provides no new information.

While I agree the story has reached the mainstream through the magic of CNN distillation, I think it's safe to say that many readers of HN, myself included, are all well-versed and thoroughly informed regarding every known aspect of the Airbnb situation and are eagerly awaiting more news to sink their conspiratorial fangs into, not a recap as presented to the average CNN reader, many of whom would have no response to the unlicensed B&B phenomenon currently being exploited by methamphetamine users.

The new information is the fact that it's reached CNN.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com