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Comment by clarky07 | Hacker News Reader

Tell me how regulation solves this? Why is it that this couldn't happen in a hotel? (Guarantee it does all the time)

There isn't any regulation that can fix people being jackasses. This isn't AirBNB's fault, and it isn't the OP's fault. It's the jackass who held the party fault. Could the OP have done things differently? Sure. It's likely the sublet wasn't entirely legal, and it's likely he could have renter's insurance. That being said, his insurance still probably shouldn't have to pay it. That is what AirBNB's cut should be covering. And I'm sure they will in fact cover it, as this is really bad publicity for them. The only reason for this post is to make that money get there faster.

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1) hotels don't use keys. The dodgy hotel guest can be shut out with the stroke of a key at the reception desk computer.

2) when things go wrong, hotels have staff on hand to deal with the situation.

3) hotels have insurance for when things go badly wrong.

All of these things cost money, which is partly why hotels are more expensive than AirBnB. The author assumed a lot of risk when subletting through AirBnB and is now complaining when the risk went wrong. I have very little sympathy for him / her.

The people I do have sympathy for are fellow residents of the apartment block, who had a reasonable expectation that their building wouldn't be turned into the site of a free for all sex party. They didnt get any say in this, and didn't receive any compensation. That is unfair.

Exactly.

The reason this vertical hasn't been disrupted in this manner is the inherent liability of dealing with humans.

An institution like a hotel chain can both:

-React to a situation like this immediately instead of letting it play out.

-Take the losses in the event that damage occurs and the guests credentials were fake.

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To an individual renting out less than 5 properties a loss like this is crippling.

Also agree that the real victims here are the fellow tenants +landlord, they won't be seeing any of that 90k+ or their shitty past tenant.

"3) hotels have insurance for when things go badly wrong"

Yes, and the reason they can buy insurance (or risk self-insuring) is that they have processes designed to limit the frequency and severity of these incidents.

I'm curious how much AirBnb pays for insurance. How much would you charge for an insurance policy if someone said they were going to let random strangers stay in their apartment, based on a few semi-anonymous comments on the internet?

The point of regulations is not always to prevent a bad thing from happening; the point is that when the bad thing does happen, it can be contained/handled more effectively, or that there are established and well-understood procedures for recovering from it.

Regulations which say that hotels should be hotels and apartments should not be hotels are as much about containing the effects of bad actors as anything else.

Of course it could happen in a hotel! I agree completely. One reason we regulate hotels differently from single family housing is that this sort of thing is more likely to happen in a hotel.

This is why there isn't a hotel right in the middle of my single family block in a relatively dense neighborhood in SF. If someone wants to open up a hotel, they have to go through the process of obtaining the proper licenses and permits. Then don't get to just create an account on a website and hit the "create hotel" button.

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