danhak

Well, Airbnb's business model is to make a market and take a cut of each transaction.

If hosts and guests discover one another on the platform but cut Airbnb out of the transaction then Airbnb is losing money.

Losing money is a major problem for a business that seeks to make money.

The short-term rental market is much more mature now than it was at Airbnb's founding. There are reputable management companies all over now with their own platforms, payment gateways, reviews etc.

I love Airbnb and have booked dozens of stays through them.

I listened in on the earnings call yesterday and heard lots of good things. But as a prospective investor my main concern is how they plan to deal with increasing circumvention of the platform.

There's professional short-term property management services in every market now, and they don't want to give Airbnb a cut.

I am literally typing this comment from a cabin that I discovered on Airbnb but booked direct to save money. The listing contained text inviting you to visit their website to book direct and avoid fees.

I've also re-booked properties I've stayed at in the past by contacting hosts directly, and received offers from hosts via Airbnb message to book outside of Airbnb for a discount.

So a major problem for Airbnb is that they don't really own the relationship between hosts and guests.

Some people are allergic. Some people have phobias. Some people would simply prefer not to be near an animal that may drool, shed, bark or otherwise act unpredictably when stressed on a flight.

None of that is unreasonable. I have nothing against dogs and dog owners but too many owners these days seem oblivious to the fact that many other people would prefer not to be forced to share space with animals.

I'm already maxed out at $10,000 for this year.

The yield on the 1 year t-bill has gone from 0% to 2%

That’s where I’ll be keeping cash I’d otherwise keep at the bank, for now.

Could you please elaborate on what’s unfair about property taxes in California?

From what I understand California has some of the lowest property taxes in the country and Prop 13 let owners lock in their tax basis for life.

Please look at the subgroup analysis

Please take a look at the subgroup analysis

This is a reasonable take but the government really does everything in its power to put its finger on the scale toward homeownership:

- up to $500,000 in tax-free capital gains for couples

- cheap leverage via low interest rates courtesy of the Fed and further subsidized by renters via mortgage interest deduction

- SALT deduction (albeit reduced as of 2017)

That is a really good point.

I also have a pet theory that CPI understates the cost of housing due to people who are pushed out of entering the market altogether (e.g. homelessness rising, people living with parents longer)

Sort of the same way some people say unemployment figures understate the true number by ignoring discouraged workers / people who have stopped looking altogether. I have a hunch there are many discouraged folks who have stopped looking for housing altogether.

Government-imposed vaccine mandates were never common for access to private establishments, as is now the case in NYC and LA

Philosophically speaking, It's one thing for the government to say you must be vaccinated to attend public school. It's quite another thing for them to say you must be vaccinated to enter a privately-owned gym.

There are many millions of people in the country that don't share your politics. Some of them are even engineers with families.

California's tax regime is really backward. I suspect Tesla's departure is just the tip of the iceberg and that the repeal of the SALT deduction in 2017 really hastened this trend.

High earners pay an effective tax rate of > 50%. They are partially picking up the slack from Prop 13, which artificially distorts the housing market by allowing longtime homeowners to pay property taxes based on decades-old assessed values while sitting on millions in equity gains.

So young, high earners see the state taking a massive chunk of their paycheck in exchange for middling infrastructure and pitiful public schools while simultaneously putting its finger on the scale of a wildly inflated housing market.

The exodus will only pick up steam unless policymakers get their act together.

HN Profile -> Personal Website -> LinkedIn -> Over 10 years experience as Google Site Reliability Engineer

> Do we really want these kind of scores to determine our insurance rates, outcomes in the case of an accident and so on?

Why wouldn’t I? Seems much more fair than criteria such as age, education and marital status that are currently used to determine rates.

Back in 2018 I got into a serious car accident. I was driving eastbound on Fountain Avenue when another car blew a red light and t-boned my Miata at full speed, crushing my entire driver's side, causing my car to spin 540 degrees, take out a stop sign and land on the front lawn of a nearby apartment building.

I got out of my car, dazed amid a cloud of air bag dust and miraculously unscathed. I was wearing my seat belt and had my convertible top and windows all the way down. I otherwise would surely have ended up with a face full of glass.

The other driver -- about a block away -- also got out of their car. They took a glance at me, got back into their car and sped off. Their car had no plates.

I called 911 and Deputy Penate of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department arrived on the scene. His attitude toward me was immediately hostile.

I was in a completely traumatized state and had just experienced the scariest moment of my life. As I was on the phone trying to arrange a tow, he approached me and said: "Do you think we could hurry this up? I'd really like to have some dinner tonight."

A few minutes later as we were waiting for the tow truck, he got out of his patrol car and approached me again, making sniffing noises: "Why do I smell marijuana right now, sir? If I search your car am I'm gonna find anything I'm not supposed to find?"

I don't smoke marijuana. There was no contraband in my car, which had been laying totaled on the side of the road with its top down for an hour.

I had just been the victim of a serious crime and here was this law enforcement officer, trying to turn me into a criminal instead of assisting me in any way.

That experience was a serious blow to my faith in law enforcement.

Published in 2012, based on electricity mix at that time and assuming a vehicle life of only 93,000 miles.

It can be useful just to remember that it is possible to feel those profound experiences. That you have access to them, and that your normal, depressed experience is subjective too.

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In my experience, TownePlace and similar brands tend to be located slightly out of the way, often in large commercial developments. Not always walkable or in the heart of where you want to be.

> See this with Airbnb too. They're no longer cheaper than a hotel in many cases and the experience has declined for a variety of reasons.

This is such a common criticism of Airbnb. Maybe I’m an outlier but my use of Airbnb does not compete with hotels at all: e.g. renting an entire pool house with friends, a secluded cabin out in the mountains or an apartment with full kitchen and laundry for an extended stay in a city center.

I’m curious how so?

Do you similarly feel that comparisons across different populations are invalid for arguing the affirmative?

e.g. arguments like "we should try masking / UBI / $15 minimum wage / free healthcare / universal pre-k because it worked well in ${location}" are also "not how this works" because we can "only compare with the future that wasn't?"

Do such arguments need to control for the infinite number of confounding variables before having any value?

Is your argument that outcomes of different policy decisions cannot be compared across different jurisdictions?

I'd bet that areas with greater mask compliance also have greater compliance with social distancing and other, more effective mitigation measures.

Why haven't we seen significantly better outcomes in states with mask mandates vs. those without?

> Once most of the population will be vaccinated, there will absolutely be no reason to keep facilities closed anymore

Most of the population has been vaccinated.

50.4% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-trac...

The government does not have a shoe mandate. As far as I know, individual businesses are free to have whatever policies they wish regarding shoes.

I understand, but consider how different your situation might be if those corrections had occurred at the end of your career rather than the beginning.