Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

> We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite of the point of the US.

Arguably, the central point of the US was exactly to prevent people in positions of relative power from making certain decisions that others with less individual power disagreed with; perhaps the central debate between the modern left and modern right in the US is whether that generalizes from the formal political positions of relative power that were salient at the time of founding to economic positions of relative power (the position of the modern left) or whether the restrictions should be limited to only the domain of formal political power and that the exercise of economic power should be unconstrained (the position of the modern right.)

There is, kinda.

> What is Instant Book?

> Instant Book lets guests who meet your requirements and agree to your house rules to book your space without requesting approval.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/484/what-is-instant-book

You can require guests to go through Airbnb's ID verification process (giving them a copy of your license and/or passport, and connecting at least one social account).

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/450/what-is-verified-id

Also, they're attacking whites only here. What if blacks wanted a black person. Or a Chinese person who only speaks Chinese and writes only in Mandarin wants the same. The left will give these people exceptions for "cutlural" reasons. They just want to regulate race and commerce on their unquestionable terms. This has nothing to do with equality. Its just a power-grab by political opportunists and misguided idealists. The same way you have campus "safe spaces" where men aren't allowed or affirmative action quotas.

As an host, I'll never discriminate on the basis of religion, sex orientation, color of skin, national origin or gender identity.

When it comes to disability, I might refuse someone whose disability would cause risk in using the apartment and might have an accident because the apartment is not safe for someone who's disabled (the building is 300 years old, there's no elevator, the stair in the duplex apartment doesn't have handrails)... It's a risk if the person then has an accident...

Similarly in term of age, I would not rent to couples with young children because it's too risky.

So, it's discrimination but it's mostly because this is not an hotel, it's an apartment in which I live part of the year and it's not adapted for disabled people or couples with young children because I'm not in those categories.

That said, as someone whose wife is asian, I fully understand the problem. It's annoying and painful when people discriminate based on race.

In our case, we show both my face and wife face on our Airbnb profile photo because we prefer to have a host refuse on the basis of wife's nationality than to give money or stay at the house of a racist host. I've had a bad experience before that with a host who was nice to me when I met him and then wasn't as nice 5 minutes later once my wife arrived... The fact that he earned money from our stay galls me...

I did Airbnb for my personal residence for a few years, I was a "Super Host" three years in a row. These policies, while officially new, have been slowly edged in for a while and is the reason why I no longer use Airbnb. Why?

1.) Airbnb is still a new concept to a lot of people. Hosts need to time to work with a guest to make sure they know how the arrangement is suppose to work. Airbnb use to have a 'respond within 24 hrs rule' which got changed to a 'accept booking within 24hrs rule'. That change gave me little time to work with guests (especially first timers). I can't tell you how many times first-timers ask me questions as if i were hotel, "do you mind if i check in at 2am after my international flight gets in?" No.

2.) Removing pictures increases anonymity for guest and risks for hosts. Transparency is great for building trust. I could usually tell if a guest was going to good by the amount of information they shared about themselves. I hated it when first-time guest would reach out with zero information about themselves or a picture. It's like guests want to know everything about me, but they get to hide behind a veil of secrecy.

3.) Increasing the use of "instant-book" favors professionals as opposed to part-time home-sharers. Since I rented out my entire personal apt during work trips (never did room shares), I wanted to be damn sure a guest would be respectful of my home, so I needed to work with them (see #1). However, people who have a full-time airbnb place don't really care as much. They have a bunch of cheap ikea furniture and no personal belongings to worry about. This is in sharp contrast to what Airbnb claims to be, especially in SF. Since I have more to care about and more risk, the new policies do not work for me.

4.) Hosts aren't always forth coming with information NOR do they read the fine print before booking. I can't tell you how many people expected me to check them in at 2am, have an elevator, child proof my apartment, allow for dogs, and the list goes on and on. Great, now I've got to deal with people who don't bother to follow the rules.

Look, I realize I have a lot of requirements, and you might say "well maybe I shouldn't be airbnb-ing" But my apartment was great for the right person and I was happy to share it. And I was almost always able to find the right person. I think Airbnb is great when its about finding the right place for the right person. I'm sorry that everyplace can be right for everyone. My apt is not a "one-size-fits-all" hotel and since they are forcing me to be one, I am no longer using the service.