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Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

nytimes.com

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Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#201

Post by spaceflunky »

Canada wrote: post #179
spaceflunky wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I prefer renting places that are lived in homes, but the occupant is away. Unfortunately these kinds of properties are rare. Before arriving in some foreign place I want to know if the host is reliable. The host wants to know if they can trust me to be in their home. Ratings are helpful but no substitute for finding out what type of person you're dealing with. Even though I'm a pretty private person I prefer connecti…

I agree with everything you're saying. I spent a great deal of effort getting to know my guests as best I could. A lot of my guests and I added each other on social media after and have reached out to me to come stay again.

I only spoke on the phone with one guest before hand and we ended up connecting very well. Her and her daughter were first timers and I walked them through the whole process. Her feedback said something like she considers me family now haha

Airbnb has basically stripped that ability away from me. So thanks Airbnb. I'll stop being the racist you've incorrectly accused me of being.

/oh and for the record, I am Latino/Native American.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#202

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

ebfe wrote: post #167
ritchiea wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered the fact that whites discriminating against blacks is commonplace in the United States (as well as many other countries) while accounts of whites feeling discriminated against by people of color is much more rare?

The majority of white people believe that discrimination against whites is more common than discrimination against people of color, actually. Ask your average middle class white person about affirmative action, preferential access for minorities to grants/loans, etc.

Plenty of dudes are convinced that society is "anti-male", you can get some examples in the "Ask a Female Engineer" thread currently going on.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#203

Post by tptacek »

wyager wrote: post #199
eropple wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with , you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. This isn't about your home; this is about your use of your home as a capital asset. You can allow into your home anyone you choose to and bar anyone you choose to. But as a society we have agreed that we--through our government--most certainly have a stake in making sure that you treat oth…

>If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with, you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. Let's go for the obvious example; Jewish business owners should be forced to do business with neo-nazis?

Nazism isn't a protected class.

But Jewish business owners routinely do business with them anyways.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#204

Post by [deleted] »

wyager wrote: post #199
eropple wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with , you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. This isn't about your home; this is about your use of your home as a capital asset. You can allow into your home anyone you choose to and bar anyone you choose to. But as a society we have agreed that we--through our government--most certainly have a stake in making sure that you treat oth…

>If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with, you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. Let's go for the obvious example; Jewish business owners should be forced to do business with neo-nazis?

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#205

Post by oneloop »

nicolas_t wrote: post #107

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'…

You'll never discriminate on anything, except the things that are important to you and you don't like. Got it.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#206

Post by Unklejoe »

eropple wrote: post #192
wyager wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you have personal preferences about whom you let live in your home that don't align with mine, you shouldn't be allowed to have anyone in your home at all!"

If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with , you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. This isn't about your home; this is about your use of your home as a capital asset. You can allow into your home anyone you choose to and bar anyone you choose to. But as a society we have agreed that we--through our government--most certainly have a stake in making sure that you treat oth…

[If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with, you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone.]

Why? If someone chooses to discriminate, why not let them suffer the consequences of lost potential revenue naturally?

It gives people who don't discriminate a chance to step in and gain market share.

It reminds me of the story of the bakery who wouldn't make a wedding cake for a gay couple. If I owned a bakery, I would put up a sign the next day saying "we will happily make cakes for gay couples".

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#207

Post by tptacek »

Unklejoe wrote: post #206
eropple wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with , you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. This isn't about your home; this is about your use of your home as a capital asset. You can allow into your home anyone you choose to and bar anyone you choose to. But as a society we have agreed that we--through our government--most certainly have a stake in making sure that you treat oth…

[If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with, you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone.] Why? If someone chooses to discriminate, why not let them suffer the consequences of lost potential revenue naturally? It gives people who don't discriminate a chance to step in and gain market share. It reminds me of the story of the bakery who wouldn't make a wedding cake for a gay coup…

Because we tried that and it didn't work. It wasn't a single decision that resulted in redlining that forced all the black people in cities to under-served slums. It was an aggregation of millions of personal decisions, many of them by otherwise reasonable people who were simply responding to the very powerful human cognitive bias of loss aversion. So, as a society, we decided to do what can to foreclose on that pathology.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#208

Post by shostack »

MaxGabriel wrote: post #35
untog wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really relevant here. The article is specifically about racial discrimination.

The article says that one way AirBnB is handling racial discrimination is to "accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval." It's not AirBnB's goal, but as a side effect it would affect bobjordan, so it is relevant. (edit: it would depend on how they implement more instant booking. If they just encouraged renters to use it (but could they just encourage and…

The skeptic in me says that pushing Instant Bookings is their primary goal as it lets them be closer to how hotels book. The discrimination angle is a great way to roll it out because it solves a another problem for them.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#209

Post by Unklejoe »

tptacek wrote: post #203
wyager wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with, you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. Let's go for the obvious example; Jewish business owners should be forced to do business with neo-nazis?

Nazism isn't a protected class. But Jewish business owners routinely do business with them anyways.

What determines if something is a protected class?

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#210

Post by eropple »

Unklejoe wrote: post #206
eropple wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with , you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. This isn't about your home; this is about your use of your home as a capital asset. You can allow into your home anyone you choose to and bar anyone you choose to. But as a society we have agreed that we--through our government--most certainly have a stake in making sure that you treat oth…

[If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with, you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone.] Why? If someone chooses to discriminate, why not let them suffer the consequences of lost potential revenue naturally? It gives people who don't discriminate a chance to step in and gain market share. It reminds me of the story of the bakery who wouldn't make a wedding cake for a gay coup…

You're assuming a lot here. You're assuming there are multiple bakers. You're assuming the bakers aren't colluding. You're assuming that the homophobic baker isn't being rewarded through additional patronage or via other methods, i.e., the GoFundMes etc. for their nonexistent plights. And you're assuming that a normal-person baker who doesn't hate gay people would not be shunned for their support.

The market will and does fail in the face of bigotry and discrimination; we've seen it from redlining to, well, now. Addressing market failures is the government's job.

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