Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 403 posts

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

#321

Post by URSpider94 »

spaceflunky wrote: post #190
chimeracoder wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's unreasonable to say that all home-sharers must act like hotels. First, Airbnb hosts are not "sharing" their homes. They're renting them out for financial profits. Second, the name is literally Air bnb , as in "Bed and Breakfast". Most B&Bs don't get anything close to that amount of information, and it's illegal for them to discriminate on the basis of protected classes, just like hotels.

Screening guests =/= racism I, personally, am not arguing that discrimination isn't wrong (though some other threads have clarified the actual legality). I'm just saying that the methods Airbnb has chosen to prevent said discrimination also make it impossible for me to host and those methods are shaky at best.

It may not be racism, but it's certainly discrimination, in the sense that you are selecting who gets to conduct business with you based upon subjective criteria.

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

#322

Post by spaceflunky »

massysett wrote: post #316
dajohnson89 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of their current revenue do you think comes from large, commercial operations (as opposed to single family homes ... maybe a side property being rented out)? No idea myself, but I would imagine comfortably under 50%....so it's hard to believe AirBnB aiming for this kind of pivot on the customer base, especially the one that got them to where they are today.

They are skating to where the puck is headed. Their future is unlicensed hotels. The "express booking" underscores this. No one renting out a room in his house wants it rented based on an instaclick. Lyft started out with the huge pink mustache and front seat rides. They ditched that stuff fast too.

Spot on again.

How can I subscribe to your newsletter?

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

#323

Post by spaceflunky »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #284
massysett wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, AirBnB is bidding you good riddance. They obviously want to be some big corporation competing with Marriott, Holiday Inn, etc. They aren't going to get there with people like you. They're going to get there by clearing the way for the professional "hosts" who are, in reality, setting up unlicensed hotels in apartment buildings. If AirBnB is going to get big, they need to have anti-discrimination policies. W…

What percentage of their current revenue do you think comes from large, commercial operations (as opposed to single family homes ... maybe a side property being rented out)? No idea myself, but I would imagine comfortably under 50%....so it's hard to believe AirBnB aiming for this kind of pivot on the customer base, especially the one that got them to where they are today.

Doesn't matter what the percentage is today, it's what it will be in the future...

It's a lot easier to say, "buy a second home or apt and make some money renting it out" than it is to say "make some money by letting a stranger go through all your personal shit. And if you don't, you're racist"

"Home sharing" is over. Airbnb is all about being a broker for unlicensed mini-hotels now.

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

#324

Post by kmonsen »

simonsarris wrote: post #143
prmph wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The usual arguments against your point have been well argued before, but I will repeat it here, because people all too often trip up on the seeming unassailable logic of your position: Men are statistically more likely to commit violent crimes than women, and 100% of crime is committed by humans. Would you suggest that "men" and "humans" as classes should be discriminated against as a result? What if, statistically,…

> Would you suggest that "men" and "humans" as classes should be discriminated against as a result? Yes, if you can sell a night's stay for the same price to a houseplant as you can to a human, it would seem wisest to board the houseplant at every opportunity. > What if, statistically, there were some weird factor... I would like an AI to make all my booking picks for me, but not one that aims to maximize diversity o…

You choose to use the obvious case, but it would be just as true for the other one:

Yes, if you can sell a night's stay for the same price to a woman as you can to a man, it would seem wisest to board the woman at every opportunity.

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

#325

Post by kmonsen »

paulmd wrote: post #120
bobjordan wrote: post #11

Yeah, well after having a multi-day house party thrown in my Houston home by a local guy that had the gall to write "God Bless you" several times before the rental, and Airbnb doing nothing about the damages (huge scratches on brand new $5K bedroom suite, a frigging water-logged kitchen ceiling, cabinet doors torn off hinges, etc.) we will no longer rent to any local, of any race. Anyone that rents my house is going…

Golly, and how do you think your neighbors felt about the house party? Something you'd like going on in your quiet neighborhood, or on the floor above your apartment? Much like how cryptocurrency is a high-speed re-enactment of how and why we developed modern financial institutions and regulations, Airbnb is a high-speed re-enactment of how and why we developed regulations on and protections for transient lodging est…

I like your: " is a high-speed re-enactment of how and why we developed regulations ...".

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

#326

Post by Spooky23 »

mikestew wrote: post #317
dajohnson89 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed completely. This is why shared home adverts are exempt from FHA regulations.

This is not true. Rather than dig through the FHA for you, Craigslist's interpretation is easier to reference: https://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA

Sorry, but you are wrong. There are exemptions that are relevant in a housing situation. Here are some:

1. owner-occupied buildings with no more than four units (which is commonly known as the Mrs. Murphy exemption)

2. single family housing sold or rented without the use of a broker if the private individual owner does not own more than three such single family homes at one time

3. housing operated by organizations and private clubs that limit occupancy to members

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

#327

Post by jscardella »

I've read through many of the comments here. People are discussing laws, morality, and how race bias affects our behaviors. All interesting topics. The thing that is most obvious to me is that disrupting technologies and services like $x.sharing challenge existing laws, which are based on past experiences and don't plan for future growth.

It's also obvious we're ill-equipped to deal with it in a timeframe that is reasonable. It's a race condition that the law will always lose, because by the time it catches up the new disrupter will be in full effect.

I think that AirBnB is doing a good thing by trying to address a real problem, even if it's not 100% effective. And if they determine it is not, I hope they continue to try and make it better.

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

#328

Post by aminok »

tptacek wrote: post #302
dublinclontarf wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the point of government is to protect your rights from violation by others. Those unalienable rights you are born with as outlined in the bill of rights. It's not to overcome the failings of humanity (an impossible task if ever there was one).

Your inalienable rights are a construct, enforced solely by "governments". Your rates in the state of nature are nothing like the rights your countrymen have agreed to provide you.

So slavery is okay as long as the government determines it is. Great moral framework you have there.

It's morally wrong to use threats of government violence to dictate how an individual uses their private property.

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

#329

Post by HNisfascist »

rayiner wrote: post #285
hackuser wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with how the question is framed, around whether someone can do these things: People can do all sorts of bad things; they can mentally abuse their children, they can gamble away all their family's assets, cheat their co-workers and customers, they can hate and do many other things to ruin their lives, their family's, their neighbor's, their country's and the world's. People have the right to turn the U.S. i…

I'll put a sharper point on it: People must be governed.[1] People have an enormous capacity to be violent, racist, sexist, small minded, paranoid, greedy, and dishonest, and the whole point of government is to collectively overcome these failings. Obviously government cannot stop discrimination just as it cannot stop murder, theft, etc. But it can dramatically reduce it by imposing the proper social norms. [1] https…

mods banned yet another account that spoke against fascism.

Obviously you allow pro fascist statements to go unchallenged.

Apparently another voice needed to be 'governed' into silence.

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

#330

Post by untog »

wonder_er wrote: post #274
untog wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you choose to make your home a place of business, you must comply with business rules. They're providing a service in return for money, they have to declare the earnings from such for tax purposes... there is no line here. A psychiatrist who operates out of a home office has no legal right to discriminate based on race, either.

This is a case for dropping employment laws, not enforcing them on a wider class of people.

You're saying that evidence AirBnB hosts discriminate racially is a case for dropping employment laws?
Post reply on HN