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General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

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Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#71

Post by raesene9 »

jacquesm wrote: post #67
gaur wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After all, what proof will they use to tell a host they are discriminating. Testers. That's partially how the government got evidence to sue Trump in the 1970s for housing discrimination.

That doesn't scale. If Airbnb were to test every host to reliably prove discrimination or not their whole business model would fall apart.

Sure they couldn't reliably prove it, but sample based testing + public consequences for those found to be in breach of ToS (e.g. some form of financial penalty) would likely make people who intended to discriminate less likely to use the AirBnB platform.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#72

Post by jacquesm »

DanBC wrote: post #69
jacquesm wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are extending 'their website and business' into private property. That's a direct conflict without resolution, I confidently predict nothing will change and this is just window-dressing. Yes indeed, Airbnb can do what they want with their property, namely their website and business, and their customers property is not their business. > if you don't like it then they even outline what you can do in the linked art…

Or AirBnB will face increasing levels of regulation, somewhat like the NYT did under the Fair Housing Act. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/14/nyregion/times-adopts-a-ne...

I guess suddenly it will seem like there are a disproportionally large number of mixed couples in the area.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#73

Post by jacquesm »

raesene9 wrote: post #71
jacquesm wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't scale. If Airbnb were to test every host to reliably prove discrimination or not their whole business model would fall apart.

Sure they couldn't reliably prove it, but sample based testing + public consequences for those found to be in breach of ToS (e.g. some form of financial penalty) would likely make people who intended to discriminate less likely to use the AirBnB platform.

Maybe. But the more likely outcome is that people will simply continue to do what they do until they get kicked off and that every wanna-be renter of some Airbnb listed property is going to claim 'discrimination' from now on when they are refused.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#74

Post by sonink »

mungoman2 wrote: post #45
sonink wrote: post #34

Somehow Airbnb mostly doesnt work for me. You find a nice/cheap place to stay, message the host and wait for 24 hours for a revert. Fairly often, the host declines for seemingly specious reasons. The bigger problem is the wait than the refusal. An Indian startup called OyoRooms has a much better solution to this problem.

I am not familiar with OyoRooms. What is their solution?

OyoRooms is the real Uber for hotel rooms. They take over cheap hotels, brand it and sell on their app.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#75

Post by Canada »

Vintila wrote: post #57
jacquesm wrote: post #47

Airbnb can do whatever they want in property they own/lease. However since they 'share' (funny word that) people's private homes they will have to live with the fact that those people will refuse guests for whatever reasons they feel like, this is the flip side of the coin of not having a relationship where they are in control (employer, employee, owner of the premises). Airbnb wants to have its cake and eat it too,…

Yes, Airbnb can do what they want with their property, namely their website and business. If you don't like it then they even outline what you can do in the linked article. This knife cuts both ways.

True, though I think this is a dick move:

"If you cancel your account as a guest, any future reservations you have will be refunded according to the hosts' cancellation policy."

So, if you don't agree to this demand by AirBnB that wasn't on the table when you agreed to your booking, then you just lose your money.

If AirBnB was fair about this then it would let the user off the hook and pay out any cancellation fees/compensation out of its own funds. It's not like many people aren't going to agree anyway.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#76

Post by MarkMc »

Despite this, I feel Airbnb isn't doing enough to fight discrimination.

They need to ensure that the host cannot see anything that can identify a user's race, ethnicity, age, etc. No photos, no names, and a moderated comments and rating system. Until they do that they are placing their profits above principle.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#77

Post by meira »

nvahalik wrote: post #12

People discriminate every day. I discriminate against restaurants and babysitters and businesses all the time. Sometimes those discriminations are because of a feeling. Sometimes they are are based on my internal biases. Sometimes I disagree with the choices a business has made and if affects whether or not I do business with them. Why do we make such a big deal about "discrimination?" It's built into who we are as p…

So is corruption (both have even a connection). Should we accept and embrace all societies biases as ok?

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#78

Post by MarkMc »

Lucadg wrote: post #42

I used to work in a camping site in Northern Italy many years ago. We were openly told not to accept people from the south of Italy as they statistically were more noisy. I didn't like it but it actually made sense. It just wasn't viable to mix Germans and Napoleteans in a tight space. I guess Germans earned that right with politness. Then one day I let gipsies in and I almost got fired.

Yes discrimination can often be beneficial to the bottom line. It's still wrong though.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#79

Post by tacunota »

ddorian43 wrote: post #15

In a recent thread (too lazy to link), many users agreed that roma people ~suck in ~europe (because they keep to themselfes and their own culture, which sucks, and they don't integrate). I probably would discriminate against one if I was renting my "thing". It's time for airbnb(github/twitter too) to start dying I think. Edit: I welcome you to show your counter examples.

The problem with talking about Roma here is that Americans look at them as the blacks of Europe, which is not the case. There are good blacks. Lot more of good blacks than bad blacks, there's no question about it, and despite the statistics, I wouldn't act threatened around blacks, if I ever visited the US.

I live in Southern Spain. Roma live so constrained to themselves they even speak Spanish with a completely different and very distinguishable accent.

And you know what. They have earned that treatment themselves. They are not like blacks, most of them here do actually look like they are native. I know a few Roma that you wouldn't say they are Roma. Why? Because they chose the path of being civilised and they simply blend in. They act like actual humans.

What I mean is: the Roma case is self-inflicted. If a Roma wants to blend in, he will, and you'll never figure it out. Blacks are different, since, well, you can see upfront when someone is black.

And yes, Roma that act like Roma are probably the worst you'll ever have to deal with. There's literally nothing worse. If somebody wants to dispute this I'll be more than glad to hear, but please, only do so if you've actually had to deal with Roma--I live in a poor neighbourhood in Spain, with quite a few Roma families around, I've been to middle school and high school here and I've had to deal with Roma kids, and I know perfectly well what I've seen.

Anyway and back to the topic at hand: I don't think Roma would actually ever use something like airbnb.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#80

Post by redthrowaway »

It's sad to see the tech community, which used to be very libertarian, move towards a hard-left progressive view of social issues. It wasn't that long ago that Friedman's arguments against equal pay laws[1] would have held sway here. The idea that the market punishes bigotry and so can be relied upon to advance freedom and equality used to be a core belief of the tech community. Now, it seems companies are falling over themselves to come up with ever more progressive and authoritarian solutions to problems that have only been complained about in the tech media--driven largely by people who care far more about culture wars than they do about tech. It's hard to see these developments and not feel that something important has been lost.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsIpQ7YguGE

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