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General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

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Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#81

Post by chillydawg »

gaur wrote: post #65
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,…

> 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.

It's pretty easy. Airbnb have all the data they need. Infer the race/gender/sexuality of each guest using standard techniques and then look at relative acceptance/decline rates among hosts for those groups you wish to measure discrimination for. It's a few days work with a db/excel/python.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#83

Post by dkopi »

redthrowaway wrote: post #80

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 ov…

There's nothing unlibertarian about a private business making up its own terms of services and privately enforcing them. That's exactly how the free market self regulates without the use of force.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#84

Post by Normal_gaussian »

bitL wrote: post #82

So renters are now AirBnB employees as well? /sUber

You jest but it's an interesting proposition.

By forcing contracts onto the host and removing the ability of the host to edit and negotiate the contract it can be argued in a British court that Airbnb is in fact renting from the host, and that any legal infractions or damages in subsequent sublets of that rented space are AirBnB's responsibility.

I don't have a copy of the hosts contract, but the items to watch out for are:

- anything preventing the host from contacting guests after the let

- anything preventing the host from letting the space elsewhere in between Airbnb lets

- inability of the host to impose legally binding requirements on the guests

- anything preventing the host from pursuing legal action against guests (eg, forcing the use of arbitration)

Without three of the four I would be unlikely to challenge it personally. Though two not including the third might be enough.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#85

Post by Normal_gaussian »

gottam wrote: post #35

if someone is turning you down on airbnb based upon some arbitrary discriminatory factors, do you think you'd really want to stay with a person like that to begin with?

Probably. Most I have seen are entire apartments wgere you see the host for a few minutes at the beginning and a few at the end.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#86

Post by fma »

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,…

The protected class citizens have a line drawn somewhere. The federal courts agree for roommates, you can discriminate because a roommate is a more intimate relationship than selling a house or renting out a house.

Since AirBnB is supposedly sharing...I don't see how that's different from getting roommates. They would have to reclassify their whole stance on being about "sharing economy" and admit they are more for renting homes than sharing homes, and not allow of renting out a hoise while the owner also lives there.

While they are at it, they can get Uber to reclassify themselves as a taxi company too.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#87

Post by empath75 »

redthrowaway wrote: post #80

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 ov…

It's sort of surprising how many people on hacker news apparently want the right to be racist.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#88

Post by boards2x »

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.

What a sad and pathetic excuse for discrimination based on culture and values. You're not only generalizing you seem to be in denial. Pay a visit to any popular vacation holiday in Spain or Portugal and test for yourself who are the loud, abnocious and ugly Europeans. We are doing our best to avoid any concentration of brits, Germans and Dutch on our holidays for the exact reason. We recently bought a house in Spain in a place we made sure was not popular with either, for this particular reason. Will be happy to share with you photos of ugly drunken Germans in mas lpalomas, loud and voulgar brits in Barcelona and Ibiza, a city which is struggling to contain this problem, which is mostly due to British visitors, or all of them in place like el Garf. You might want to discriminate based on money, but like the Russians are teaching us, no amount of money in the world can help hide voulgarity. Drumpf btw is of German extract. I'm sure you'll enjoy your company and will probably deserve it.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#89

Post by tdkl »

randycupertino wrote: post #52
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 just hate Airbnb because of all he stupid rules. I go on vacation to relax and don't want to have to feed your cat or make a curfew. Especially when I can stay in a mid-range hotel for the same price without all the rules and the bs $200 cleaning fee!

But the community feelings ! /s

As someone who lived in socialism it's hilarious to see how socialist values are now being marketed and sold as a business, without wanting to be responsible for it by the company who sells the idea.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#90

Post by raverbashing »

redthrowaway wrote: post #80

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 ov…

"hard-left progressive"

I'm not saying AirBnB has moved that much, but maybe you mean regressive left, though

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