41–50 of 177 posts
Seriously? I usually just roll my eyes when I hear this sort of feel good, warm-fuzzy cheerleading. But seriously, wake up! The reason they're in this mess is because they lacked preparation for the reality that people have an incredible capacity for bad. This is a false premise on which to rent out your most private, personal space.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is pretty much exactly what they should be doing. The fact that it took them several weeks to do it is what constitutes a poor response to the crisis. Regardless, it looks like they're doing what they should be doing, and I hope it works out both for them and their customers.
I disagree. Changing your support model to a 24 hour call center in a month is a big, impressive feat. Think of the hiring/training/management/infrastructure challenges. Not to mention the insurance policy, which is international? This is not trivial stuff. It would take most companies several months to even get close to this.
However, even if they could not be implemented immediately, coming out early, before the story really blew up, talking about it openly and frankly, and announcing these changes would have done wonders. Instead, they've been beaten up in the press for the last week or two for their relative silence.
Will this submission have it's title changed to the original post ("Our Commitment to Trust & Safety"), as was done for the original submission of EJ's blog post? EDIT: Here's to consistency! Title has been (presumably mod-) edited.
Yes, let's stick with the original title. Using original article titles is preferred according to HN guidelines.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2823020
(Report of an exception to this principle)
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(The actual text of the guidelines)
After edit: The submission title has been changed to match the original article title in this thread. I wonder if that will happen in the thread from last week I linked to in the link shown just above this P.S.
Two things immediately pop out from this: "Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post trying to explain the situation, but it didn’t reflect my true feelings." I'm not sure how I feel about this line (I assume it's referring to his TC post). On one hand, it's nice that he's now 'fessing up with a this-is-how-I-feel post. On the other, it's a pretty clear admission that he's had no problems in the past sending out PR spin…
The decision to break the conditions of the lease was solely your tenant's decision. Any sane insurance company will either verify the tenant's ability to rent out their place, or will void the contract if they discover later that the tenant did not have the legal right to rent out their place. Most likely, if the insurance is an online-type thing, the tenant will be certifying when they buy the policy that they have the legal ability to rent out their place.
A $50,000 guarantee seems a bit low. Condos in OK neighborhoods here in Chicago start at around 200K so theoretically a lot more than 50K in damage could be done.
As a home owner and someone who has used airbnb, trust me, $50k will more than cover everything in pretty much every place airbnb rents out. Just because someplace costs $200k doesn't mean it costs $200k to rebuild from the ground up (a lot is in property, structure, etc...). Realistically, you'd really have to try hard to do $50k+ damage to a typical airbnb property without the cops being called as it is happening.
In Dallas (where I live), a structure usually costs much more to tear down and rebuild new than it is currently worth. For example, you might get a mortgage on a $250,000 10yo house here yet your insurance will be for $375,000 for that reason.
Brilliant move!
I wonder how they're now going to prevent fraud.
It's interesting that 1-15 August is now the only uncovered period. They should also let everyone cancel all reservations during that window without penalty, if they'd like.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point of that article was more that this had hit CNN than any new information about the event itself. Pretty meta, but not unreasonable.
Worth noting that my original title said just that ("Airbnb horror" story hits CNN) - and that this was corrected by a mod or automated process within a minute of posting... but not instantly. And from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2834426 I hear that EJ's story was also retitled to be less enticing. Sounds like some nice double-standard going on here, considering this one maintains its title. I'm sure it will…
Is it just me or do they say they'll be covering losses after August 15th, and before August 1, but not August 1 through 15?