Regulatory arbitrage of some sort seems to be involved in many recent digital business models. Whether it concerns or involves (lack of) data privacy regulation, "reinventing" labour contracts or undercutting taxation frameworks, it is a most cruel reminder of how poor the management of the commons. While many of the efficiencies and attractions of re-inventing various businesses for the "digital age" seem genuine, t…
> a lose-lose proposition for anybody but the most short-term minded. "[I]n recent years the realisation has dawned that what’s good for Silicon Valley is not always good for everyone. What started with scrappy upstarts promising to make the world a better place has morphed into something more sinister: a pantheon of faceless multinationals who collectively dominate the world’s digital infrastructure, flouting regula…
Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
171–180 of 405 posts
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Regulatory arbitrage of some sort seems to be involved in many recent digital business models. Whether it concerns or involves (lack of) data privacy regulation, "reinventing" labour contracts or undercutting taxation frameworks, it is a most cruel reminder of how poor the management of the commons. Well here is the thing, in my country the majority of Airbnb rental are(at least were) illegal. Authorities knew this…
The irony of law abiding vigilante drivers beating up regulation abritraging drivers
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Regulatory arbitrage of some sort seems to be involved in many recent digital business models. Whether it concerns or involves (lack of) data privacy regulation, "reinventing" labour contracts or undercutting taxation frameworks, it is a most cruel reminder of how poor the management of the commons. Well here is the thing, in my country the majority of Airbnb rental are(at least were) illegal. Authorities knew this…
The irony of law abiding vigilante drivers beating up regulation abritraging drivers
You dont know how much you will pay (their estimates are always too low) and the first questions by the driver are to check if you know the town. If you dont sound like a local, then they will drive you through the longest route possible. And worst: you can do nothing about it. No way to report the licensed driver. Before uber it was like a license to steal.
In uber you can give 1 star - so the cheaters dont get any customers + you have some idea of price and route.
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
If there isn't a distinction between ads and listings in some language, isn't that more evidence that both are actually the same thing?
Some cultures don't distinguish between green and blue and don't have a word for blue. That doesn't mean that blue is the same as green.
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#175It says advertisements in the article, but maybe a more clear term is 'listing'?
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
> how a few individuals can flood the short-term rental market in an area. And, if it's like some cities (Dublin, Galway), they do this at the expense of the long-term rental market.
That is one of the given reasons the municipality pursues this. There is a housing crisis in the Netherlands, so that gives some context to this.
Is there any western city where there isn't a housing crisis?
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
The irony of law abiding vigilante drivers beating up regulation abritraging drivers
Recently I heard a joke about postmen leaving aviso instead of delivering post. If you see him leaving aviso, you can legally beat him. You have his signed proof that you weren't home at the time.
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lot's of experiences are amazing and wonderful when very few people do it, but they morph into something different when the masses come in. National parks. A rustic cafe in an old town. A picknick along a river bank. High signal internet forums. Venice. Zhangjiajie. Driving cars. I don't know if any solution exists. It seems to me that the only way to preserve the original experience is via some sort of exclusiveness…
I don't think it's the number of people by itself. It's when it's becomes an established business that people have to start optimizing for low cost, max profit and fighting to get to the top of listings. Then the general niceness and interestingness goes away.
Crowds, wait times, littering etc. Large numbers can ruin a lot of things.
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whole buildings were purposefully converted to illegal hotels. It's been a factor in rising property prices and housing shortages. Less tourism is one of the unexpected bonuses of COVID-19.
There's a whole class of society that won't think of decreased tourism as a good thing
On one side, many tourist destinations are happy to share the beauty of their landscape, the clean beaches, historical areas and the likes. And they make lots of money from it.
On the other side, it's extremely easy to delve into over-tourism, particularly if local politics are bought out / otherwise influenced by tourism profiteers (e.g. large hotel owners in the whole Balkan area, or breweries in the case of Munich's Oktoberfest). Then, you have problems like hoteliers building out a massive over-supply of hotels in areas that could also be used for regular housing (which in turn drives the housing market mad, such as it is in Munich), or hotels built too close to protected habitats, forest fire lines etc., or - inarguably the worst result - hordes of tourists swarming natural beauty spots for Instagram photos and ruining them by sheer mass (trampling over plants, disturbing animals with noise, relieving themselves, ...).
The "heroin" aspect comes into play for the really big destinations, the likes of Venice or Amsterdam. Over the last decades, tourism only knew one direction - upwards, and steadily. That meant that often local economies shifted towards tourism, sometimes completely... and then corona hit, and suddenly there was nothing to do, no reserves to weather the storm. Cold turkey, and no methadone (aka, government assistance for affected people and businesses) in way too many countries.
Edit: and actually, now after almost two years of pandemic, the situation is now worse. Many people who worked in tourism (and hospitality in general) had to move off to new employment, hotels and other industry closed down / got sold or otherwise repurposed. Again, the heroin comparison comes into play... as the infrastructure for tourism has shrunk, even lower numbers of tourists than a decade pre-Corona will now make the system fall over. Just look at the chaos at the Berlin airport BER (https://www.rbb24.de/politik/Flughafen-BER/BER-Aktuelles/av7...)... that's a forewarning of what is to come.
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
A flat owner is not an atomic actor. If you purchase a flat, it's under the implicit assumption that you or your family will be the only ones occupying it. I live in Sweden and most "condo" associations (bostadsrätt) have rules regarding short-term hires and subletting. I imagine it is the same in the Netherlands.
> I live in Sweden and most "condo" associations (bostadsrätt) have rules regarding short-term hires and subletting. I don't know why you're using Sweden as a 'good' example of democratic control of Airbnb: the opposite is actually true, where the authorities are very well-disposed to people hiring-out their apartments, and see it as an opportunity to get more tourists visiting locations in Sweden[0] From the article…
https://www.thelocal.se/20210916/swedens-first-case-against-...