221–230 of 405 posts
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How it started out is irrelevant, how it is today is what matters.
Sometimes you need to break some laws to make progress that does not make it a scam. Sometimes the existing laws hurt consumers breaking such laws is good not bad.
But because its USA megacorp it takes years before it gets slap on a wrist.
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> There is a housing crisis in the Netherlands Is there any western city where there isn't a housing crisis?
Perhaps there's something deeply wrong with western housing systems? I don't want to sound too radical, but this seems to be inextricably connected to capitalism. We won't ever solve it without structural changes. What Amsterdam is doing is a decent start at least.
Given this, any "solution" to housing affordability is "solving" a problem that a sizable and highly influential segment of the population doesn't want solved. On the contrary, you see real government action whenever home prices fall.
If I were a western city, I would simply build enough housing for residents and visitors.
I don't especially mind tourists in moderate numbers - after all, from time to time, I play the tourist myself. However, I live and work in Cambridge, and if we were to put what you suggest into practice the city would become an absolutely intolerable place to be for everyone. AirBnb may or may not be a big problem here but, if it is, it's a subset of a bigger problem: buy to let. I'd like to see buy to let severely…
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I realize this, even so, for Amsterdam it was a very much needed reprieve.
So you work hard to make your city to become one of the major tourist destinations in the world, who bring in a lot of money and help the local business flourish, and then need a reprieve from that? Kinda counterproductive, no?
Then, there's this permanent humiliation of feeling like a servant in your home-town, because the local upper class makes very clear to you peons, that you're less important than the tourists, and they also think this very clearly.
Any business not related to tourism is basically discouraged, because it could "change the character of our lovely paradise".
Basically, unless you're rich and have business in tourism, tourism is not that great. Yeah, it puts food on the table when you're poor, but so other jobs that you could have if it were not for the damned tourists that make you a second class citizen in your own place of living.
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> 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…
> One of the reasons why all these SV tech business got away with it is the fact that they are all located in US Well, they could still be (at the very least) prohibited from operating in your country. Sadly, most of these services (Airbnb, Uber) were also illegal here in the US, but for "some reason" (aka lots and lots of $$$), no one ever bothered enforcement against them. Eventually they spent enough money on brib…
I can say I loved Uber et al primarily because unlike any experiences I ever had with calling a taxi, a car actually showed up to bring me to my destination.
If I correctly interpret your definition of “the public” to mean “the common men and women using these services”: it’s a bit unfair to give them the blame, rather than pursue a failure of regulators or regulations.
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> Regulatory arbitrage of some sort seems to be involved in many recent digital business models. Whether it concerns or involves (lack of) data privacy regulation, "reinventing" labour contracts or undercutting taxation frameworks, it is a most cruel reminder of how poor the management of the commons. Well here is the thing, in my country the majority of Airbnb rental are(at least were) illegal. Authorities knew this…
> One of the reasons why all these SV tech business got away with it is the fact that they are all located in US Well, they could still be (at the very least) prohibited from operating in your country. Sadly, most of these services (Airbnb, Uber) were also illegal here in the US, but for "some reason" (aka lots and lots of $$$), no one ever bothered enforcement against them. Eventually they spent enough money on brib…
It worked for the hotel and taxi industry, seems a logical way to succeed for Uber and Airbnb in the same domains.
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Amsterdam is a city being overrun by tourists and that is something local councils should be able to control. Locals have difficulty to find homes as prices are raising to high levels. https://nltimes.nl/2016/10/13/amsterdam-center-overrun-touri... https://www.travelandtourworld.com/news/article/amsterdam-is... https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/01/amsterdam-house-prices...
I don't understand why houses should be excluded from the capitalistic process; If councils were doing their job and permitting sufficient housing construction, then high prices = more housing = everyone is happy. I'm no expert on Amsterdam, but checking your last article mentions rent control; why would property developers bother building new housing when the returns are artificially deflated by government action? T…
There was a policy failure, in allowing Airbnb to run huge unlicensed hotel business.
This policy is addressing that. They didn't stop Airbnb from operating, they just made sure that they operate more in line like other hotels.
This will in turn enable them to make sure that the tourist flow is sustainable, by raising or lowering tourist taxes on such rentals.
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Honestly that is all I wanted from them. Taxi service with a well designed universal phone app with map routing and payment. I guess the established players figured out they didn't need a thing like that but it looks like they were proven wrong.
The only thing that "ride-sharing" companies proved was that they can do it cheaper by (a) bleeding capital and (b) evading regulator enforcement/taxes.
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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.
> There is a housing crisis in the Netherlands Is there any western city where there isn't a housing crisis?
[0]: https://www.supermoney.com/inflation-adjusted-home-prices/
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Don't overthink it. The article was probably translated from Dutch, or done by a Dutch person, and there isn't direct equivalent for "listings" in Dutch.
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?