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Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

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Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#261

Post by berkes »

lultimouomo wrote: post #246
dimitrisnl wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the city, but the locals who are not in tech.

The whole city suffers in the long run, as business get torn up to make a quick buck with rents, and the city becomes an empty fun park for tourists. The problem obviously exists beyond AirBnB, but AirBnB massively escalated the problem.

Indeed, the entire city. In e.g. Amsterdam (a relatively tiny area, high tourism density) or Venice, in areas things have been pushed over. It's a spiral. E.g. something simple as "pharmacies" or "supermarkets". They leave/close because of less demand. Which decreases liveability, causing more locals to move out, causing more such businesses to close etc. These effects come next to "increasing house prices".

It really is so problematic that cities like Berlin, Amsterdam (and I believe Venice) and many more crack down on AirBnBs. Hard. You are allowed to rent out the apartment where you live, but for limited time and with high fines or even extradiction on renting out beyond the limits (e.g. 90 days per year). You are certainly no longer allowed to have AirBnBs for the sole purpose of renting out to AirBnb.

Edit: and in e.g. Berlin, AirBnB does not hand over the data of their users/renters (which Is good, I presume). So they have people scanning the renting-websites, visting homes and even posting outside to find evidence something is rented out beyond the allowed duration.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#262

Post by kibibyte »

lostcolony wrote: post #209
basisword wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Most folks will end up working on tourist visas which is explicitly not allowed around most of the world. Are you sure this is the case? You’re not allowed to get hired locally but I believe you can work online for a company based in your country of residence provided you don’t stay long enough to become a resident of the new country (which you can’t on a tourist visa). I visited Canada for 6 months on a tourist v…

Yeah; I'm pretty sure that isn't the case. They don't care if you do work online while visiting, just that you're not looking to stay or to take a local job (that they'd prefer to go to a resident). The legal language may be a little fuzzy since I bet it was written before remote work (telecommuting if it even existed at the time :P) was as much a thing, but I'd challenge anyone to find a case of someone penalized fo…

> Being hired in country A, for a company that has presence in both A and B, and then flying and working for a few months in B, could conceivably raise all sorts of flags if noticed.

My employer adopted a similar policy (just not as publicly announced as Airbnb's), and the way they work around this problem is by, assuming you reside in A, allowing you to travel and work in B but explicitly disallowing you from entering an office location in B.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#263

Post by mellavora »

Aeolun wrote: post #196
jimkleiber wrote: post #53

> While you’ll be responsible for getting proper work authorization, we’re actively partnering with local governments to make it easier for more people to travel and work around the world. Today, 20+ countries offer remote work visas, and more are in the works. While working from different locations isn’t possible for everyone, I hope everyone can benefit from this flexibility when the time is right. I think currentl…

I find it hard to imagine any country actually cares, and even if they do, I find it hard to imagine they could reasonably check whether anyone is there for tourism, or just to work.

Self-imposed limits on imagination do not restrict the possibilities and imagination of government agencies, nor restrict what other people think is "fair and reasonable"

Like you, I also wish the world worked in the way I like to imagine it should.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#264

Post by strangeattractr »

frederikvs wrote: post #257
pvtmert wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only works if you are holder of passport of the origin country. As a third world country national, I cannot legally work anywhere except the country I got my work visa. PS: Even if company is multinational corporation.

Tangent, but it turns out terms like "third world" are no longer accurate. If memory serves, this is explained in the book Factfulness. A highly recommended read, by the way. A few decades ago, there was a group of wealthy countries, a group of poor countries, and a large gap between them. Back then it made sense to see them as 2 separate groups, first world and third. Right now however, they're no longer separate gr…

Weren't the terms used to connote alliance with the US (first world) or the USSR (second world) and third world meant non-aligned?

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#265

Post by akvadrako »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #220
ultimoo wrote: post #166

>Most companies don’t do this because of the mountain of complexities with taxes, payroll, and time zone availability, but I hope we can open-source a solution so other companies can offer this flexibility as well. I think this is a genius growth play for Airbnb. Make it easier for _other_ companies to operate in a similar way so that _their_ employees can travel and live in an... Airbnb! Next, they should lobby to g…

I'm not an immigration/tax lawyer and could be completely wrong but if you're from EU/US/UK/AUS etc I'm fairly sure you can work in another one of those countries for up to 90 days (and sometimes upto 183) without paying tax there or getting a work visa - as long as you're still resident and being paid in your home country under the Visa Waiver program. I've worked in NY offices and got paid in UK (admittedly a while…

This is not correct. There is probably a special deal between the UK and USA, but there isn't anything similar for Americans working in most EU countries, and the rules are per country.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#266

Post by helge9210 »

frederikvs wrote: post #257
pvtmert wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only works if you are holder of passport of the origin country. As a third world country national, I cannot legally work anywhere except the country I got my work visa. PS: Even if company is multinational corporation.

Tangent, but it turns out terms like "third world" are no longer accurate. If memory serves, this is explained in the book Factfulness. A highly recommended read, by the way. A few decades ago, there was a group of wealthy countries, a group of poor countries, and a large gap between them. Back then it made sense to see them as 2 separate groups, first world and third. Right now however, they're no longer separate gr…

First world -- NATO member states

Second world -- Warsaw Pact member states

Third world -- all other states

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#267

Post by jdenning »

frederikvs wrote: post #257
pvtmert wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only works if you are holder of passport of the origin country. As a third world country national, I cannot legally work anywhere except the country I got my work visa. PS: Even if company is multinational corporation.

Tangent, but it turns out terms like "third world" are no longer accurate. If memory serves, this is explained in the book Factfulness. A highly recommended read, by the way. A few decades ago, there was a group of wealthy countries, a group of poor countries, and a large gap between them. Back then it made sense to see them as 2 separate groups, first world and third. Right now however, they're no longer separate gr…

I think you're wrong about this -- as I understood it, the term is a relic of the cold war. "First World" nations were aligned with the US, "Second World" were communist or communist-aligned, and "Third World" were not associated with either.

After the collapse of the USSR "Third World" became primarily associated with impoverished nations.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#268

Post by lultimouomo »

Hedepig wrote: post #250
devmor wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's almost impossible to purchase a house if you live and work in a large city now. Airbnb "hosts" use their ever growing stream of reverse mortgages to purchase more and more single family homes at cash offers over what others can afford.

Do you think this is an primarily caused by Airbnb?

I live in a city that is a major tourist destination worldwide. Tourism has always been a blessing and a curse; shops always suffered a pressure to become tourist oriented; some big buildings were converted to hotels.

With AirBnB the problem has expanded massively. I cannot find a 3-room office that is not miles away from the city center because everything that size is an AirBnB. An employee I just hired that moved here from a different city has been forced to live for months in an AirBnB because there are no long term rentals in the city (ah!).

Since every wall-confined space can be an AirBnB, every wall-confined space becomes one. The lack of regulation makes a real difference, compared to shop and hotels.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#269

Post by fnordian_slip »

seer wrote: post #228
jimkleiber wrote: post #53

> While you’ll be responsible for getting proper work authorization, we’re actively partnering with local governments to make it easier for more people to travel and work around the world. Today, 20+ countries offer remote work visas, and more are in the works. While working from different locations isn’t possible for everyone, I hope everyone can benefit from this flexibility when the time is right. I think currentl…

I don’t think they even try to get work visas. A lot of countries have tourist visas up to 90 days. And if you go to a country to work there, but are not paid by a local company, you are basically a tourist. I think this is what AirBnB are doing. A lot of countries have a requirement for you to reside in it for at least half the year to be able to be taxed there and be considered an employee. A lot of countries allow…

Maybe someone with more knowledge of the law could chime in, but

>And if you go to a country to work there, but are not paid by a local company, you are basically a tourist.

seems wrong to me. If I work in another country I'm still working, which means I need to pay taxes in my host country after a certain time (in Norway it's the first day afaik, in some European countries it's after a few months).

It's annoying, of course, but I'm using the resources of the host country while earning money, so it feels understandable.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#270

Post by lultimouomo »

maxthegeek1 wrote: post #251
lultimouomo wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole city suffers in the long run, as business get torn up to make a quick buck with rents, and the city becomes an empty fun park for tourists. The problem obviously exists beyond AirBnB, but AirBnB massively escalated the problem.

If you want to enrich locals at the expense of tourists, the straightforward way to do that is just raise property/sales taxes and payout the revenue to locals.

That doesn't solve the problem, you get a Dutch disease.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

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