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Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

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671–680 of 736 posts

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#671
post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well traveling within the EU should be simple enough. Haven't done it outside but I have a few questions. If I'm on paid leave, I'm still earning money, and I go to Asia - am I breaking the law? I'm still "doing" the activity that's earning me money. If I'm on my paid leave, and fiddle with my blog, which gets ad revenue - am I earning money and thus doing illegal economic activity? Not a lawyer so would love a more…

to test your theory, i invite you to present this exact scenario to border officials anywhere in the world. This is not meant as a snarky comment but a very literal statement. If you are turned around and refused entry, what you plan to do is illegal. As already mentioned, “Asia” is not a legal or political entity.

> If you are turned around and refused entry, what you plan to do is illegal

That's... an overstatement. Asking weird questions that indicate a risk of tourist visa overstays which nobody else bothers to ask (even if it is perfectly legal) will put you at risk of rejection, whether or not the law allows what you're trying to do.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, no. Airbnb rentals don't go for 3-6 months. (So what I was doing wouldn't have even been possible via their website). I wasn't "living like a hipster", I wasn't on a work-vacation. There was no "cheating" involved, since all the people who post on Airbnb also post on other websites, local and international. Airbnb just had a nicer map. It ain't cheating Airbnb if the landlord is happy to cut out the middleman. An…

I agree with some of the criticism towards you and also with some of your rebuttals, but one thing your above comment doesn't take into account is that you effectively are part of the problem still. I've been a nomad for over a dozen years and usually find ways to rent medium-term, ex. 6-12 months (and in some cases, long-term). I do as you do, and integrate into society, speak the local language, etc. But even so, I…

That's valid - and Lisbon is an extreme, and heartbreaking example. It's been a victim of its own beauty. It's also extremely compact, making all the central real estate wildly more expensive. There's an unavoidable truth to the fact that when everyone wants to go to a place - often because of its local charm and reputation as a "real" living, walkable city (an anachronism in America) - prices go up, local people are displaced, and the place turns into a gentrified theme park, a shadow of what it once was. It's happening here in Portland. I saw it in Granada. Prague is a desperate example. I don't have an answer for it. I personally draw the line at allowing normal apartment units to be used as one- or two-night hotel rooms. Prior to Airbnb, short term furnished rentals existed but generally had to be sought through local property management companies, and the incentives for landlords still favored finding tenants who would stay as long as possible, if only because the scheduling and turnover system was so much less efficient.

Bottom line: I don't think it's necessarily destructive for people to go live in a foreign place, get to know the culture and try it out for the mid- to long-term. But I think that's in a wholly different category from tourists who use airbnb in lieu of hotels. And the tourist contingent is orders of magnitude larger and more disruptive to cities than long-term nomads who tend to spread out.

Just for instance; when we lived in Saigon, we lived way out in District 5. In Bangkok we lived in On Nut, at that time the end of the sky train. In both places we were the only farang we would normally see unless we went to the tourist areas for some reason. And in Europe, we lived mainly in villages of a few thousand people, not in cities. When staying somewhere for a few nights or even a few weeks, we stayed in hotels, not airbnb (I'm personally not comfortable with staying in airbnb's short-term because I don't like being in someone's private space, don't trust the quality, don't want to deal with individual landlords' rules and quirks, am wary of hidden cameras, etc., but that's just me).

There's no winning as a nomad, it's true. But I think most of us are keenly aware that we don't want to contribute to the destruction of the places we visit and live, and in fact tend not to cluster in the touristic town centers where housing is already scarce.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#673
post #622

Sooo.. w/o getting into my history too deeply, my ex and I left the US in 2006 and worked freelance/remote. Wired did an article about us in 2008 living in a solar van when that was, like, unheard of. It seems like every few years a new batch of people want to try this approach, and it's always popular with the press to write about it. Sometimes it works out. I think it's a great way to live, and it teaches you a lot…

> It would be better if it wasn't literally gutting every city from Amsterdam to Bangkok in the process and turning them into hipster slums. Do you not recognise that you were the exact kind of person ruining cities the world over?

No, I don't think that's fair at all, since I didn't live in central cities for one thing (more often villages and small towns, or suburbs where I would be the only foreigner), but also because like I said above, the small number of long-term nomads who move to a place to live and work is absolutely dwarfed by the vast number of tourists who are now using up to 50% of apartments in places like Lisbon as if they were hotel rooms. I think there are sustainable forms of travel that don't place undue stress on local housing markets and economies. Your assumption is incorrect.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple answer is to do away with the notion that earning income should be taxable. Tax on the consumption side, it's easier to enforce and harder to avoid.

The problem with taxing consumption is that it's pretty regressive. Not to say that there aren't solutions, but the existing sales tax, gas tax, etc aren't it.

Taxing income is also regressive because most rich people have trust funds (and pay a flat 15% tax) or push luxury purchases under the guise of business expenses (and pay no tax).

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#675
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could request them to not to play and be quiet, right.

Or maybe he already knows that the only thing worse than annoying co-workers are co-workers you have asked to keep quiet? I once shared a space with a girl who played dance music quite loudly. I asked her to turn it down a bit and from her reaction you would think I had just kicked her new puppy to death. The following few weeks were frosty, to say the least, and I ended up moving elsewhere.

Right in general you don't want people to hate you. You want to be polite. You don't want enemies. But if they behave that way to begin with it's not like a simple plea will change their behavior much except for a little while perhaps.

Soon they'll be back to their antics playing maybe baseball (just kidding, sounds crazy right but so does playing soccer in the office). They're just not concerned about other people's productivity. The general point is that open-office floor-plan easily leads to distractions like these and can even lead to animosity between co-workers.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#676
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they are saying is if you move to a different country, your salary will absolutely change.

This is the part of universal WFH I just don't get. If you can work from anywhere, then why does the value of your work change depending on what country you're in?

You don’t get 100% of the value you produce, unless you work alone with only your equipment. You get the cost of retaining you, which depends on how many other employers would make you a better offer.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue isn't who is staying there, it's the fact that they are just random people that don't have any stake in the surrounding community except for their 2-night stay there. Comparing this to redlining is absurd.

The idea that a neighborhood's character needs to be preserved is exactly the kind of logic used to justify redlining. "Random" people should be able to buy property and use it in the same way that existing owners can.

> The idea that a neighborhood's character needs to be preserved is exactly the kind of logic used to justify redlining.

Who is talking about preserving a neighborhood's "character"? We're talking about preserving the concept of a residential area as opposed to abundance of homes being used as commercial hotel-like spaces.

> "Random" people should be able to buy property and use it in the same way that existing owners can.

Sorry, but is it not clear that this is my point?

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 20% rule only applies to Switzerland and the "Doppelbesteuerungsabkommen" with the neighbor countries or EU. This was the reason I quit my job in switzerland and moved back to germany (without taking a huge pay cut ;), more vacation days and only 35hour/week), now the 183day rule for social contributions and tax apply as long as I live in germany. So now I can work from portugal during winter :)

>without taking a huge pay cut ;), more vacation days and only 35hour/week Would you mind sharing in which area) industry one can get such a good deal in Germany? All i found was 40h/week, some with overtime.

The 35h workweek is quite common in companies with an "IG Metal Tarifvertrag" in place, most companies in the automotive industry and their supplying industries provide such contracts, but also a lot of medium size companies... Don't expect FANG salaries ;)

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can understand it: 1 - I'm proud of having cheated Airbnb out of their commission when helping me find housing so I could live like a hipster 2 - I hate living next to Airbnb hipsters Needless to say: not a lot of coherent thought in that comment...

Eh, no. Airbnb rentals don't go for 3-6 months. (So what I was doing wouldn't have even been possible via their website). I wasn't "living like a hipster", I wasn't on a work-vacation. There was no "cheating" involved, since all the people who post on Airbnb also post on other websites, local and international. Airbnb just had a nicer map. It ain't cheating Airbnb if the landlord is happy to cut out the middleman. An…

> Airbnb rentals don't go for 3-6 months. (So what I was doing wouldn't have even been possible via their website).

They certainly do. Airbnb host here. Most of my tenants stay from 6-18 months.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I did. The whole point is that I wasn't just a one-or-two-day ghost. I lived in these places for as I said 3-6 months (in one case almost a year). So I knew my neighbors, and treated them as I would neighbors in any other apartment I rented as a regular tenant. [edit] I should just add that I'm as embarrassed to make noise or screw with anyone's living space as a homeowner as I was as a tenant. I could make $400…

What it is that leads you to believe the 3-6 months thing is so significant? There are (a very small proportion of) AirBnB guests who are awful. There are (a very small proportion of) longer-term tenants who are awful. At least with AirBnB, the awful guests are gone after a couple of nights. I know some AirBnBs are used as party destinations, and that's different -- but it's a problem with those hosts, not with the p…

I unfortunately live underneath a floor that is rented out on vacasa. During the week I have to get up earlyish for work, and it's only occasionally annoying. But since these people are vacationing or just visiting, especially on the weekends, they'll often violate the building's noise ordinances Friday and Saturday night. So the only two days I ought to be able to sleep in, they're partying till 3am, banging around, stomping on the floor, and then sometimes getting up at 6am and banging around to go be a tourist. I've had to call the police multiple times.

It's not the 3-6 months thing that's difference. It's that you signed up to live in an apartment with neighbors and instead you find yourself in an unstaffed hotel where there is no one on site to manage unruly guests violating lease agreements. And all they'll do if you call them (Vacasa at least) is to text the people causing the problem.

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