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Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

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Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#131

Post by tudorizer »

ponyous wrote: post #28
Raed667 wrote: post #10

I got prompted to donate to a host I stayed with for a few days and only saw once many-many months ago. Heck NO! What is their reasoning here!? I have zero emotional connection with that person. Nor do I think they are entitled to my charity.

So don't donate? I've been in AirBnB hosts where the landlady would make deserts for us and all kinds of stuff, just because she was nice and bored. We enjoyed it very much and I would tip her via AirBnb - she didn't want cash, except once - pre-agreed for multi course meal where she fed a group of 4, and it was pretty much just for the resources. There was a guy in SF that took me around shown me the city, etc... I…

While hosts like that do exist, that's surely the exception and not the norm. It used to be like that many years ago, when it was less popular.

Right now it's ripe with places (sometimes entire buildings) dedicated to AirBnB, to the point where they put a dent in the local renting market.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#132

Post by throwaway98797 »

tirpen wrote: post #38
treebornfrog wrote: post #3

I suspect that a lot of people jumped on the airbnb hype train and thought they could be a landlord of multiple properties and probably got leveraged. Now they're in trouble as their income dries up.

> Now they're in trouble as their income dries up. Good.

Serves them right for taking a risk.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#133

Post by _pg4n »

setgree wrote: post #22

I would prefer a world in which we didn't call some people griping on twitter "news". Two popular HN pieces have recently touched on how journalists and newspapers give twitter too much weight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23833267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23827073 All I'm seeing in this article is a few people trying to get that dopamine rush of engagement by dunking on "landlords" (not that all…

Consider this one a features story. No so much need to follow an assembling crowd and seeing what they're griping about in person anymore, trending will show it.

Fact of the matter is that momentarily twitter reflects general public discourse and has to be engaged with. Not to say that the whole public discourses through twitter, but that it generally reflects public discourse. As in, even the broadcast segments that are watched by technophobic grandparents show it on screen, reference it, and then talk about it.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#134

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #2

> Airbnb has lost its fucking head. Why would I donate to my host? I can't even afford one house. Well, at least it sounds like many of those hosts can't, either.

Anecdotally, I know a number of people who started by renting out their basement on Airbnb, and then made so much money off of it that they bought another house, which they pay the mortgage on by renting out the entirety of their original house.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#135

Post by rrrazdan »

malechimp wrote: post #110
rrrazdan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know your comment is for the majority but I have had meaningful connections with my hosts. Some I am still in touch years later. If the host reached out to me on their own, I would probably help them. But to have Airbnb guilt trip people into donating is beyond me as well.

I think we are mistaking Airbnb for couchsurf. Even in the cases when I met my hosts the transaction was 100% monetary one. Not one of them, ever, offered me to stay some more free of charge - just because we got along well. And I did get along well with all of them. On the contrary, I have slept on the floor at a friends house a few nights because some of these hosts hanged me at the last moment (e.g. when they real…

It is possible to have a decent caring relationship on top of a commercial one. I have restaurant owners who I have a really warm relationship with. I know about their family, they enquire about mine. They will not give me a free meal and neither do I expect one. Same with some shops that I frequent.

Airbnb is certainly a market. So are restaurants. You do see people supporting their local restaurants in this crisis don't you?

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#136

Post by yardie »

koolba wrote: post #89
claudeganon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go look at an Airbnb listing, it will be advertised at a lower, per night rate, but when you go to book, it can jump up as much as 50% with tacked on fees. Hotels don’t do this. I just went on the site and looked at an advertised $80 per night listing. On booking it became $137, with the $40 cleaning and $17 service fees. That’s a $137 room not an $80 one and I doubt it costs $40 to clean it.

Hotels do this all the time. Resort fees. Taxes. Surcharges. Amenities. Only airlines publish full fares and that’s because of a federal law. I remember back in the day when it wasn’t the case and you had to click through to the final pricing page to do any serious fare comparison.

No hotel I've ever stayed at has done this. At least not the big names. At most you'll get a different price for halfboard/fullboard. And a price bump for an extra bed.

Also, in my encounters, resort fees are in lieu of being a boarder. The resorts by me, Miami Beach, charge visitors for access to the pools and spas, not their guests.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#137

Post by cowpig »

mchusma wrote: post #92
mathattack wrote: post #21

This seems counter-productive. Housing costs are up because of AirBnB. I’m not thrilled, but that’s the market. The market needs to reprice. Folks who bet on the market would get rich if the bet paid off. Let them sell their places, and someone else can rent them out in the future. Call me callous but I don’t feel the need to bail out someone who charged me $500/night on a place with a $3000 monthly payment. I entere…

Housing costs are not up because of Airbnb, they are up because of government regulation. If we wanted housing to cost to buy a house in the US to be $100k average, we could do it almost overnight by lifting regulations unrelated to safety. With existing automation tech (produce like industry instead of custom each time) we could get it to $50k. In 10 years we could make housing affordable if we had the societal will…

> Housing costs are not up because of Airbnb, they are up because of government regulation.

[citation needed]

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#138

Post by 2038AD »

earthboundkid wrote: post #106
sleavey wrote: post #14

This was really short sighted given Airbnb have claimed since the beginning to regulators, local authorities and the public that they exist only to provide a platform for people to rent out their spare rooms when it's convenient for them. Their core claim is that they are not a hotel company, which is how they manage to skirt so many hotel regulations. Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the…

It's a truly end-of-capitalism† move to shift the risk burden of property ownership from the center to the periphery. I guess McDonalds does this too with its franchises, but this is so much more pure: you own the property, you figure out all the property management work, and AirBnB takes the cut. McDonalds at least sends its franchises frozen hamburgers. AirBnB is just pure toll-bridge-as-a-service. † Not sure if ca…

> Not sure if capitalism will actually end any time soon

It can't because any change or evolution keeps the name.

The only way to end it would be to revert back to a pre-capitalist economy that's not been retroactively deemed one (either by fans or detractors).

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#139

Post by wendyshu »

monkeynotes wrote: post #62
sleavey wrote: post #14

This was really short sighted given Airbnb have claimed since the beginning to regulators, local authorities and the public that they exist only to provide a platform for people to rent out their spare rooms when it's convenient for them. Their core claim is that they are not a hotel company, which is how they manage to skirt so many hotel regulations. Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the…

I have somewhat of a 'not in my backyard' opinion of Airbnb. I have admittedly used the service multiple times, but since I moved into a new house I've changed my view on the business model. Our neighbour Airbnbs multiple rooms in his house full time. He barely has parking for 3 cars, 2 cars if you don't want to be boxed in. However he rents out room for 6 people. He constantly has business moving through his house,…

Their cars partly block your driveway? Do they make a lot of noise? What are the other impacts on you?

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#140

Post by dwater »

randomsearch wrote: post #41
spuz wrote: post #32

I really wonder how much pressure AirBnB must be feeling from hosts in order to go through with this idea. There's no way that they have done thinking it would not have some downsides. I really would like to know how they calculated that going through with this idea would be a better option than doing nothing.

My thoughts too. But why does Airbnb care? Presumably the landlords will just come back or be replaced, and it’s not like they have shown concern for ethics in a long time.

AirBNB are hoping for quick reopening and a "V-shaped recovery". They want things to get back to normal as quickly as possible, because the longer the current situation drags on for, the more their business and billions of invested money is at risk. They won't be able to do a quick reopening if 1/4 or 1/2 of the properties they list are being foreclosed on. That process can take multiple years for a property to be occupied again.
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