Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was replying to the comment where a poster says this: "the worst they get the happier I am". From this, we can logically conclude that poster would be most happy if rich people get plundered, deprived of their property and possessions, tortured, raped and killed, because these things are the worst that can happen to a person. I can hardly interpret it as a call to introduce some fairness to the market.
Well i guess there is nothing in the middle ground between having exploiting industries go out of business and have lords raped, tortured and killed
Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
391–400 of 405 posts
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
How it started out is irrelevant, how it is today is what matters.
And didn't AirBnB start out in dubious circumstances too? I seem to recall reading something about it, but can't find it now.
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s no arguing with someone who’s a communist after 1991. It’s morally and intellectually equivalent to neo-Nazism. I suppose the Nazis were defeated in 1945, and the bulk of the Communists in 1991, so maybe we just need a few more decades for the cancer to die out.
Another cancer that might be useful to kill is the one associating wealth misredistribution and equality to communist regime, it's kinda of implying that the current system doesn't have any tool in order to achieve that and the only way to make a fairer world towards the working class is through the adoption of regimes? Because if you look closely those against the communism are the only one that brought it in the co…
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Relatively speaking, Amsterdam doesn't make that much money from tourists. In a city center that is completely overcrowded, there is no net gain of having even more people. Tourists are good for certain local business. Mostly low quality bars, restaurants, shops. Anything more upscale doesn't benefit from an endless stream of people who seem to have nothing better to do than just walk around. Without tourists, buildi…
Visitors here are always surprised that the locals don't all seem to be weed/cocaine/whatever using junkies. Pointing out that the bulk of the tourists does not come to Amsterdam for the architecture but for the dope and the red-light district usually doesn't go down well because they are not that kind of tourist.
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because despite what you think, people doing business aren't actually that rich. When you chant socialist crap like "bosses get rich by stealing wealth from workers" [1], you casually omit that many businesses are scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep workers employed (as in putting the food in the tables) in the first place. And that mandatory increasing workers' wages would result in their immediate termination…
Those businesses scraping the bottom of the barrel can disappear if their business model is weak, it's not that every one is supposed to be a business owner, so that they don't create unfair competition towards more capable business owners
(My guess is based on the amount of a plundering socialist rhetoric in your comments)
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#396Earlier 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…
> 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…
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
Single use zoning lives due to NIMBY and voter/pol tunnel vision. The former stays forever while the latter is in play.
It's not just "NIMBY and voter/pol tunnel vision." Corporations that own houses don't want their value to decline. People renting properties out on AirBNB don't want their value to decline. They're just different categories of existing property owners who want property values to stay high or increase more. The mechanism they all use for that is restrictive zoning. To win that you have to defeat them all. That's why i…
That would be why I made the point repeatedly that it isn't any one factor that got us here and cautioned against trying to frame it that way.
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Note that it wasn’t just cheaper, but also better quality.
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I've never had an Uber driver pretend their card machine is broken / take the long way around town / etc. Taxes used to -s-u-c-k-
On the flipside, I've actually never had a taxi driver do any of those things to me, although they sure do lie through their teeth.
Re: Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> Eventually they spent enough money on bribes^H^H^H^H^H^H lobbying to legalize themselves. It worked for the hotel and taxi industry, seems a logical way to succeed for Uber and Airbnb in the same domains.