Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules • Hacker News Board

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#81

Post by ot » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 3:14 AM UTC

ggreer wrote: post #30

swehner wrote: post #4

First amendment, for sure. I'm guessing this is about this, "The new law would require Airbnb and other short-term rental websites to post registration numbers on listings or email the number and name of the host to the Office of Short-Term Rentals, The City’s agency tasked with enforcing the regulations." (From http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-poised-require-airbnb-list-regi... ) So "their" "free speech rights" are "vio…

It's nothing so silly. As a counterpoint to the Examiner's piece, please read Airbnb's post about the proposed law: https://www.airbnbaction.com/an-update-for-our-community-in-... Basically, the city wants to hold Airbnb responsible for user-generated content. The city also wants Airbnb to hand over users' personal information. Both the EFF and the Center for Democracy & Technology think that these requirements viola…

> Basically, the city wants to hold Airbnb responsible for user-generated content.

Airbnb gets paid for the rentals, not for the listings. Also, they actively control the content (try putting an URL in the listing). Mistaking Airbnb for a publishing medium for user-generated content seems disingenuous at best.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#82

Post by dap » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 3:15 AM UTC

jhchen wrote: post #52

epmatsw wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious why the agency:consumer::host:guest is flawed. (agency|host) temporarily allows use of their property by (consumer|guest) in exchange for money.

Driving a car is a complex and potentially dangerous activity, hence the license. A license to rent a place to sleep makes no sense. Edit: Instead of responding to every single sub comment I will just add that car accidents kill 30,000 people a year. Whether or not you think AirBnB should be regulated, the analogy pairing their activity to the commonly fatal activity of driving is unambiguously on a different level.…

Licenses aren't just for ensuring competence (as in the case of driver's licenses). Sometimes, they're to make sure that the government knows about the people doing it (as in the case of car registrations), either to collect tax or to be able to find people associated with an activity. And sometimes they exist to limit the number of people who can do something (as in the case of liquor licenses in many areas).

In this case, it seems like SF wants to "license" rental activity in order to tax it, and it wants to tax rental activity in part to limit it. Zoning could do this, too, but a tax is more flexible on an individual basis.

This is especially meaningful in a city in the midst of an affordable housing crisis.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#83

Post by lovich » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 3:16 AM UTC

jhchen wrote: post #52

epmatsw wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious why the agency:consumer::host:guest is flawed. (agency|host) temporarily allows use of their property by (consumer|guest) in exchange for money.

Driving a car is a complex and potentially dangerous activity, hence the license. A license to rent a place to sleep makes no sense. Edit: Instead of responding to every single sub comment I will just add that car accidents kill 30,000 people a year. Whether or not you think AirBnB should be regulated, the analogy pairing their activity to the commonly fatal activity of driving is unambiguously on a different level.…

The license is to rent out your place. Does renting your property on a short term basis suddenly release you from requirements like making sure you have heat and water in the unit or meet zoning regulations? There's and argument to be made that this level of regulation is uneeded or causes more problems than it solves, but the regulation is still there and AirBnB I'd doing there best to avoid having it affect their business

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#84

Post by ot » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 3:16 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #80

rahimnathwani wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the analogy flawed? Rental car agencies ensure drivers (who use the agency's cars) are licensed. AirBnB is being asked to ensure hosts (who use AirBnB's platform) are licensed.

There are two parties in the rental car transaction: Hertz Driver The AirBnB transaction has three parties: AirBnB Host Guest While you can construct sentences that look similar for both cases, and the word "license" is used in both contexts, it's a fundamentally different dynamic.

The transaction is more like

Host Airbnb Guest

All the communication (and the billing) happens through the platform.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#85

Post by lovich » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 3:20 AM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #66

ubernostrum wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

politicians dictating what you can and cannot do with your property OK, let's completely legalize Airbnb-style temporary rentals... but make the host bear the full cost of it . Not the small fraction of the cost the host thinks about, but the actual cost with all the externalities factored in. Because really the only way Airbnb works is if it offloads significant costs onto unconsenting and often unaware third partie…

Do we want to go down the externalities rabbit hole? Do we tax people who cannot knowingly fiscally responsibly afford to have kids more because their kids cause tax externalities that people who don't have kids have to bear (school, food, health subsidies, quality of life impact, etc.)?

And then do we we tax people who benefit from the economic output of these children after someone else raises them? Figuring out the extent of these externalities is not easy, but ignoring their existence is like putting your head in the sand

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#86

Post by dap » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 3:20 AM UTC

tedmiston wrote: post #57

pbreit wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that analogy (sensible, imo) is too much for you then pretend he was talking about GetAround.

To substitute a p2p car sharing service in place of car rental agency completely changes the meaning... Driving a vehicle (your own or renting someone else's) is an activity requiring a license for the agency to validate. I'm unaware of any place in the world requiring a license to sleep and eat breakfast.

> I'm unaware of any place in the world requiring a license to sleep and eat breakfast.

This was the third Google hit for "are hotels licensed": http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/hr/Servicesthatrequirea...

Restaurants, too: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/eh/Food/Permits/default.asp

Anyway, it's a completely bogus assumption that licensing is only about ensuring competence.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#87

Post by rahimnathwani » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 3:21 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #80

rahimnathwani wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the analogy flawed? Rental car agencies ensure drivers (who use the agency's cars) are licensed. AirBnB is being asked to ensure hosts (who use AirBnB's platform) are licensed.

There are two parties in the rental car transaction: Hertz Driver The AirBnB transaction has three parties: AirBnB Host Guest While you can construct sentences that look similar for both cases, and the word "license" is used in both contexts, it's a fundamentally different dynamic.

"The AirBnB transaction has three parties"

That's incorrect. AirBnB provides a platform on which hosts can list their properties. There are two parties to that transaction.

In case you're talking about the subsequent 'rental' transaction, AirBnB is pretty clear that that's between the host and the guest. See section 5 of their ToS: https://www.airbnb.com/terms

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#88

Post by Steltek » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 3:28 AM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #26

aaroninsf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would submit that this maxim does not well apply to the business model of AirBnB, Lyft, Uber, and the like. They do not IMO represent an interesting application of technology. Just the profits of exploiting lag time between what is possible, and what is 'burdened' by consumer and labor protections. I.e.: the industries they have moved into are highly regulated for pretty transparent reasons. Their MO works well unt…

Seriously? Uber had not proven how much of a quality-of-life improvement it was for users, there is absolutely 0% chance that any city councils would have reformed taxi laws and made explicit exceptions for them, sight-unseen. They are only BARELY at the point where their critical mass of users can force city governments to give them a legal path (see: de Blasio in NYC), and even that doesn't always work (see: Austin…

A quality of life built on relabeling employees as "contractors" to avoid paying them a fair wage with appropriate benefits. But yes, the medallion system was also very broken.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#89

Post by mc32 » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 3:39 AM UTC

holografix wrote: post #76

Can't help but think of the obvious time and time again with the faux-sharing economy. Sharing is a pathetic use of neural linguistics, you're not sharing, your not doing anyone a kindness, you're making money and you're providing a service. Uber and Airbnb will be regulated legislative or through unions. Ask yourself just wtf are cabs so much more inefficient than Uber and hotels more expensive then Airbnb? Few driv…

My recollection might be off, but I think the term was popularized by the tech press not so much the tech companies described as such.

However, the argument can be made that the sharing, while not in the classical sense, does reduce the impact on resources through efficiencies. So in that sense, people are sharing resources (as in sharing a bus ride --you both pay) and making less impact on earth's resources.

Small cab companies in that sense were more inefficient, among other things, because an idle car (one without a medallion) could be put to use to taxi people around. Same for AB&B. People arguably maximize the use of a house --by renting their spare rooms (the use case has morphed since inception, granted). I think you can see where this model, whatever it's called makes more efficient use of our resources.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#90

Post by freyr » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 3:49 AM UTC

holografix wrote: post #76

Can't help but think of the obvious time and time again with the faux-sharing economy. Sharing is a pathetic use of neural linguistics, you're not sharing, your not doing anyone a kindness, you're making money and you're providing a service. Uber and Airbnb will be regulated legislative or through unions. Ask yourself just wtf are cabs so much more inefficient than Uber and hotels more expensive then Airbnb? Few driv…

> [why] are cabs so much more inefficient than Uber...? Few drivers depend completely on Uber for their income

Also, few cab companies subsidize rides with borrowed money in the name of growth.