It hasn’t even been in existence for 15 years, literally any adult with an income can imagine what life without Airbnb is like.
this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024
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While that's true, short term (vacation) rentals existed well before airbnb, they just weren't so prevalent.
Yes, rentals existed before Airbnb but they were not monopolized by a foreign multinational company that is causing housing crises across the planet and that operates outside of legality
Agreed.
I see people posting questions about life in the 1970s and wonder, "Don't you know any one who was around then?"
They aren't banning Airbnb. They are banning short term rentals. Huge difference. You can do long term rentals on Airbnb, and you can do 2 day rentals on other websites like VRBO. Those other sites have been around for a very long time.
AirBnB was founded in 2007.
So almost everyone who is an adult knows what things were like before AirBnB.
Personally, despite having taken advantage of them (others have paid), I would like to go back to how things used to be.
For one thing, making sure I clean up is not what I should be worrying about when traveling.
Short term rentals would be fine if companies like Airbnb weren’t getting a cut. Like they existed on Craigslist and as actual bead-and-breakfasts way before airbnb et al existed.
I imagine people are willing to give a cut to Airbnb because they perceive, rightly or wrongly, that Aribnb is taking care of all the details. Insurance, liability, blocking troublemakers, data and time coordination etc.
I use to travel a lot before airbnb existed, and most of it was to uhh, old school bnbs.
Lovely! Amazing! But maybe that was just the areas we were going to were amazing. I wonder how well they'd work in cities and such? All my experiences were in much more rural areas, so you got a lot more room and such.
The problem isn't that AirBnB gets a cut, the problem is that they make such a process more efficient and accessible. Property is a finite resource, especially when talking about a specific area like a city. We don't want to turn cities into amusement parks that the workers have to commute an hour to get to, even if that's what is the most profitable. Housing should be affordable and available for the people who actually use and make the city run daily.
Airbnb is yet another monstrosity created by neoliberalism that is completely amoral and aims for profit above all things
created by tech bros
Neo liberalism is a Boogeyman that means literally nothing thanks to everyone calling everyone else it. The real issue (with Airbnb) is that tech bros decided to create a business solution to something that in all honesty wasn't a problem and now we're here. The same can be said for Uber, and all the other "gig economy" companies.
In my country, Uber fixed a lot of problems that existed with Taxis.
- Sometimes taxis wouldn't show up.
- Sometimes taxis wouldn't pick up certain people because of how they look
- There was no app that'd show you where the nearest taxi was and when it'd arrive. I'm not aware of any taxi company that has such an app now...yet there's an app that'll show you where the busses are (even across different transit agencies)
- You wouldn't know how much your trip would cost until you arrived at your destination.
- Drivers would take longer routes or otherwise drive in "favourable ways" to increase the fare meter.
- In my experience, taxi drivers have been more rude than Uber drivers
- Taxi drivers would occasionally not accept certain methods of payment upon trip completion (and some would even try to use this trick to scam their passengers and likely their companies or the government by not reporting fares).
These all could've been solved by a regular taxi company, but I guess there was no incentive to make the product any better to the customers.
Over here in Germany, they ran against a brick wall:
- Taxi apps already existed. Pioneers were taxi.eu, where a consortium of local dispatchers plain and simply introduced another way to access their services, and what's now called Free Now, circumventing the old dispatchers, directly connecting clients and individual, licensed, taxi drivers. Both predate uber's founding, and definitely uber's introduction into the market here.
- Regulations exist. Taxis are classed as public transport, prices are regulated, no congestion pricing, no not taking on a passenger to the outskirts because you wouldn't get a return fare, no nothing. On the flipside you need a license so that there's few enough taxis around for every driver to still be able to make a living. Uber didn't care a bit about that kind of stuff, bringing us to
- Regulations are enforced. Drivers taking uber fares without both taxi and passenger transport license were looking at court orders giving slaps on the wrist, but also threatening 1000 Euro fines for every subsequent passenger transported without proper licensing.
Oh:
- Public transport is a thing. Most trips are covered by buses, metros, etc, more rural areas by collect taxis. Needing to hail an individual one is very rare, I think most of their fares are from people with too much money on hand. Also if you need to hail that taxi chances are your health insurance is going to cover the cost they prefer you hauling your broken leg to the doctor with a taxi, transport ambulances are more expensive and it's not like you need medical supervision on the trip, or the thing would need to accommodate a wheelchair or such.
All that sounds great. I'm not pro-Uber so much as I'm anti-Taxi (as they exist where I live), lol
Sometimes taxis wouldn't pick up certain people because of how they look
Unfortunately, at least in the US, Uber is just as bad. I've got a friend who's blind and has a service dog - Uber drivers legally can't decline a ride because he's got a service dog, but very frequently they'd pull up, see the dog, and cancel the ride. Taxis are more likely to know and follow the law.
Thankfully taxi services have finally gotten off their ass and most large cities have a taxi app. I used to fucking hate taxis because I never carried cash and the driver would get all huffy when I wanted to use card despite clearly having a card machine. I know most of it was they prefer cash to skirt taxes and also avoid the card fee (which they could add to the charge) but sorry, not sorry.
Uber came along and card was the default and you knew how much the ride would be before you even called them. No more guessing how much it would cost and having to pay attention to make sure the driver isn't taking a scenic route to drive up the meter.
Neo liberalism is a Boogeyman
that tech bros
Pot, meet kettle.
Techbros are a very real and rather well defined term and collection of people.
Neoliberals not so much.
update:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Neo-Liberal
vs
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Techbro
notice how the definitions are much more consistent for a techbro.
Can you tell us more about these techbros? Are they with us now in this room? Do they sometimes tell you to do things, bad things?
I invite you to read my updated comment asshole :)
Nah I'm good, kettle.
presents information that would lead to a meaningful discussion even though it contradictions your point
nah I'm good
You're exactly as bad as the people you complain about.
Calm your nipples kettle.
I do not use AirBNB anymore. I just use hotels or actual BNBs.
I stayed at an Airbnb last weekend. Instead of paying over five hundred a night for a tiny non luxurious hotel room, I paid 300 a night (total, after splitting was 150) a night for a massive two bedroom apartment two blocks from the hotel room. Parking, everything included.
It was cheaper and better than a hotel. Are you somehow gonna make the hotel lower their price? For that to happen, they would need competition.
I don’t know if that’s the absolute norm. Sure, Airbnb might be easier to get a bigger place, but I find they’re usually pricier than hotels, unless you’re with a big group. I personally would rather stay in hotels just because it’s a more consistent experience. Airbnbs vary wildly and each host is different. You also have more responsibilities. I’d rather just be an anonymous customer with zero responsibilities.
Oh yeah I'm with you there. I click the box for total price and skim the rules. All I had to do at this place was put dirty towels on the floor and run the dishwasher (never used dishes so didn't have to). But all those places with chores? Lol get fucked, I'm with you completely. Hotel all the way. They can't bill me for cleaning and also make me do chores. I don't do my own chores.
Hotels and airbnb killed mom and pop bnbs.
That is far on the norm these days. Many AirBnBs add on a ton of fees like a massive cleaning fee but still require you to clean up so the cost comes out to be more than a hotel and you still have to clean up and there are a ton of house rules. It has only been recently that AirBnB gave you the option of seeing the extra fees while searching but it's still not the default option. Their customer service kind of sucks too. I stayed in a place in LA that had sewage backing up into the sinks and the place itself was pretty gross. They offered a slight discount on the night we stayed and allowed us to cancel the second night. A hotel would have probably comped us a night and given us a decent room.
There are still diamonds in the rough though which are generally people who genuinely have a mother in law unit or room spare and they live in the rest of the place. Most of them are done by corporations though who are simply looking for lower taxation.
You are not entitled to cheap lodging. While locals need homes to live. Cities can only absorb so much tourism before it becomes unlivable and unaffordable for people to live in. Just look at Venice. It’s not only that homes become unaffordable, amenities that serve the locals start to disappear since everything starts to cater tourists.
I used to live in Amsterdam and in a some streets there are just way too many souvenir, stroopwafel and Nutella shops while local grocers are pushed out because of rising rent.
And poor people aren't entitled to live in deseriable areas. There is a balance to be struck. If locals can't serve the tourists(due to long commutes, unaffordable housing whatever), there will be no one to serve the tourists so the balance will swing in the other direction.
Maybe hotels should cost less money and they wouldn't have as much competition from clearly inferior products.