
Airbnb Apologizes for Tone-Deaf Hotel Tax Ads, Will Take Them Down - doppp
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/21/that-airbnb-ad
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batiudrami
A friend of mine has a theory - much like the expression "I'm not racist but",
anyone who uses the term "My tax dollars" almost always follows it with
something ignorant and distasteful.

This ad really is the equivalent of that, and is a bad look - to the point
where I would consider using a competing service if available.

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jdp23
Oh gee, look at that: despite 48 points in 4 hours, the story has now dropped
to the third page. Meanwhile front page posts include 34 points/6 hours, 41
points/9 hours, 25 points/7 hours, 41 points/8 hours ...

I'm sensing a pattern here --
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10309480](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10309480)

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jdp23
To me this seems a great illustration of why a lot of people in SF want to put
restrictions on AirBnB even though they know Prop F won't "solve" the housing
crisis. I'm curious how it looks to "No on F" supporters.

~~~
wavefunction
Not just in SF. I live in Austin and we have investors from outside the city
buying up residential properties from the already strained and limited pool to
turn into STRs. Luxury condos displacing older and more affordable housing but
it seems many are still sitting vacant.

So much for 'market solutions.'

~~~
dublinben
This problem exists in every city, and will continue regardless if Airbnb is
regulated out of business. The real problem here is absentee landlords,
charging arbitrary amounts of rent.

~~~
shaftoe
I imagine it's not arbitrary. They're charging what they can get for renting
their property.

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ars
Can someone explain what's wrong with the ad? Is it that hotel taxes don't
necessarily go to libraries?

~~~
jdp23
Here's an excerpt from the librarian's Facebook post that went viral:

"Out of your $12 mil of hotel tax, only 1.4% percent goes to the SF Public
Libraries. So that's $168,000. Divided by the 868 library staff, we have $193
per person. Assuming each employee works 5 days per week minus holidays, this
is $0.78 per employee per day. Since that's significantly under San Francisco
minimum wage ($12.25/hr), I doubt that your hotel tax can keep the libraries
open more than a minute or two later.

However, had you donated that $8 million you spent fighting Proposition F
directly to the public libraries you love so much, that could have made a
bigger difference. Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20!"

[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100700506082939](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100700506082939)

Also note the comment: "what a smug, shitty ad"

~~~
davmre
That's a silly argument. The point of the ad is that the hotel taxes allow the
city to offer better public services. Of course if your analysis only
considers 1.4% of the tax money you'll find the benefits aren't that
impressive. But then you have to account for what the other 98.6% of the money
is doing: presumably providing _other_ public services!

If SF spent the whole $12 million on libraries, that would be
$55/employee/day, which seems plenty to keep libraries open for an extra few
hours. Even if SF only spent "some" of the money on libraries, as the ad
suggested, even spending $3 million would come to $14/employee/day which seems
enough for a meaningful expansion of services.

~~~
scintill76
Maybe I'm the one confused here, but your response doesn't make sense to me --
it's like you're almost agreeing with the librarian but you don't think you
are. Airbnb "started it" by focusing on one specific service (libraries) and
humble-brag-whining about how it better improve because they/customers are
paying so much. It makes perfect sense then to show how that one specific
service Airbnb singled out will not be able to achieve what Airbnb says it
should, because it doesn't get nearly as much money as Airbnb implied by
tossing around a huge number.

As to hypothetical numbers at the end, why? The percentage the libraries get
is fixed by the city, presumably...

P.S. Apparently they have variations of the ad for other services. Maybe on
some, however they phrased it makes more sense, but not really in the
libraries' case.

P.P.S There is actually a small fallacy/glossing-over in the librarian's
argument: the $12MM (or 1.4% thereof) is (presumably) an increase that Airbnb
can claim credit for. But theoretically the library could have other sources
of income that together would allow for more opening hours. I guess the
assumption is that they don't have a lot of surplus.

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onewaystreet
> For the past couple of hours, Airbnb has been getting slammed on social
> media for a San Francisco bus stop ad that was shared on Facebook.

Should Airbnb care what a handful of people are saying on Twitter, most of
whom already hate the company?

~~~
toomuchtodo
AirBnB should care about what voters think. Social media is a wonderful tool
for inexpensive voter outreach.

~~~
onewaystreet
AirBnB should try to influence what voters think. The minds of the people
talking about this on Twitter are already made up.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Who are AirBnB's "constituents"? AirBnB hosts and their guests. Almost all
AirBnB customers in SF are from out of town, not voters. There are more people
looking for places to live in SF than there are AirBnB hosts. What does AirBnB
have to influence what voters think? "Its not fair because we're AirBnB"?

AirBnB has two choices: Say nothing, or lie.

~~~
khuey
There are also people in San Francisco who use AirBnB when they travel
elsewhere.

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malchow
I'm not sure I see the 'tone-deaf' piece. The argument of the ads seems to be:
'taxes' are exacted from people and companies to pay for necessary public
services. Using a tax as a weapon is not just. Taxes paid by Airbnb (and
implicitly by its users) aren't really going to fund public services, not
genuinely.[1] They're going to city public servants some of whom see
themselves as personal crusaders against. . . Airbnb.

Airbnb seems to be saying that such a use of the taxing power is a mockery of
our form of government. And I rather think it has a point.

Now you can disagree and say that Airbnb really is a hotel, as a legal matter.
But the sheer animus that the anti-Airbnb crowd seem to possess indicate that
they want to use the taxing power to do harm.

[1] For those who don't like this, here is the California 2016 budget, showing
that well over 50% of the state's spending is on benefits, not on governmental
administration, transportation, education, or policing:
[http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/California_state_spendin...](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/California_state_spending_pie_chart)

~~~
_delirium
I can't say for sure, but I don't think AirBnB is actually intending to make
the argument you give. My read of what they want to argue is more along the
lines of: AirBnB is good for the city, because it brings in tax revenue, which
helps fund public services. Therefore, please vote against the proposition
that would restrict AirBnB rentals.

The tone-deaf part is just the way the ad campaign making that argument came
off. The format of a letter saying effectively, "you're welcome for the tax
dollars, love AirBnB", ending with a comment about how maybe libraries can use
the money to stay open later, was probably intended to come off as cutesy, but
was instead perceived as smug and passive-aggressive by at least a portion of
the public.

~~~
luckydata
I think you're both missing the part where Airbnb has been arguing for years
that it wasn't an hotel operator and as such it didn't need to pay hotel
taxes. They were forced to do so after plenty of legal back and forth with
public officials. Hence, the "you're welcome" sounds like an insult to to the
city and its citizens that pay taxes without flinching more than anything
else.

Personally I think Airbnb are a bunch of douches that seriously need to grow
up.

