

The Dark Side of the Sharing Economy - pdabbadabba
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/01/opinion/the-dark-side-of-the-sharing-economy.html?hp&rref=opinion

======
gyom
This article should have made better points about why this is a "dark" side of
airbnb. It's vaguely attempting to motivate existing laws and pointing how
airbnb does not respect those laws. Since when are we supposed to be
automatically in favor of rent control policies ?

------
glbrew
I'm not a fanboy of the sharing economy myself but its important to note this
is an opinion page article (apparently without an author?) and is worth jack
shit. It doesn't really make any good points and is probably just written and
sponsored by those losing money from the sharing economy.

~~~
pdabbadabba
I disagree. (Obviously, since I submitted the article.) The regulatory debate
about Airbnb in New York as I had always heard it framed was about "outdated"
hospitality regulations that needed to be "updated" to accommodate the sharing
economy. In this context, I think it is widely assumed that the New York
regulations are focused on sanitation, safety, etc. concerns for hotel guests.
What this points out is that, in reality, the hospitality laws (at least in
part) serve to prevent the extremely high demand for hotel rooms in new York
City from gobbling up large chunks of housing inventory, thus driving up
already-astronomical housing prices. Hence the ban on renting out whole
apartments, or single rooms for more than 30 days: this sort of space could
plausibly be used as residential housing for New Yorkers. New York would
rather this capacity be sold on the residential housing market than made
available for tourists on Airbnb. A person might disagree with this policy
goal, but it does not strike me as archaic or obviously stupid.

Also, it is written by "the Editorial Board." That is, it is the "official"
position of the newspaper. If you would like to know who is on the Editorial
board, you can follow the link at the bottom of the article. Or this one:
[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/opinion/editorialboard.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/opinion/editorialboard.html)
It's interesting that you find this aspect of the editorial so objectionable
because I believe, in most circles, an editorial by the Editorial Board of a
publication is taken much more seriously than editorials by whomever the
Editorial Board allows to write in their paper which do not necessarily
reflect the view of the publisher.

