
Airbnb Horror Story Points to Need for Precautions - mwytock
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/15/your-money/airbnb-horror-story-points-to-need-for-precautions.html
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DanBC
See also this thread from a day ago (63 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10064782](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10064782)

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rayiner
> Still, logic and decency would suggest that when you’re in danger, as Mr.
> Lopez claimed to be, Airbnb would come to your rescue.

Does it? AirBnB doesn't have duties to guests because they're just a
transaction middelman. Hotels are liable for the safety of their guests, but
they also have control over the premises they rent, which AirBnB does not.

Of the various criticisms against AirBnB, this is the least sympathetic one in
my opinion (the tragedy of Mr. Lopez's individual situation aside). When you
rent off AirBnB, you're renting from some random stranger, with all the
attendant risks. You're not renting from a company that bears liability for
your well being. That's just the nature of the transaction.

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pen2l
Perhaps the case here is that AirBnB is misleading guests into _thinking_ that
it'll assume responsibility equal to the responsibility a hotel would take,
when it really doesn't.

Anyway, sadly (and obviously) this submission has been flagged, would be
better to carry discussion to a lessly-YC controlled platform:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/3h7ivz/airbnb_h...](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/3h7ivz/airbnb_horror_story_points_to_need_for_precautions/)

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dang
I'm beginning to become annoyed with you for insinuating the same falsehood
every time one of these stories comes up. You've done it countless times, and
it puts us in the position of either saying nothing and letting the falsehood
stand—which isn't right—or having to answer it, a dreary chore that steals
cycles away from things that actually help the community.

It's time you supplied some evidence (which you won't, because we don't do the
things you say), or dropped this. Repeating the same falsehood ad nauseum is
not legit.

The only thing that happened to the present post is that users flagged it,
presumably because it was an obvious duplicate. We didn't see the post until a
few minutes ago, and the only moderation we did was unkill it so discussion
can continue. That's standard practice.

~~~
pen2l
> I'm beginning to become annoyed with you for insinuating the same cheap
> falsehood every time one of these stories comes up.

Every time? That's very much an exaggeration! Secondly, if you read my comment
you'll see I did not accuse YC of flagging the story, I was myself thinking it
was user flags (though, when one considers that flagging privileges are
sometimes revoked... and only "good" users are left to flag, userflag starts
to seem very much like a YC-flag - but that's a story for another day).
Anyway, I do think I didn't choose my words very carefully, there's arguably
some connotation of YC being `directly` involved in flagging in my comment,
that was unintended.

~~~
dang
Many more times than I have energy for.

Your oft-repeated claim/insinuation/smear that we censor anti-YC stories isn't
true, nor fair, nor even reasonable, since to run HN that way would be stupid
and the whole thing would have fallen apart years ago.

It's also mean—you have no idea how hard we work to make sure that stuff like
that doesn't happen.

And in this case it was lazy as well:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=airbnb%20horror%20story&sort=b...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=airbnb%20horror%20story&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story).

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pen2l
> since to run HN that way would be stupid and the whole thing would have
> fallen apart years ago.

That's just not true though. Huge governments have survived through
propaganda, brainwashing, etc. (not necessarily accusing YC of doing that,
just making a point). Forums can persist in any direction you want if they're
carefully and meticulously managed, one can partake in rampant banning,
censoring, etc. and it'll all still be fine, it happens everywhere all the
time.

~~~
dang
You're arguing technicalities, but the important points are: (1) we don't
censor stories for being negative about YC because doing so would be wrong and
bad for the community, and (2), it would be a stupid risk to take with HN if
we did. "Whatever you do, don't do _that_ " is literally the first thing pg
said to me about how to moderate HN.

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orthoganol
The thing we need precaution against is AirBnB hosts who've turned renting out
apartments into full fledged businesses. Because in my experience when someone
doesn't actually live in the apartment, quality drops and there's no actual
home-iness. One exchange: "Is this a mattress? Is it not just a box spring?"
"I'm sorry you don't enjoy this type of mattress... For this price point for
this rental, this is what you can expect."

As far as full apartments go, I'd seriously like to meet one AirBnB host in
Japan or China (the main places I've used it) who aren't part of AirBnB based
businesses, just 1 person who is actually sharing their home while they're
away for a bit, or whatever AirBnB claims it's all about.

This is the giant elephant in the room about AirBnB, and I doubt they're ever
going to discuss it publicly.

~~~
JohnTHaller
The majority of AirBnB rentals in NYC are "entire place", or at least they
were when it was easier to compare available numbers. This despite the fact
that renting out your entire place when you're not there is illegal in NYC
unless you've specifically been licensed as a bed and breakfast. Not just
illegal as in 'violating your lease' (the majority of AirBnb) but illegal as
in a violation of the law. Interestingly, AirBnB's NYC commercials only
highlight the private room with the family also present since they own the
place aspect - which is a very small portion of AirBnB's NYC business.

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dferlemann
Companies and products get their reputation damaged often because of the
people who answer the call lack of common sense and empathy... At the same
time, they expose the problems more effectively than anything else.

