

Airbnb's new safety page - moonlighter
http://www.airbnb.com/home/safety

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coffeemug
The way many people here jumped to conclusions after the initial AirBnB story
based on almost no information is really disheartening. Insulting the founders
of the company, the victim, and concocting conspiracy theories based on a few
paragraphs of information with barely any evidence is a really poor way to
conduct oneself. Most decent people wouldn't do it in face-to-face
conversations without getting to know a person at least slightly, and it's
unfortunate that our psychology is built in a way that an extra layer of
anonymity afforded by the internet enables a large number of people to drop
all sense of tact and respect, and jump into personal attacks with very little
information about the actual incident. If you're one of the people that
engaged in this type of behavior, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You're
doing real damage to real people, while knowing almost nothing about what's
actually going on, but more importantly, you're damaging your own reputation.

I had the opportunity to hear the founders speak a number of times. They're
one of the _very_ few founders that are incredibly genuine about bringing a
positive change into the lives of their customers. They live and breathe
positive change they bring to the world, to the point where they carry letters
from customers that thanked them for saving their lives because the bank would
have repossessed their home if not for AirBnB. Jumping on them because they
didn't have a chance to give a complete response _while handling a crisis_ is
really uncalled for.

I don't know the victim but it's easy to misinterpret events after going
through an emotional trauma. Most likely it's a misunderstanding, but even if
it isn't, it's really inappropriate to insult people given the information
currently available. In fact, it's _never_ appropriate to insult people, and
it's best to hold back criticism until more information is available, lest you
do some real damage to real people.

There are some valid concerns about where personal responsibility ends and
liability begins (legally and ethically), and how AirBnB's service will evolve
to address these issues, but there are different ways to discuss these
concerns, and discussions here so far have been nothing but poisonous.

~~~
carbonica
> Jumping on them because they didn't have a chance to give a complete
> response while handling a crisis is really uncalled for.

The main issue I've seen is that a co-founder is quoted as asking EJ to censor
herself (remove or restrict access to the blog) to protect AirBnB, even
mentioning their rounds of funding as a motivation. A co-founder is also
quoted as asking her to add a positive spin to the article after a couple
weeks (despite there being no positive spin to add). Those quotes haven't been
refuted at all and we don't have any reason, especially given the careful
writing by EJ, to doubt them.

Those quotes, if accurate, are disheartening. They reflect the worst of
entrepreneurialism. So it's not surprising that that's what I've seen the most
outrage about.

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sitkack
The irrational exuberance has come to an end as airbnb and hopefully many of
these startups that while facilitating many great things also mask an exposure
to danger.

I remember when anyone on Craigslist was in the top %5 of nice humans. Of
course that is gone now, but airbnb seemed like it was living in the early
craigslist bubble.

I am saying those bubbles shouldn't exist. They are naive. And most American
humans don't have the street smarts to build their own trust metrics.

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shin_lao
I am under the feeling they believe they can crowdsource the security. I
understand security and safety will hurt their business scalability, but they
will eventually have to offer insurance, escrowing, legal support and
authentication to their customers.

Failure to do so will probably end up in the service collapsing under its own
weight.

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officemonkey
Well, at least the part about "Will someone steal my grand piano?" is gone.

~~~
aw3c2
What do you mean?

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kcg
This used to be in their FAQ:

Will someone steal my grand piano?

Highly unlikely. Grand pianos weigh thousands of pounds and do not fit through
doors.

~~~
kilian
I...actually think that's pretty good. It's funny, while bringing up the fact
that [if you bring strangers into your house] they could steal something.
Still, I see why they would remove it at this time.

~~~
ma2rten
Because it makes it seem as if they are taking this issue very lightly?

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carbonica
I'm not an active Airbnb user, but I've read in comment threads here that if
you decline a guest, your search rankings go down. Is this true or FUD? If so,
how does that reconcile with "If for some reason it just doesn't feel right,
feel free to say the booking won't work for you. If it's not right for you,
it's okay to walk away."

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zhyder
Hmm looks like a lot of work for relatively little in savings [1]. As a guest
I'd rather avoid it and pay the premium for the convenience of a traditional
hotel [2]: you just walk in and book a room. I recognize that making friends
is claimed as the other benefit of using Airbnb, but I doubt that ever had as
much broad appeal as the promise of saving money.

[1] - And even with this much work, there are still substantial risks, for
both the host and the guest.

[2] - The only exception might be extended stays of weeks/months.

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rdl
This looks great -- definitely much more informative than the previous answer,
and pretty honest about the (small) risks of using airbnb.

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jpeterson
Is this still Hacker News, or have I traveled to a strange and horrifying
dimension where we've become Reddit? Enough Airbnb posts already!

~~~
jonursenbach
Airbnb is a YC startup, Hacker News is YC-focused and Airbnb are in the news
and being criticized for their safety and security. What's the problem, now?

