
Living and Dying on Airbnb - 147
https://medium.com/matter/living-and-dying-on-airbnb-6bff8d600c04
======
jzwinck
It is horrible what happened to the author's father. But it is also
inevitable. Like a morbid million monkeys mashing away on keyboards, operating
at scale in meatspace all but guarantees that someone will die whilst using
the service.

In America we have become accustomed to guard rails everywhere, and signs
announcing the smallest hazards. This is OK so far as it goes, but perhaps it
makes us a bit soft. Here we read about a tree swing that fell down when a
full grown man used it. At least 90% [1] of tree swings in America are built
without professional engineering or even inspection.

I'm not apologizing for the host in this case, but I do think that some people
are open to living in a world where not every conceivable danger has been
mitigated. The hard part is finding anyone so willing once a freak accident
happens to them.

[1] I'm lowballing this estimate so much that it should be obviously true to
anyone who grew up in the non-urban US.

~~~
jimjimjam
You're missing the point. Airbnb does not assume any responsibility when it
comes to inspecting the "soundness" of a listed unit, including any means of
evaluating very basic things like working fire alarms, interior mold, bed
bugs, etc.

I agree that this was something of a freak accident, but that doesn't
invalidate the central argument that Airbnb has no real way to ensure even the
most basic level of safety of its guests.

~~~
rdancer
> freak accident

No, it wasn't. What is more likely: that the tree became structurally unsound
overnight, or that it had been like that for a long time, and an inspection
had ever been carried out?

~~~
m0llusk
Limb dropping is not well understood and can happen at any time. There is no
inspection that can predict limb drop. No tree rope swing can be assured as
safe.

~~~
runamok
This is the core fact.

Assume airbnb has to go inspect a property before any use by a customer. The
tire swing passes. Do they come back once a month/year to re-verify the
property is safe? Do they say "Once a man was killed by a tire swing so all
tire swings must be removed or using one is not covered by insurance". The 2nd
scenario is far more likely.

I too feel sorry for the author but the world is not a _perfectly_ safe place.
If anything I think it has become SO safe in many 1st world countries that we
are incredibly offended and angered by the rare chance death that occurs from
incidents like this and we are searching for someone to blame because then it
makes it seem preventable.

------
RockyMcNuts
A bit sad that this is buried off the HN front page.

There is literally a story with 0 votes submitted an hour later directly above
it on the third page, and on the front page there are older stories with fewer
votes.

[https://twitter.com/newsycombinator](https://twitter.com/newsycombinator)
tweets about images of the French revolution with fewer votes, but not this,
which seems a bit more relevant to tech, startups, sharing economy etc.

------
jimjimjam
Beyond the raw and heartbreaking nature of the author's loss, I am amazed that
this story was published on Medium with the participation of Medium staffers.
At a time when there is so much criticism of the state of tech writing, it's
incredible to see this pseudo-journalistic platform for techies by techies be
the channel for such a damning critique of a major tech darling like Airbnb.

~~~
untog
Uh. Are you suggesting that Medium should never publish anything critical of a
tech company because they're part of the tech industry? Because that sounds
very sinister to me.

------
codinghorror
Terrible tragedy. I can definitely see the argument that Airbnb hosts should
carry insurance for freak accidents / deaths that occur on their property in
cases like this.

~~~
jimjimjam
Yeah the hosts should assume all liability and pay for cost of freak accident
insurance...of course not Airbnb!

~~~
TeMPOraL
Does a newspaper bear responsibility for classifieds they post?

~~~
jimjimjam
If you're talking about Craigslist...they have a far better warning and
flagging system than Airbnb does.

I.e. If you try to buy a car they warn you about possible scams before you can
look at the listings. Airbnb certainly does not do enough to proactively warn
potential guests that they cannot vet the safety of any unit listed on their
website.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Ok. Fair enough.

------
reviseddamage
Erk... some of the comments here are brutally rational and ruthlessly logical.
I would fully expect this narrative from decisioning AI units, not so quickly
out of humanoids, at least not yet.

~~~
aardshark
I don't know why your comment annoys me so much, but it does.

What other response could you reasonably expect (or indeed, want)? If there
weren't any rational and logical responses to this article, that would be
truly saddening.

~~~
reviseddamage
I can help as to why it is annoying. I felt the same way before typing that
out, but still wrote that.

I seriously tried to honestly tell myself whether I would have the same
opinion and view, was I in the shoes of the author. Would I be able to
rationalize it the same way? Would I be able to marginalize that event to a
statistical "nonevent"? I don't think I would.

But I assumed that everyone commenting on it had already exercised that
viewpoint, and still shared those views. That is what I would expect of
perfect decisioning AI units. That's not a bad thing. I just didn't expect it
so early.

What do I think should be the response? Um, well, sue the shit out of the host
and by extension the provider, or require insurance by the hosts. The
alternative would be that this guest's death is reduced to a reputation
negative (statistical nonevent).

------
0xdragon
I'm on a trip to Taiwan soon... And I booked an Airbnb. Ouch.

~~~
GFischer
As jzwink said, you don't have any guarantees with a hotel either (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10531693](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10531693)
).

I've had positive experiences every time I rented through AirBnB, the same
cannot be said of hotels - I actually trust AirBnB a LOT more than hotels (as
long as the property has some reviews).

Maybe in the U.S. things work, but in other countries they don't... I've had
the roof leaking BADLY on a hotel in Brazil (with lots of positive reviews in
TripAdvisor), all guests' property stolen (also in Brazil), and I never had
any recourse. People thinking about starting a lawsuit have never experienced
3rd world judiciary systems... (it can take a lot of time and money for very
little returns).

I fully expect you'll have a positive experience with your AirBnB in Taiwan,
let's hope so :)

------
cwilkes
Thanks for posting, it was a interesting, and heartbreaking, read.

An AirBnB mission statement of sorts:

 _We also stopped trusting each other. And in doing so, we lost something
essential about what it means to be a community. After all, our relationships
with people_

I literally threw up in my mouth when reading that. Your company makes money
by renting out rooms by skirting hotel laws and you're wrapping yourself in a
flag of "we're getting back to trusting one another!" What about the trust of
that you bought into a place that isn't a fly by night hotel next door?

~~~
_delirium
There's a bit of both going on: AirBnB _is_ used by regular people renting out
a spare room of a house or apartment they occupy, which sometimes has a
vaguely couchsurfing-but-not-free feel to it. But it's also used by fly-by-
night hoteliers running illegal hotels and hostels. And lately, it's also used
by legal vacation-rental brokers as a competitor to VRBO/Homeaway/etc.

The marketing materials obviously prefer to emphasize the first, but the
second category does a lot of volume (the percentage seems to vary heavily by
city). What's most annoying as an occasional user is that it's sometimes very
difficult to determine which is which: is this someone's spare room (may
actually lead to friendly personal interaction, probably won't cause
significant problems for the neighbors), is it one of 50 "spare rooms" that
this person is operating as a black-market business (impersonal, likely to be
contributing to neighborhood social problems), or is it a VRBO-type rental
unit just cross-listed on multiple sites' inventory (impersonal, but at least
probably legit)? You can sometimes guess by looking at their other listings,
but some people split their operation across a bunch of accounts.

AirBnB could probably make life harder for people running the larger-scale
operations if they wanted to, emphasizing the site's focus on lodging rented
out by regular people, which could bring the site a bit more in line with the
marketing copy. But I don't think that's the likely trajectory.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Don't forget the category 1a - regular people renting out a spare room even
though it's against terms they themselves rent their flat on. This can
sometimes also contribute to the neighbourhood social problems.

