I don't know how many of you here are native NYers. And I stress the native, because anyone who hasn't lived here for decades won't have a deep understanding of how things work here. Going out to the Hamptons (or elsewhere) for two weeks or a month and renting out your place has been going on here for decades. This has never been something hidden from the government, The Village Voice would be filled with Short-Term Sublet ads just for this purpose. Now that this has risen to the level of a nascent Internet business that can centralize, organize, and capitalize on this practice, Patterson -- faced with a crushing deficit -- slams the lid on it. Every day I wake up to find local, state, and national government tightening the noose around our necks more and more. All of you talking about liability -- hey, one of these budding Net businesses involved in this could also sell short-term insurance for such liabilities.
Yes, but that was my entire point of citing native NYer. From the 1970s on, the Voice was a go-to place for apartments for young people, which also included tons of Short-Term Rental ads. And the Times had such ads too for the monied set.
Pretending that something that went on mostly via word of mouth between neighbors or at least acquaintances is comparable to a scaled business on the internet is silly.
It was never word of mouth. Newspapers would have entire sections of Short-Term Rentals and Sublets. Patterson just killed all that advertising -- like newspapers needed more income lost! [typo edit x3]
