People talk a lot about the free market, but I see a lot of externalities at play here. Am I as a landlord to be held responsible for the damage to my units caused by somebody running a gypsy hotel, in explicit violation of their lease, paying me not one extra penny? Are their neighbors obligated to deal with a bunch of spring breakers partying through the wall, also for free?

This whole thing smells like a bunch of valley billionaires arguing that they should be above the law so they can make their IPO valuation come out right.

Most airbnb landlords will quickly realize that it takes a huge amount of work to welcome guest for short stays, then they'll realize that they might loose a lot of money if not filled all the time.

I think it is grossly inflating the scale at which it is now possible.

My point was that AirBnB has vastly inflated the potential scale of revolving door short black market sublets (the loud, drunken vacationers that seem to be the source of most disgruntlement/anti AirBnB mentality here in the HN comments) much more than, say, craigslist.

AirBnb is already self regulating quickly: You rent a property, the guests damage it, you're not renting it on airbnb again for the next decade.

Or you simply realize that it's not sustainable. Revolving door short sublets are, in fact, usually not sustainable.

Great AirBnB experience, literally no complaints, and no neighbors close enough to give us the stink eye (admittedly we were staying in the one that was in the middle of the three on that street). Mind you we were generally respectful and there for a very short time, not enough to really piss anyone off.

That seems sustainable to me, whether or not it's legal.

People AirBnB'ing their apartment in my current building (which has a 24 hour doorman/woman/person who pretty much knows everyone who lives there? obviously that shit wouldn't fly for long, never mind that it's flagrantly against the lease we all signed, there's no way to fly under the radar).

Also, the price is expensive for guests... but as host, AirBnb takes 20-30% commission and you don't get paid for empty times. There are lots of emptiness if you do short rents.

On the first night there a child cat burgled one of our wallets. He scaled the side of the building and came in through an open window. We caught him in the act, but he was too quick and scampered out the way he came. When we complained to the host (the pharmacy downstairs, really) they asked if we wanted a NEW apt in a different building or another apartment in that one (basically two apts for a week for the price of two nights in a hotel)

Now when people talk about Air B&B, I think of courier dentistry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX_GfxGIWQs&t=1s

Used to be about half that pre-Euro!

Another is access for the disabled. I've stayed in a few AirBNBs that would absolutely have been off-limits to someone in a wheelchair, but the number of times I've stayed in a hotel that wasn't disability-accessible? Zero.

Yeah, choice is great when you're talking about saving some bucks and taking on the risk of sleeping in an essentially-unlicensed hotel, but what about the people for whom the regulations guarantee them access to commerce or travel at all?

Like others have said, regulations develop out of a reaction to a lousy status quo. I think it'd be a shitty world to live in where people with disabilities were being shut out again, to the extent they used to be.

(Am I saying that, if you're going to let your room commercially, you should make it ADA-compliant? Maybe so. It's at least worth thinking about, instead of saying, by default, screw those folks in wheelchairs.)

All new buildings in NYC must have elevators/general wheel chair accessibility, but the old buildings are still there, and still being used.

Further, there are numerous AirBnB rentals that existed as licensed rental properties long before AirBnB came around that are most certainly not wheelchair accessible.

I think it would at least be fair for AirBnB to require listings that are/are not wheelchair accessible to say so on their listings. Beyond that I don't think it's fair to require owners of those properties to invest a large sum of money to make it accessible.

For me, the question that's worth asking is, how do we ensure, as new ways of doing old things develop, that the people who've been shut out in the past (i.e. the people that the ADA protects) aren't just getting shut out again?

People in wheelchairs, that's a thing. The ADA is the way that, up til now, we've set up to enforce that businesses must accommodate them. Stuff like AirBNB and Uber is bringing an absolute ton of new individuals, essentially doing business, who've simply never had to think about making business accessible to people with disabilities.

Maybe there's a new regulatory framework that needs to develop? Maybe there should be a burden on the companies like AirBNB and Uber to ensure that, wherever they operate, some percentage of their service offering is wheelchair-accessible? (Even if they're buying property or hiring drivers directly to satisfy that requirement?) I don't know, just brainstorming at this point, I guess.

It would cost those businesses more, of course, but I ask myself which world I'd rather live in--one in which my two wheelchair-bound friends could actually use AirBNB wherever they went, or one in which I said "hey, sucks you're locked out of that experience, but free market, yolo"?

That cabin I rented with some friends in bumblefuck an hour outside of Boulder, CO - should they be required to install an elevator when the car we drove could just barely even get us there (even in the summer time)?

100% accessibility seems impossible (barring significant improvements in wheelchairs, which are definitely coming), but where exactly is the line?

I don't really know the answer. I think in general if you're making something new - you should make it as accessible as is reasonably feasible, but how much should we require to be "backported"?

Isn't AirBnb a party to that issue?

If AirBnb stuck to it's early role as way for people to rent rooms in homes or vacation homes, it would be an amazing service. By seeking to "disrupt" the hotel industry, they kind of poisoned the well.

Have you ever looked at the AirBNB rating system? It's a disaster. Five stars or get abuse. Without a trustable rating system here you won't get a free market.

Not necessarily: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

I've stayed in hotels that were frequented by prostitutes (not a value judgement, but it does change the experience of the stay considerably), hotels with drug dealers in the parking lot, etc. Even going with a big brand, I've had extremely disappointing experiences.

Most recently, I stayed at the Hyatt Regency in Louisville, which is a highrise hotel in which all the rooms are located around a central lobby. This is fine, assuming there aren't people screaming in the lobby, but surprise, there were literally people screaming in the lobby for long periods in each of the two nights we stayed there, and repeated calls to the front desk didn't resolve the situation.

We'd planned a longer stay, but ended up relocating after the second night of interrupted sleep, and somewhat ironically, ended up in a super quaint AirBNB that was a fraction of the price.

Yes, AirBNB can be a bit of a crapshoot, but that isn't a problem that's unique to AirBNB.

You have hotels either way and you clearly can't save the market for not-hotel rooms by prohibiting it entirely. Where is the harm in allowing someone to knowingly take a risk in exchange for a discount?