The system I described was much more akin to something like the Better Business Bureau than a new bureaucracy. It tends to be a way to get things done in a way where both consumers and businesses want to obey them (as is rather the definition of opt-in systems). For instance I just checked the BBB entry for AirBnB [1]. It turns out that even though they aren't affiliated with the BBB, they are rapidly responding to complaints and seem to be resolving most issues. Many of the complaints/resolutions are publicly displayed. Feels rather voyeurish reading them, but it's all quite interesting!

You tend to get much better results with using a third party company (such as the BBB) since the company's action towards the company stands to have much more weight than a single consumer's. It's similar to governmental regulation, except it tends to scale more appropriately with size. E.g. 'Ma and Pop BnB' are generally not going to end up facing BBB complaints since they can resolve things 'locally.' Whereas with governmental regulatory systems 'Ma and Pop BnB' is treated in many ways the same as multibillion dollar multinational "BnB" and inadvertent noncompliance can be devastating, even when such inadvertent noncompliance in no way negatively affected anybody as you invariably end up with some rules that make sense for multinationals, but not necessarily e.g. a couple of retirees renting out a spare room.

[1] - https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-francisco/profile/rental-listi...

Is there anyone that still takes the BBB seriously? They operate as a pay-to-play scheme, charging money in exchange for their approval in an outright quid pro quo sales operation.

https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/30/news/better-business-bureau...

Beyond that, the advent of modern communication has taken a huge bite out of whatever relevancy they might've had. Why complain to the BBB when you can complain via Yelp/Google Reviews/Facebook, etc. and have a bigger impact.

I've yet to run into a company that didn't actively engage with the BBB. AirBnB quite certainly seems to respond extremely actively to them. I've been fortunate enough to only have a couple of complaints with businesses I was unable to resolve directly, and in both cases I was able to work out a fair settlement through the BBB alone. If somebody would prefer to go the social review route, then that's great - it's obviously a very good thing that we have so many dispute resolution options available for consumers now a days.