[HN Gopher] Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam af...
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Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after
registration obligation
Author : clydethefrog
Score : 271 points
Date : 2021-10-18 09:07 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ruetir.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ruetir.com)
| srmarm wrote:
| Airbnb was amazing to start with, I stayed with some many
| interesting people and in interesting places. It's a shame that
| it's now so commoditised.
| A_Venom_Roll wrote:
| What I really liked in the early days is that there was more
| interaction with the host, because you often rented a room in
| their place or a part of the appartment, while they were still
| living there. Lot's of interesting conversation. Nowadays it's
| just business for a lot of hosts, they don't even bother
| welcoming you and put the key in a keysafe.
| em500 wrote:
| Lot's of experiences are amazing and wonderful when very few
| people do it, but they morph into something different when the
| masses come in. National parks. A rustic cafe in an old town. A
| picknick along a river bank. High signal internet forums.
| Venice. Zhangjiajie. Driving cars.
|
| I don't know if any solution exists. It seems to me that the
| only way to preserve the original experience is via some sort
| of exclusiveness, which immediately provokes a backlash.
| Especially exclusions based on money.
| TorKlingberg wrote:
| I don't think it's the number of people by itself. It's when
| it's becomes an established business that people have to
| start optimizing for low cost, max profit and fighting to get
| to the top of listings. Then the general niceness and
| interestingness goes away.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| I mean yes, but for some things also the number of people
| by itself, surely? I can imagine having to queue to go up
| Mount Everest takes away some of the charm, for example.
|
| Crowds, wait times, littering etc. Large numbers can ruin a
| lot of things.
| abyssin wrote:
| In the case of CouchSurfing, it kept being genuine for a
| number of years despite and even thanks to the large user
| base. What destroyed the community is greed that lead to
| implementing incentives that go against what made the
| experience wonderful.
| mrsuprawsm wrote:
| "Nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded" - Yogi Bera
| amelius wrote:
| Air travel was great in the early days.
| hedberg10 wrote:
| Air travel is still great if you fly first class, which if
| I remember correctly, is exactly as expensive as air travel
| was in the good old days.
| amelius wrote:
| Actually, I don't mind air travel being shitty, given its
| environmental impact.
|
| Let those who damage the planet for fun or for profit
| suffer! >:)
| namdnay wrote:
| Not since 9/11 , the security theatre is still very
| painful, even in first. I'm sure it's much more
| comfortable if you're flying general aviation, but that's
| still way more expensive than commercial ever was, even
| in the 60s
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Air travel via private jet is better than the early days
| though.
| namdnay wrote:
| Yes, that's what I said: general aviation == "private
| jets"
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I was trying to make a tongue in cheek comment about life
| getting better for those at the top and worse for the
| middle.
| missedthecue wrote:
| I don't have an arab complexion, but TSA has never been
| that much of a hassle for me. Is it really that bad for
| you? I just have to take my belt and shoes off and take
| my laptop out. There are lines, but it usually doesn't
| take me more than 20 minutes to get through.
| Stevvo wrote:
| I guess you got lucky by travelling domestic only in the
| US. 3 Hour lines at Heathrow passport control are not
| uncommon. US border agents can and will deny entry for to
| foreigners for any or no reason. Had a rifle raised and
| pointed at me while bag was searched in Sri Lanka.
| namdnay wrote:
| And no liquids, and repeat this hassle at 50% of the
| airports you stopover (depending on how lazy they were
| when designing the "safe" zones and terminals)
| [deleted]
| jonkoops wrote:
| Yeah, but from the perspective of people actually trying to
| live in these places it's a cancer on the city.
|
| I personally know several people previously living in Amsterdam
| that left the city or parts of it simply because their day-to-
| day lives were getting disrupted by tourists taking over
| residential neighborhoods. They create a lot of noise, get
| drunk and high, vomit in the porches, leave trash everywhere
| etc.
|
| A city should be for people that live there, not a theme park
| for those looking for a rush.
| MereInterest wrote:
| For a while, I lived in an apartment complex that also rented
| out rooms on AirBnB. There was nothing in the lease allowing
| short-term subletting, and so I foolishly assumed that the
| complex avoided catering to short-term leases entirely. When
| you hear heavy stomping and noise directly above you, there's
| a huge difference in knowing who it is, and that they're
| likely to be receptive to stopping by the next day to ask for
| quiet. When it's a series of hotel guests, there's no reason
| for them to listen to you, nor would it have any impact on
| the next people to live there.
| DoubleGlazing wrote:
| We have a friend who owns a single bungalow in a row of five
| in the Liberties area of Dublin. That's where Guinness is and
| a load of new distilleries, it's becoming a "cool" area.
|
| The other four bungalows are owned by a single owner who
| rents them out as AirBnB's. This had made our friends life a
| nightmare. Stag and hen parties, teenagers booking them for
| parties, people returning home from an evening out drunk and
| trying to get in to her house by mistake. Also, the local
| parking has been messed up as well.
|
| The worst thing is that when they are empty the street is
| really eerie. Also, the landlord keeps the keys to the houses
| in combination lock boxes bolted to the walls just outside
| the front door of each property. He'll give renters the code
| so they can retrieve the keys when they arrive. Local
| teenagers have been known to spend the time needed to crack
| the code and then let themselves in to the property and raise
| havoc.
|
| She has reported the problems to the local council many
| times, but they just don't seem to care. Reports to AirBnB,
| unsurprisingly, go nowhere. When she has approached the owner
| to complain his response was to offer to buy her out, which
| is a bit cheeky as that has been her family home for three
| generations.
|
| Being surrounded by so many AirBnBs can really have a
| negative effect on your life.
| andybak wrote:
| "Advertisement" = "Property" if I'm reading this correctly. Seems
| a fairly ambiguous way to word it.
| Oarch wrote:
| It's not always 1:1, sometimes each room in an apartment is
| advertised as a separate listing. We've been misled by this
| assumption before.
| Pinegulf wrote:
| If not AirBnb, then where the adds went? I doubt that the rental
| space would be left unused.
| dorchadas wrote:
| Hopefully to the long-term market.
| Etheryte wrote:
| As an expat living in the Netherlands I've seen this up
| close, but in most part it seems this is temporary. Many
| properties that were previously Airbnb-d were put up for
| rental, but only for short contracts of a year or two at
| most. This leads me to believe that many of those listings
| hope to return to Airbnb once tourism and the like picks up
| again.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Yes, they are probably just waiting for the pandemics to
| end to go back to short term.
| dorchadas wrote:
| That's what seems to have happened in Dublin too. Last
| August saw a doubling of long-term rentals, most in the
| areas most hard hit by AirBnB. I don't think it's lasted,
| given how bad things currently are here, sadly. Something
| really needs to be done to move them and keep them on the
| long-term market where they belong.
| matthewfelgate wrote:
| Stupid over-reaching bureaucracy.
| debarshri wrote:
| It was really weird walking in Amsterdam during summer this time
| around. Generally for past few year, I had seen explosions of
| tourists doing a weekend tours. There used to be barely any foot
| space to walk near dam square and shopping streets. This time I
| just was able to be make an appoint for Anne Frank museum a day
| before and simply walk in without a queue. This is the conundrum
| of tourism. If you too much tourist in the city then if feels
| like a Disney land, if there too little then there is no
| business. I wouldn't just blame Airbnb for the tourist explosion
| but in general there are lot of cheaper hotels, hostels which
| attract not so nice tourists. This summer was great for me but
| not that good for the local businesses. Balancing this ecosystem
| is I think pretty hard. One of the things i was thinking how you
| could solve would be purpose make navigating throughout the city
| difficult. That forces people to stay longer, therefore limits
| people who come for short haul.
| azemetre wrote:
| Aren't you forgetting the massive global pandemic that has
| surely impacted how, where, and when people vacation? Kinda
| hard to blame too much "disney-ification" on lack of tourists
| when tourism is being hit hard every where.
| namdnay wrote:
| I don't think they were blaming the lack fo tourists on
| anything - just saying that it was nice to have fewer of them
| pintxo wrote:
| Same in Berlin in 2020. What a strange feeling it was to walk
| through the city almost alone. A big disaster for hotels &
| business, but a small wonder for the local crowd.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It often seems to be the case that, in cities, the interests
| of businesses are opposed to the interests of residents.
| jmercouris wrote:
| Unless you live in mitte, which basically nobody does, there
| didn't feel much difference to me.
| cletus wrote:
| You see a lot of millenials in particular complain about how
| they're basically screwed, financially. Houses are unaffordable,
| they have a mountain of debt, etc. Probably the only reason you
| don't hear this so much from Gen-Z yet is they're either too
| young or just in shock and denial about their position.
|
| I'm truly sympathetic. I compare how I could live post-university
| and it's just not achievable now.
|
| Here's the rub: if you support the view that housing is too
| expensive and people can't find places to live then you should be
| absolutely against AirBnB. At least, AirBnB of whole units. I'm
| completely fine with someone renting out rooms in their house or
| an additional unit on their property.
|
| It is undeniable that AirBnB makes houses more expensive and
| reduces supply to buyers and renters.
|
| Cities should be first and foremost for the people who live in
| them. AirBnB facilitates running illegal hotels. I'm also against
| people using residential property to park their money. We given
| real estate exemptions from reporting requirements that no other
| asset class has.
|
| Landlords need to exist otherwise who will provide rental stock.
| Those landlords should be residents of those cities and not some
| faceless hedge fund.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Someone needs to remove 80% of advertisements from "ruetir.com".
| Personally I don't mind a reasonable level of advertising on the
| web, but that site has gone way overboard. Looks like some kind
| of spam/scam site.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Booking.com is where the most desperate landlords and the real
| scumbags post. It's a cesspool. No wonder it's the only one where
| number of listings has increased given the circumstances.
| hellweaver666 wrote:
| Thats actually not true. Booking is based in Amsterdam and has
| been working closely with the city to ensure regulatory
| requirements are met. The "most desperate" landlords as you put
| it have all been approved by the city unlike the thousands on
| other platforms thats why Booking has been able to continue
| growing, they're actually way more selective on who they allow.
| [deleted]
| elzbardico wrote:
| Airbnb is great when traveling, but it made things more difficult
| for renters in cities with even a slightly moderate amount of
| tourism. Better houses with amenities like pools are almost
| completely out of the long-term rental market, or have insane
| prices. For the professional urban renter this just means a less
| fancy rental, but this less fancy rental now is out of the reach
| for lower income people.
| airza wrote:
| It says advertisements in the article, but maybe a more clear
| term is 'listing'?
| arkades wrote:
| It expands on the various forms of advertising (eg, Expedia,
| TripAdvisor) and goes on to state that these sites are the
| majority places of advertising one's airbnb.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Yes that confused me too.
| bbarnett wrote:
| It may flow through the days of newspapers for apartment
| rentals. A person wanted to sublet, to rent, an ad in the
| paper was the way.
|
| And listings are ads, just with deferred payment (eg, once
| rented, then you kick a percent at the platform).
|
| Another "common person" thinks of it differently than we do,
| thing?
| em500 wrote:
| Don't overthink it. The article was probably translated
| from Dutch, or done by a Dutch person, and there isn't
| direct equivalent for "listings" in Dutch.
| amelius wrote:
| If there isn't a distinction between ads and listings in
| some language, isn't that more evidence that both are
| actually the same thing?
| [deleted]
| wccrawford wrote:
| Some cultures don't distinguish between green and blue
| and don't have a word for blue. That doesn't mean that
| blue is the same as green.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| Another example is that in some languages they just have
| one word for "leg" and "foot", and one for "arm" and
| "hand". But obviously in English there's a distinction.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| That's interesting. So how would a Dutch person describe
| Google search results listings with ads in between?
| em500 wrote:
| They'd call them "search results" (zoekresultaten).
|
| FWIW, real estate listings are "advertisements" here.
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| same: search results with advertisements (zoekresultaten
| met reclame)
| quotemstr wrote:
| It's really sad how throughout the western world governments have
| come to rely on big tech monopolies to act as their enforcers
| instead of just enforcing the law using the normal machinery of
| the state.
|
| Once the state becomes addicted to enforcement via big tech, it
| becomes reluctant to break up those big tech companies and
| promote competition.
| djbebs wrote:
| Shame that local councils are once again meddling in things they
| have no business being in.
| jimvdv wrote:
| I completely welcome this, the housing market is already very
| crowded here in Amsterdam. Investors buying houses just to rent
| them out to tourist all year round? No thanks, give people
| affordable homes first.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| This libertarian idealism does not work in practice. I mean
| look up what a local council does and what they 'meddle' in,
| then think about what would happen if they stopped 'meddling'.
| jdasdf wrote:
| I'm very familiar with exactly what local councils do in
| terms of urbanism and licensing, my entire family is involved
| directly in every stage of the construction business, from
| the initial architecture design, to the real estate sale.
|
| I am telling you this because I want you to know that i have
| as close of an experience with local governments in regards
| to this subject matter as almost anyone can have.
|
| From my experience, and the experience of my parents, uncles
| and grandparents i can assure you there is almost no place
| where you will find more corruption and needless bureaucracy
| as in local councils.
|
| while there does indeed need to be some forms of regulation,
| say by outlining noise limits outside the properties, or by
| establishing emissions standards or light level restrictions,
| the vast, vast majority of restrictions and regulations are
| fundamentally senseless and exist primarily to make work for
| local council employees, and to enforce peoples views on what
| other can do with their property.
|
| It is NIMBYism of the worst kind, and we would all be
| significantly better off if local councils had their powers
| castrated.
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| Your place is in a Mass GRAVE NIMBY!
| philliphaydon wrote:
| After being screwed over by Airbnb, I welcome the meddling.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| What was your experience with Airbnb?
| philliphaydon wrote:
| I needed a serviced apartment, and decided to use Airbnb
| because between Agoda and Airbnb, it was ever-so-slightly
| cheaper. When I searched it said the 100% refundable
| cancellation policy. So I made the booking, I adjusted the
| dates to 30 days, it didn't tell me that changing the date
| range to > 28 days changes the cancellation policy to an
| entirelly different policy that is dictated by the host.
|
| So when the Taiwan border opened by 3 weeks before I was
| due to go to the serviced apartment, I couldn't cancel
| without losing 100% of the money as the 'new' cancellation
| policy was 100% non-refundable.
|
| Contacting Airbnb they said there's a different policy if
| the booking is for more than 28 days, and so it's up to the
| host, so in the end the host reluctantly agreed to a 75%
| refund.
|
| I could have paid 10% extra on Agoda for the same serviced
| apartment, and cancelled 24 hours before checking in and
| got 100% refund.
|
| Airbnb letting hosts dictate cancellation policies, and not
| properly relaying information when paying, prevents me ever
| touching airbnb again.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| So you agreed to a contract, didn't bother to read the
| fine print, this fired back and so your emotional
| response is schadenfreude... I believe you can do better
| than that
| philliphaydon wrote:
| Hmmm.
|
| During the search, it states that it's 100% refundable
| upon cancellation.
|
| Because I booked for 30 days it exceeds some apparent 28
| day duration threshold where the cancellation policy is
| dictated by the host.
|
| It only stated that it's $0 refund on the cancellation
| screen.
|
| So unsure how I read fine print where it's stated1 way
| during booking but in reality there's some hidden rule
| you find out when you cancel.
| wccrawford wrote:
| It's not always available to the user. We recently did
| AirBNB for the first time, and nothing was said about the
| checkout process until after about a day before our stay.
|
| In that process, we were expected to do (light) housework
| to help prepare the house for the next guests.
|
| We did it, but it really left a negative feeling for us
| to have to do housework on vacation when it wasn't
| expected.
|
| The owner left us a slightly negative review saying that
| perhaps we weren't the right kind of customers for AirBNB
| and that we'd be more comfortable with all the amenities
| of a hotel instead. True, but a nasty thing to leave in a
| review.
|
| There were other problems with the house that prevented
| my wife from sleeping well there that the owner gave
| half-assed suggestions for, and left negative comments
| about in the review, too.
|
| Obviously we won't be using AirBNB again and won't be
| recommending it.
|
| Anyhow, with the lack of regulations, there's no
| guarantee that you know what you're actually signing up
| for on AirBNB, especially with policies stating that the
| cancellation policy changes to whatever the owner says.
| Had we known that, we probably wouldn't have stayed there
| at all. Luckily it didn't affect us like it did the other
| poster above.
| graftak wrote:
| Shame that private companies ignore legislation and disrupts
| communities by doing so.
| WJW wrote:
| How does a democratically elected city council not "have
| business" regulating things like zoning? If they had wanted
| those houses to be operated as hotels, they would have been
| hotels. The citizens voted for a council that would impose
| regulation on AirBnb and they did. This is democracy working as
| intended.
| jurmous wrote:
| Amsterdam is a city being overrun by tourists and that is
| something local councils should be able to control. Locals have
| difficulty to find homes as prices are raising to high levels.
|
| https://nltimes.nl/2016/10/13/amsterdam-center-overrun-touri...
|
| https://www.travelandtourworld.com/news/article/amsterdam-is...
|
| https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/01/amsterdam-house-prices...
| saddlerustle wrote:
| Maybe, just maybe, high prices is instead because Amsterdam
| is building about half as much housing as it did 40 years
| ago, and significantly less than population growth.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| I don't understand why houses should be excluded from the
| capitalistic process; If councils were doing their job and
| permitting sufficient housing construction, then high prices
| = more housing = everyone is happy.
|
| I'm no expert on Amsterdam, but checking your last article
| mentions rent control; why would property developers bother
| building new housing when the returns are artificially
| deflated by government action? This is precisely the problem
| with regulations, they damage price signals. It would not at
| all surprise me if the government is in part causing all of
| these problems.
|
| I will also note that housing being expensive in a large,
| popular city is basically the case the world over, and I
| suspect tourists are just an easy scapegoat to deflect blame
| from policy failure.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Because housing is a human right.
| gkya wrote:
| > I don't understand why houses should be excluded from the
| capitalistic process
|
| Because it sucks and nothing should be included in it.
| unionpivo wrote:
| > I suspect tourists are just an easy scapegoat to deflect
| blame from policy failure.
|
| There was a policy failure, in allowing Airbnb to run huge
| unlicensed hotel business.
|
| This policy is addressing that. They didn't stop Airbnb
| from operating, they just made sure that they operate more
| in line like other hotels.
|
| This will in turn enable them to make sure that the tourist
| flow is sustainable, by raising or lowering tourist taxes
| on such rentals.
| re-actor wrote:
| Zoning and regulating housing is like exactly what their
| "business" is in.
| Brave-Steak wrote:
| Whenever I see a comment like his, I wonder what they think
| local governments (or governments in general) actually do.
| difosfor wrote:
| Good riddance
| jikbd wrote:
| Yeah... who are the owners of a flat to decide what to do with
| it, eh?
| hihihihi1234 wrote:
| So you'd have no problem if your neighbours turned their flat
| into a brothel and a meth lab? Because that's the logical
| extension of your argument.
| V-2 wrote:
| I'd have the exact same problem if the owner of the flat
| turned into a meth lab (or throwing loud parties or
| whatever) did pay all the taxes.
| dingdongbing wrote:
| The problem is that the locals cannot find housing
| themselves. Laws like this protect the common people of
| Amsterdam at the expense of the flat owners inalienable right
| to exploit them
| locallost wrote:
| There are tons of limitations to what you can do with your
| property. E.g. you can own land but can't build a house if
| the land is not zoned for it. Even the meaning of property
| has changed over the centuries. It's no longer acceptable to
| own a human being, which was a contested idea not too long
| ago. It's the people that make a society that decide what
| they want the rules to be. Good for the people of Amsterdam
| that they don't accept man made "realities" on what can or
| can't be done.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| If it's no longer acceptable to own a human being, that's
| going to be a problem for the gimp training and service
| industry in Amsterdam.
|
| https://www.nobleprog.nl/en/gimp/training/amsterdam
|
| >Gimp Training in Amsterdam
|
| >Online or onsite, instructor-led live Gimp training
| courses demonstrate through interactive discussion and
| hands-on practice the fundamentals and advanced topics of
| Gimp and Gimpshop.
|
| >Gimp training is available as "online live training" or
| "onsite live training". Online live training (aka "remote
| live training") is carried out by way of an interactive,
| remote desktop. Onsite live Gimp training can be carried
| out locally on customer premises in Amsterdam or in
| NobleProg corporate training centers in Amsterdam.
|
| https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g188590-d149
| 1...
|
| >Different and enjoyable, but expensive
|
| >Travelled to the Supper Club with my girlfriend and we had
| a great time. Waiters in gimp suits, rubber gloves upon
| arrival and comfy beds to lounge on while we ate, created a
| unique experience.
| gerikson wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the waiters are paid competitive rates
| and are free to seek other employment. So comparing them
| to literal slaves is disingenuous.
| bbarnett wrote:
| But they're working for people, doing what they might not
| want to on their own free time! Slavery!
|
| I dislike how some diminish this term, with such
| frivolous complaints. Yes, surely the waiters were
| hobbled. Or beaten to death. Or starved, worked 18 hour
| days, etc.
|
| Totally similar!
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Mix ups like this are why I don't mention my experience
| with the GNU Image Manipulation Program[1] offline.
|
| [1] https://www.gimp.org/
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| I think those are two very different types of gimps.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| They use AirBnD instead.
| mellavora wrote:
| I might have more sympathy for the flat owners if they:
|
| - had proper insurance on their properties to protect the
| guests
|
| - maintained the property according to the health and safety
| guidelines proscribed by law
|
| - had a license for their business activity
|
| - paid the appropriate taxes for this additional income
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yeah! If a landlord wants to put up tourists in leaky slum
| houses for EUR250 a night that should be their right! It's
| their own fault for trusting an online advert, right?
|
| Hotels have rules, regulations and need to be inspected
| according to hotel rules in terms of safety, hygiene and
| price rules. Rentals have rules and regulations related to
| basic standards of living, pricing, and again, safety and
| hygiene.
|
| Airbnb allowed landlords to rent out substandard temporary
| housing, skirting around laws covering both hotels and
| rentals as well as relevant taxes. In part, they are
| responsible for the housing crisis.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| Who checks hotels?
|
| I've been in some flea bags, and didn't know until I showed
| up.
|
| This is just in the USA though.
|
| If they serve food, they are check usually once a year, and
| that's it, and it's only the kitchen.
|
| Hotels/motels are not inspected for anything--sadily.
|
| (I've always wondered what counties/towns do with that
| occupancy tax they collect. I don't like Airbnb though, and
| agree with you for the most.)
| lm28469 wrote:
| Ownership isn't freedom to do whatever you want whenever you
| want, this is a first grade take on the topic.
|
| Laws are voted for the interest of the community (ie.
| country) by elected officials (elected by the people),
| ownership, freedoms, &c. exist within these boundaries, or as
| a smart person put it a long time ago: "Obedience to the law
| one has prescribed for oneself is freedom". It's always a
| battle of individual gains vs collective good, if we wanted
| to live like egoists cavemen we wouldn't have build organised
| societies.
| gerikson wrote:
| A flat owner is not an atomic actor. If you purchase a flat,
| it's under the implicit assumption that you or your family
| will be the only ones occupying it.
|
| I live in Sweden and most "condo" associations (bostadsratt)
| have rules regarding short-term hires and subletting. I
| imagine it is the same in the Netherlands.
| yreg wrote:
| >If you purchase a flat, it's under the implicit assumption
|
| There might be such implicit assumption somewhere, but it
| for sure isn't a general one.
|
| I for one don't have any such expectations regarding the
| neighbours in my condo. (I don't live in Sweden/Netherlands
| though.)
| V-2 wrote:
| I, for one, am renting, so if my neighbors expected my
| landlord would live at the flat with his family - then my
| wife, my newborn son and I are certainly failing to meet
| their implicit assumptions.
| null_object wrote:
| > I live in Sweden and most "condo" associations
| (bostadsratt) have rules regarding short-term hires and
| subletting.
|
| I don't know why you're using Sweden as a 'good' example of
| democratic control of Airbnb: the opposite is actually
| true, where the authorities are very well-disposed to
| people hiring-out their apartments, and see it as an
| opportunity to get more tourists visiting locations in
| Sweden[0] From the article in the citation:
|
| "Politicians in Copenhagen want to introduce a maximum
| limit of 60 rental days per year via Airbnb - but Stockholm
| is choosing a different path and continues to welcome
| private rentals via the US giant. According to statistics
| from Airbnb, there are now over 3,600 listed homes actively
| offered as tourist accommodation in Stockholm."
|
| In that article there are officials saying the same as you
| - that local restrictions put some sort of 'natural' limit
| on the number of Airbnb apartments - but the reality is
| that for people working here in Stockholm and trying to
| find an apartment to rent, the only option has now become
| Airbnb or the black-market in rented accommodation -
| effectively pricing normal people out of the market
| altogether.
|
| As for these supposed restrictions on hiring-out apartments
| that are in the 'rulebook' of a house, it's perfectly easy
| to circumvent them. In my house in central Stockholm it's
| forbidden, but I often meet small groups of Italians,
| Spaniards or other obvious tourists coming and going in the
| communal areas of the house, and looking very sheepish at
| being seen - very obviously hiring an apartment illegally.
|
| [0] In swedish: https://www.svd.se/stockholm-gar-emot-
| airbnb-trenden-inget-p...
| lampe3 wrote:
| Maybe it is starting now?
|
| https://www.thelocal.se/20210916/swedens-first-case-
| against-...
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| In the UK at least, the expectation would be 50/50 that you
| are buying to let.
|
| However, a six month minimum rental period is very
| different from having new neighbors every weekend.
| dagw wrote:
| _If you purchase a flat, it 's under the implicit
| assumption that you or your family will be the only ones
| occupying it_
|
| I also live in Sweden and that is a very Sweden specific
| assumption. Even just across the border in Norway that
| assumption doesn't hold.
|
| Sweden on the whole is very anti small private landlords
| and have lots of laws making it basically impossible to
| make money by buying a few flats and renting them out, but
| that is also a pretty uniquely Swedish take on the property
| market.
| null_object wrote:
| > Sweden on the whole is very anti small private
| landlords and have lots of laws making it basically
| impossible to make money by buying a few flats and
| renting them out, but that is also a pretty uniquely
| Swedish take on the property market.
|
| This is an extremely idealized version of the real
| situation - at least in Stockholm. Here, the only real
| cap on the number of apartments being bought for (often
| illegal) hire, is the spiralling cost of real estate.
| Many of my colleagues rent their apartments on the black
| market - which is often the only way to get a home within
| the city.
|
| Official rental apartments generally have a waiting-list
| of around 20 years within the city-limits, and even
| needing to commute from far out in the suburbs a newly-
| arrived person will probably need to rent on the black-
| market. This is a well-known and documented situation.
|
| Airbnb has definitely made the situation much worse in
| Stockholm - the supposed '3600' apartments are actually
| far greater in number, as can be seen if one switches off
| location-permissions in your browser, and take a look at
| available rentals in the area.
| dagw wrote:
| You're of course right. I should have written that
| Swedish law is very anti small private landlords and that
| legally making money by buying a couple of flats and
| renting them out is basically impossible.
|
| In fact when I moved back to Sweden after working abroad
| for a few years after University I spend the first 18
| month living in a illegally rented flat, so I'm painfully
| aware of how the system works in real life.
| mrep wrote:
| So how is there housing for people to rent? Does the
| government build and maintain all rental property?
| alexanderchr wrote:
| You'd usually rent from someone owning an entire
| building. Usually a company but sometimes an individual.
| gerikson wrote:
| No, there are private and council-owned landlords.
| mrep wrote:
| Can you explain more? That still sounds like you are able
| to "make money by buying a few flats and renting them
| out" but with extra steps.
| gerikson wrote:
| Expanding on 'dawg, it's generally only profitable to
| rent if you're a company devoted only to renting, and the
| regulatory regime punishes the landlord with only a few
| units. This is because rents are not market-based, but
| instead are based on "use value" (bruksvarde). A 19th C
| apartment in the middle of the city can theoretically be
| worth "less" from a rental perspective than a newly built
| apartment in the suburbs.
|
| Any annual rent increases are set via a form of
| collective bargaining, and if a landlord charges more,
| the renter is entitled to their money back.
|
| The upshot of this is that it's much more profitable to
| buy a rental building and flip it to the renters via a
| bostadsrattsforening (a bit like a condo) or to only
| build to sell.
| dagw wrote:
| No, the landlords in these cases own the whole building,
| not just a few flats. If you own the whole building then
| you can of course rent out the flats in that building.
| But if you just own a couple of flats in the building,
| then you generally cannot easily rent them out.
| gerikson wrote:
| Thanks for expanding, I do admit writing from a parochial
| perspective.
| iofiiiiiiiii wrote:
| > it's under the implicit assumption that you or your
| family will be the only ones occupying it.
|
| Says who? This is a rather bold assumption to make and does
| not have any connection with the reality in most of the
| world.
| gerikson wrote:
| My comments were made from my experience as a renter and
| condo owner in Stockholm, Sweden. I did speculate that
| similar norms were present in the Netherlands, but I must
| confess I have not studied the issue deeply.
| growse wrote:
| > Yeah... who are the owners of a flat to decide what to do
| with it, eh?
|
| How do you spell "externalities"?
| this-pony wrote:
| Yea... who are the neighbors of those flats to decide to
| protest loud and rude tourists that disturb the piece and
| quiet of their homes, eh?
| jikbd wrote:
| We already have laws against that.
| lm28469 wrote:
| And now we have a new law, I'm sure people were upset
| about the night time disturbances laws too
| elzbardico wrote:
| Exactly. Flat owners can't privatize their gains while
| their socialized their costs. If a factory pollutes, we
| agreed that it should pay for the damage and control it.
| Why it is so difficult to understand that we just want the
| externalities from Airbnb to be addressed?
| buran77 wrote:
| The owners still decide what to do with it. They just
| _decided_ to stop listing their apartments because now it 's
| very conspicuous that they are breaking the law by not paying
| taxes, having proper insurance, safety conditions, etc. for
| such an endeavor. The ones who were operating legally still
| advertise their listings.
| srmarm wrote:
| We have planning, zoning and safety laws for a reason. The
| owners of a flat can decide to do what they like within those
| parameters.
| [deleted]
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| AirBnB and everything around it has mutated into something big
| and ugly since where it began. Seems like we need good old couch
| surfing forums back.
| Loughla wrote:
| >AirBnB and everything around it has mutated into something big
| and ugly since where it began.
|
| Now I am 100% out of the sphere of technology, but isn't
| skirting regulation to make money exactly how AirBnB got
| started?
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| It started as a convenience for people willing to let people
| they like crash at their place while they are away and get
| some pocket money for their own travel. Mostly unofficially,
| yes, and I feel no problem with this. But they turnt it into
| big business. Now whole buildings are built for AirBnB,
| professional landlords take mortgages to buy apartments just
| to let them at AirBnB, it's all over in the news, the prices
| are on par with hotels and the landlords seemingly don't care
| about any "face control" (as they normally would if it was
| about letting their actual home for a weekend) so even thugs
| can have the keys.
| strix_varius wrote:
| Purely anecdotal, but my earliest experiences with AirBnB
| were all staying as a guest in someone's home, which
| typically doesn't violate local regulations. You're allowed
| to have occasional guests crashing in your guest room in most
| residential areas.
|
| Now, of course, AirBnB encourages fully investing in it as a
| landlord platform, where you rent and automate multiple whole
| properties and never meet the guests. That behavior lowers
| the quality of life in many tourist destinations today.
| mxstbr wrote:
| I'd be surprised if a large % of those that no longer rent out on
| Airbnb can just leave their properties empty. I wonder whether
| those properties have shifted to other short-term rental
| platforms or whether they've gone back into long-term renting and
| what impact that the latter (would) have on the local rental
| market...
| jacquesm wrote:
| The 20% yoy housing price increases in NL have made it more
| than profitable to leave properties dormant. This is another
| factor in the housing crisis here, savings are taxed so wealthy
| individuals are all investing in property.
| WJW wrote:
| Only your primary residence gets to be tax-free in box 1
| though? Any other real estate you own falls under box 3 and
| and is thus subject to the wealth tax ("vermogensbelasting").
|
| See https://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/bldcontent
| nl/... for details (Dutch page)
| yunohn wrote:
| I think there's a clear imbalance between stagnant money in
| a bank account versus rent-generating property - both being
| taxed as wealth tax. Hence, demand for real estate.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Not to mention that the Dutch wealth tax assumes that you
| are making a quite specific return on your capital,
| whether you actually do or not isn't something the tax
| man cares about.
|
| With 'savings' as an asset class now a liability there is
| a huge flight of capital into real estate, which so far
| has been pretty resilient against this.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Wealth tax is a very small fraction of the value of the
| property.
| RNCTX wrote:
| I've often thought that municipal regulations would be the best
| way to get rid of unsavory American corporations.
|
| Another one that I'm not surprised has happened yet is a ~$5,000
| dollar per day fine for an unattended cash register. That would
| get rid of CVS and Walgreens overnight.
| dickfickling wrote:
| I'm sure i'm being dense here, but can you please explain the
| justification for fining a retailer for an unattended cash
| register? Also what's unsavory about CVS/Walgreens?
| vkdelta wrote:
| Have you ever been to Walgreens with 10+ registers but just
| one attendee?
| missedthecue wrote:
| No. Walgreens only has two registers and one self register
| in the stores near me.
| RNCTX wrote:
| It creates a theft nuisance, they attract shoplifters to
| nearby stores.
|
| In that way you don't want a Walgreens or CVS in your
| neighborhood in the same way you don't want a 24 hour liquor
| store in your neighborhood.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but most theft at Walgreens/CVS
| isn't from the cash register being unattended, its from
| people just loading up and walking out with unpaid goods
| (which the local store security doesn't engage with due to
| fear of being sued)
| RNCTX wrote:
| There is no security.
|
| I live in the north Dallas suburbs. About 75% of the time
| the entire non-pharmacy part of any CVS store near me is
| completely unattended. About half the time you walk into
| any one of them you'll hear the robot voice going off
| because someone just walked out with whatever they stole.
|
| These stores are every bit as bad at imitating Amazon's
| fascination with automation as they are at scheduling and
| distributing COVID vaccines. For that matter, my proposal
| of a $5000/occurrence fine for unattended registers would
| also pre-eliminate one of those ridiculous unattended
| Amazon stores from popping up in your neighborhood...
|
| The same goes for grocery chains. It's pretty obvious
| that the word has come down from corporate to store
| managers at Kroger and Albertsons to try and herd people
| into unattended checkouts. In the case of the latter,
| I've seen them have an attendant not work a register, but
| face-to-face try to "invite" people to the unattended
| checkout. All of this while a dozen registers sit closed.
|
| These would all be very easily solved by a municipality
| imposing a minimum number of attendants per square foot
| of floor space and a fine for unattended registers.
| datavirtue wrote:
| These companies are going to screw themselves by not policing the
| behavior of landlords. The government will do it for them, as
| evidenced by this move. I know VRBO does nothing to protect
| renters (unless they get raped/assaulted and need to head off bad
| PR). There needs to be transparency about who owns and is
| ultimately responsible for the property. VRBO currently insulates
| owners/operators from accountability to renters. I got ripped off
| for $2100 and had no recourse from VRBO. No way to file a
| complaint and it was clear once I went looking for support that
| it was 100% focused on helping owners/operators use their
| platform.
|
| The current requirement to assure that a renter doesn't get
| ripped off is to use a credit card that will refund their money
| in the event the owner tries to rip them off. Good luck to the
| un-banked and working poor.
| saddlerustle wrote:
| If I were a western city, I would simply build enough housing for
| residents _and_ visitors.
| jimvdv wrote:
| That's very easy to say, much harder to do.
|
| Also you still want to keep tourist concentrations low in
| certain areas to keep neighbourhoods liveable.
| bartread wrote:
| I don't especially mind tourists in moderate numbers - after
| all, from time to time, I play the tourist myself. However, I
| live and work in Cambridge, and if we were to put what you
| suggest into practice the city would become an absolutely
| intolerable place to be for everyone.
|
| AirBnb may or may not be a big problem here but, if it is, it's
| a subset of a bigger problem: buy to let. I'd like to see buy
| to let severely curtailed within the city, as it's certainly
| driving up already high prices for buyers.
| saddlerustle wrote:
| Buy to let has no effect on housing prices as long as rental
| yields are low.
|
| If the problem is tourism: ban tourists from the city. It
| doesn't make sense to ban short-term rentals but continue to
| build hotels and run advertising campaigns promoting tourism
| to Amsterdam
| dorchadas wrote:
| > It doesn't make sense to ban short-term rentals but
| continue to build hotels and run advertising campaigns
| promoting tourism to Amsterdam
|
| Why doesn't it? Why should tourists get to say in the same
| type of places as locals, often at the expense of locals?
| To me, it makes perfect sense to ban short-term rentals but
| still let tourists stay in hotels and places meant for
| them, without taking up real estate that can be used for
| residences.
| saddlerustle wrote:
| Hotels are also real estate that could be used for
| residences.
| dorchadas wrote:
| The difference is that there are areas specifically zoned
| for hotels, for tourists, and they're included in city
| planning. What is happening with AirBnB, and short-term
| rentals like it, is that areas that _weren 't_ included
| for tourists in city planning are now being turned for
| that purpose, at the expense of the locals who they _are_
| planed /zoned for. It's two very different dynamics, and
| even comes into play with city planning, and AirBnB is
| completely ruining it, and thus ruining it for the
| locals. Hotels are already included in planning, and are
| not taking away places where the locals could live.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > buy to let. I'd like to see buy to let severely curtailed
| within the city, as it's certainly driving up already high
| prices.
|
| I'm familiar with the argument that AirBnB reduces rental
| stock by devoting it to tourism. But I rarely encounter
| someone who is mad that more rental stock is being added.
|
| Wouldn't you want rental prices to fall by increasing the
| availability of rental stock? Is a big gap between the cost
| of renting and the cost of owning a good thing?
| bencollier49 wrote:
| In the UK housing market, the availability of cheap credit
| in the buy-to-let market has driven the cost of a home up
| to levels of unaffordability for the average person. It's
| made worse by the treatment of housing as an asset class,
| which means that the traditional solution (build more) has
| been shown to be ineffective. There is a whole class of
| people who buy house after house, and make a lot of money
| out of it, and it drives division in society, as buying is
| cheaper then renting.
|
| The government has made some moves towards making BTL less
| profitable, but realistically this has only had the effect
| of discouraging new entrants, and driving the sector to a
| corporate model, which is even worse.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > In the UK housing market, the availability of cheap
| credit in the buy-to-let market has driven the cost of a
| home up to levels of unaffordability for the average
| person.
|
| Let's say you borrow at 0% interest and with zero down.
| And you take out an interest-only loan -- that's the
| loosest possible lending standard, right?
|
| Still you would not pull the trigger and buy to let
| unless:
|
| rent > interest + maintenance + cost of dealing with
| tenants.
|
| That means that lax lending standards can at most drive
| the price of ownership up to the price of renting (but
| not really, since there are gaps between renters). At the
| same time, the more rental stock is added, the more rents
| fall, making housing cheaper in the area.
|
| So I disagree that low mortgate rates can allow rental
| investment to create a bubble. Rental investment is the
| one place where you are guaranteed there isn't going to
| be a bubble, because they are approaching this as a
| cashflow decision.
|
| Where you see bubbles is in people buying homes for
| themselves to occupy, so there is no sanity check to see
| if it pencils out our not in terms of rental cash flows.
|
| So cheap credit can absolutely cause high prices as a
| result of owner-occupants, but not as a result of buy to
| let. When that happens, you see rental stock being taken
| _out_ of the market and used for owner occupancy.
|
| This is why nations with a large share of renters, like
| Germany, are also nations with the fewest housing
| bubbles. Housing bubbles are a phenomena for owner-
| occupants, because the value of living in a place is so
| subjective and can be devoid of actual incomes. Rent, on
| the other hand, must be paid with income.
| bartread wrote:
| This is the problem. Rental stock isn't being added.
| Private residences are being built that are then bought up
| by private landlords rather than people who actually want
| to live there. Private landlords then rent those properties
| out at a profit, because the yield is good enough for them
| to do so. This leaves fewer properties available to buy.
|
| You can argue about whether buying property is a good model
| or not: in lots of countries in Europe it's not considered
| the norm, but I'm talking specifically about the UK where
| it is. Having more rental properties here is fine, but it's
| also not necessarily what people here want: many people
| want to buy their homes, and it's better that they do so in
| a market that isn't skewed by private landlords mopping up
| large quantities of property. In some parts of the country,
| though as I've already acknowledged it's unclear to me that
| this applies to Cambridge, AirBnb (and holiday homes in a
| more general sense) are a significant contributor to a lack
| of available property for long-term residents, or people
| who want to be long-term residents.
| throaway46546 wrote:
| Sounds like a NIMBY
| bartread wrote:
| Sounds like somebody who doesn't know what NIMBY means.
| Seriously, go and look it up before you throw your cheap
| and uninformed shots around. They aren't welcome here
| (and, yes, I note that you're hiding behind a throwaway
| account to do it, so you're gutless as well as ignorant).
| Ekaros wrote:
| I really see no issues with buy to let if supply is
| sufficiently high. Sad reality is that building new units is
| too expensive. Realistically, real estate should not be very
| good investment. Maybe it should generate 1-2% a net per year
| and in 50-100 year timeframe depreciate to zero.
| zhdc1 wrote:
| > Realistically, real estate should not be very good
| investment.
|
| Real estate isn't a particularly attractive investment,
| even in the best of times. Single family homes net around
| 8%, which is 2-4% less per year than what you would expect
| to get with an index fund. This is with leverage. It only
| becomes lucrative when you have a change in interest rates
| (lower mortgage payments leads to higher cash returns),
| demand (which is why AirBnB rentals are so popular), or
| regulations.
|
| Of course, the occasional property will sell for well under
| market, but so will any other type of asset.
|
| > Maybe it should generate 1-2% a net per year and in
| 50-100 year timeframe depreciate to zero.
|
| I think you're suggesting that real estate should have a
| lower annual return than other forms of investing, which I
| agree with and - in general - is what actually happens.
| mrep wrote:
| There is actually less than a 1% difference and
| residential real estate is far far less volatile and that
| is for post 1950. Before 1950, real estate did better
| than equities [0].
|
| [0] Table on page 15 from the pdf:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19817584
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| I also live in (UK's) Cambridge. For now. Extensions to the
| transport network to reduce the car traffic are blocked by
| NIMBYs. Relocation of a sewage plant gets fought by NIMBYs.
| And every day, the university enjoys subtracting rent from
| companies with their iron hold over land they've owned for
| the centuries since their law mandated monopoly on higher
| education. It's a small city with a low verticality.
| Cambridge is not willing to accommodate growth.
| bartread wrote:
| It's certainly a frustratingly contradictory place.
|
| On the one hand the city wants to encourage growth and
| innovation. On the other they do this by promoting the most
| tedious urban sprawl around the edges because of some
| arcane rule about buildings not being allowed that are
| taller than, is it Great St Mary's or Kings College Chapel?
| I forget, but it's too irritatingly stupid to think about.
| Oh, and the rent and business rates are an absolute
| outrage. How's anybody supposed to make any money[0]?
|
| At the same time the infrastructure and public transport
| situation is awful. Infrastructure is rarely upgraded to
| keep pace with new developments and increases in
| population. The addition of Cambridge North station is
| welcome but it took far too long to get it done. Likewise
| the busway. And there are huge swathes of the city and
| county that aren't adequately served by any public
| transport which, of course, forces everybody into their
| cars and clogs the also inadequate road network.
|
| From where I live, within certain restricted hours of the
| day (e.g., not after about 6.30pm), and not on Sundays,
| it's pretty easy to get a bus into the city centre and back
| again. It's not frequent enough, and it takes too damn
| long, but it can be done. The trouble comes if you want to
| go somewhere that isn't the city centre or somewhere in a
| direct line from here to there. Then you have to go into
| the city centre and wait however long for another bus. The
| last time I did this it took me about 2.5 hours to get from
| my place to a business located in Shelford - a total
| distance of something like 13 miles. Never again. I
| literally could have run it quicker.
|
| I don't know what's gone on with the sewage plant, but I
| remember that moving it was being discussed at least as far
| back as 2002 and yet, 19 years later, here we still are.
| Not to labour the point but that's a quarter of a human
| lifetime. It clearly takes _FAR TOO LONG_ to get things
| done that will improve the lives of people who are alive
| here, now, and today.
|
| _[0] On this point it annoys me intensely when I hear
| handwringing about vacant shops and business premises in
| the city centre where nobody addresses the obvious point:
| it 's unreasonably expensive for businesses to be there._
| em500 wrote:
| If you were in the city government of a large western city,
| you'd know there's a huge number of often conflicting demands
| of the citizenry. Most of them do not support building enough
| housing for all potential visitors. And while many are not
| explicitly opposed to increased housing for future residents,
| few will want that to happen close to where they live.
|
| If you go directly against the wishes of most of the residents,
| you will not find yourself in the city government for very
| long. So I think this "simply build enough housing" is only a
| good solution in internet forum comments.
| jacquesm wrote:
| If you were Amsterdam, you'd realize that there is no space
| within the city limits to do so.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| How about we have non-expensive hotels for visitors? Having the
| apartment next to you suddenly turn into a hotel with a rolving
| door of people who may or may not act like they're on holiday
| partying would drive most people nuts.
|
| It's not just about the housing shortage but also the fact most
| people don't want to live in a hotel.
| majjam wrote:
| No you cant, there isn't any room.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That's why we MADE room:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flevoland
| saddlerustle wrote:
| Yes there is. Amsterdam has about a quarter the population
| density of Paris
| Hendrikto wrote:
| And you think that means 3/4 of the plots are empty?
| bidirectional wrote:
| Yes, first raze everything to the ground so we can rebuild
| at a different density.
| eecc wrote:
| Amsterdam is closer in concept to a Flemish trade town than
| to an imperial core like the French capital.
| zwirbl wrote:
| and as a city you would be unlikely to generate such brilliant
| comments
| piva00 wrote:
| Yeah, then I believe you gotta read this [1] and this [2].
|
| [1]
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/27/buildi...
|
| [2] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/may/30/readers-
| reply-...
| nikanj wrote:
| So essentially 80% were not properly registered and paying taxes?
| I'm not that surprised, once a good double-digit number are
| cheating, cheating becomes the only viable way to remain
| competitive.
| bjarneh wrote:
| > once a good double-digit number are cheating, cheating
| becomes the only viable way
|
| Good point, but how little oversight does this country have of
| money being sent to peoples accounts from Airbnb etc? In my
| country (Norway), all transactions > 500 USD, (or multiple
| transactions from the same sender of lesser amounts), would
| register with the tax office. The receiver would have to
| disclose the source of these transactions to the tax office.
|
| If money coming in or out of peoples accounts are governed by
| self-reporting, people must pay highly inaccurate taxes in the
| Netherlands.
| rocqua wrote:
| Does this registration of transactions only happen only for
| air-bnb, or does it happen for all transactions?
|
| If its the latter, that would be considered a massively over
| reaching collection drag-net here.
|
| Besides that, this is a municipal tax, whereas the income
| information is only present at the national tax authority.
| Getting those to inter-operate is quite difficult. Especially
| since our national tax authority is known to be digitally
| incapable, and currently has some other much bigger issues to
| contend with.
| justincormack wrote:
| That doesn't happen in most countries.
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| >I'm not that surprised, once a good double-digit number are
| cheating, cheating becomes the only viable way to remain
| competitive.
|
| Is that not always the case with these American marketplace
| apps? Now that the property owners have to follow the rules,
| they have the same burden as the real hotels, but none of the
| economy of scale.
|
| Same with all the places where they make Uber drivers be actual
| taxi drivers in actual taxis. Then all of a sudden they are
| competing directly against some very large, established players
| who have the market pretty well figured out already.
| foobarian wrote:
| Honestly that is all I wanted from them. Taxi service with a
| well designed universal phone app with map routing and
| payment. I guess the established players figured out they
| didn't need a thing like that but it looks like they were
| proven wrong.
| ghaff wrote:
| I agree with you what little I use them. But a lot of
| people got addicted to subsidized prices for day to day
| commuting use etc.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| The only thing that "ride-sharing" companies proved was
| that they can do it cheaper by (a) bleeding capital and (b)
| evading regulator enforcement/taxes.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Note that it wasn't just cheaper, but also better
| quality.
| alkonaut wrote:
| If an Uber is a better experience _in any dimension_
| (booking experience, car, driver, payment, ...) that just
| means the Taxi company was a poor one. If it has a worse
| app than Uber then it's not running its business
| properly. There are off the shelf taxi apps with booking,
| tracking, payments etc that any taxi company can license.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Initially, when they entered new markets and burned VC
| money to sustain the beachhead. Once their position on a
| given market was established, the prices went up and
| quality dropped like a stone.
| michaelt wrote:
| The experience here is extremely location-dependent.
|
| In some cities, pre-Uber taxi companies have upped their
| game and got themselves apps that'll give you a price and
| wait time both of which are actually right, that let you
| see the taxi on its way to you, tip included in the
| price, and let you pay by card.
|
| In other cities, taxi operators provide shitty service
| where their card machine "doesn't work" and they "don't
| have any change" either.
| solveit wrote:
| Do the taxis still actually come? Then quality is miles
| ahead of what it used to be.
| nikanj wrote:
| I've never had an Uber driver pretend their card machine
| is broken / take the long way around town / etc. Taxes
| used to -s-u-c-k-
| bennysomething wrote:
| What evidence do you having for cheating being only way to
| remain competitive? What exactly do you mean by cheating?
| factorialboy wrote:
| If I don't pay taxes, I can pass some of those "savings" to
| the customer, thus beating the competition on price.
|
| If you must compete, you must avoid taxes, thus cheat.
| bennysomething wrote:
| So the only way you can compete is by avoiding tax?
| brezelgoring wrote:
| All other things being equal, yes.
|
| Ceteris Paribus is a thing in economics. Basically what
| he means is that if you optimize everything in your
| business, all that remains is what is outside the bounds
| of the law, if you cheat, you'll win, basically forcing
| the other to cheat as well.
|
| Also, all big businesses cheat tax, either by using
| creative licensing agreements between subsidiaries or by
| miscategorizing things. This isn't new.
| bennysomething wrote:
| Sorry, I competed absolutely fine when I had an Airbnb
| rented out for a year. I certainly paid my tax. I didn't
| cheat anyone.
|
| Your proposition that to compete I must cheat doesn't
| stand up. Individuals chose airbnbs based on quite a few
| variables. The only time things are going to be equal is
| if the units for rent are identically positioned,
| decorated to same standard, have the same furniture and
| appliances.
| brezelgoring wrote:
| >[...] The only time things are going to be equal is if
| the units for rent are identically positioned, decorated
| to same standard, have the same furniture and appliances
|
| I agree, I mentioned this in my previous comment. >[...]
| Basically what he means is that if you optimize
| everything in your business [...]
|
| Ceteris Paribus is a theoretical exercise or tool, if you
| will, but it is useful in _trying_ to understand one of
| the variables involved in a calculation.
|
| We're not disagreeing here, you don't have to cheat, nor
| should you, but if both of you had clone apartments one
| in front of the other but your neighbor doesn't pay tax,
| he's going to get picked first, every time.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Whole buildings were purposefully converted to illegal hotels.
| It's been a factor in rising property prices and housing
| shortages. Less tourism is one of the unexpected bonuses of
| COVID-19.
| FredPret wrote:
| There's a whole class of society that won't think of
| decreased tourism as a good thing
| jacquesm wrote:
| I realize this, even so, for Amsterdam it was a very much
| needed reprieve.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| So you work hard to make your city to become one of the
| major tourist destinations in the world, who bring in a
| lot of money and help the local business flourish, and
| then need a _reprieve_ from that?
|
| Kinda counterproductive, no?
| WJW wrote:
| At some point the tourism became somewhat self-
| reinforcing and needed no more inputs from the city
| itself. However, when every evening you have an unending
| stream of tourists puking all over the streets, starting
| fights and bothering locals there is a point where the
| downsides for the 90% of people in the non-tourism sector
| become more important than the upsides for the 10% who
| make their money off tourists. We'll find something else
| to do for them.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| It's rich getting richer at the cost of a whole bunch of
| individuals getting f* _ked, hospitality staff is still
| being underpaid with 0hours contracts, and tenants are
| still being f*_ ked with increased housing prices, so
| COVID was quite good for lower classes, and I have no
| sympathy for the upper ones, the worst they get, the
| happier I am
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > and I have no sympathy for the upper ones, the worst
| they get, the happier I am
|
| That's the stance I fully despise. My country (Russia)
| has suffered tremendously (and still does, 100 years
| later) because people sharing such ideas took power,
| killing dozens of millions in the process.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| The thing is that you guys from Russia have started
| thinking that you're the solo holder of human sufference,
| I come from Southern Italy with Mafia and absent
| government, where rich get richer, kids play on the
| street surrounded by heroin needles, all with few castles
| of rich people being the kings among the shit, so yeah I
| won't dare to tell you how entitled you are to your
| ideas, but probably if the people that took power had the
| feeling that doing what they did was fair, maybe had
| their reasons
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| The proper solution is not to rob the rich under the
| cheering applause of people like you, but to make poor
| people more wealthy.
| [deleted]
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Yeah it's a shame that no one thought about fighting
| inequality making workers wealthier so far, thank God
| there are people like you that enlighten us, you're also
| one of those who found that guns don't shot people but
| it's people that shot people, right?
|
| If the solution is that then why the rich oppose the
| increase of minimum wage? What should be the solution to
| making workers wealthier without touching the bosses? The
| stock market? After all the crashes and wealth theft of
| funds? Do you guys ever connect the brain before typing?
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Because despite what you think, people doing business
| aren't actually that rich. When you chant socialist crap
| like "bosses get rich by stealing wealth from workers"
| [1], you casually omit that many businesses are scraping
| the bottom of the barrel to keep workers employed (as in
| putting the food in the tables) in the first place. And
| that mandatory increasing workers' wages would result in
| their immediate termination from the job because it would
| no longer be sustainable, putting laid off workers on
| welfare.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28905425
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Those businesses scraping the bottom of the barrel can
| disappear if their business model is weak, it's not that
| every one is supposed to be a business owner, so that
| they don't create unfair competition towards more capable
| business owners
| solveit wrote:
| "Maybe Lenin and Stalin had their reasons" is not a take
| I expected to see on HN today, but that's the lifecycle
| of all successful intellectually-oriented discussion
| forums I guess.
| evgen wrote:
| If you are not completely intellectually-stunted then you
| might actually know a bit about Russian history of the
| period. While few would excuse the later actions of Lenin
| or Stalin, the people who actually revolted against the
| Tsar had seriously justifiable reasons for doing so and
| given what I know about the time and place I would like
| to think that if I were in their place I would have
| joined them in putting the ruling class up against a wall
| and shooting them.
| vidarh wrote:
| By the time of the Bolshevik coup, the Tsar had been in
| house arrest after the February Revolution for months.
| The February Revolution was justified. The Bolshevik coup
| was not.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| And there was another battle for power between Bolsheviks
| and mensheviks that took place, but as i said a couple of
| replies below, is inequality fighting only possible under
| communism?
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| There was no "battle for power" between Bolsheviks and
| Mensheviks. It was a political discussion between two
| blocks inside the party long before it took power.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > There was no "battle for power" between Bolsheviks and
| Mensheviks. It was a political discussion between two
| blocks inside the party long before it took power.
|
| That's completely false. While they were at one point two
| blocs in the same party, the dispute was never resolved,
| and it split into two different parties _before_ the
| overthrow of the monarchy, and continued to have conflict
| through the revolutionary period culminating in the
| Mensheviks being banned by the Bolshevik-led regime in
| 1921, and a supposed attempt to restore the party was the
| notional basis for one of the earlier of Stalin's purges
| of the 1930s.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| I doubt that introducing some regulations to introduce
| more fairness to the market can be honestly comparable to
| killing millions of people.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I was replying to the comment where a poster says this:
| "the worst they get the happier I am".
|
| From this, we can logically conclude that poster would be
| most happy if rich people get plundered, deprived of
| their property and possessions, tortured, raped and
| killed, because these things are the worst that can
| happen to a person.
|
| I can hardly interpret it as a call to introduce some
| fairness to the market.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Well i guess there is nothing in the middle ground
| between having exploiting industries go out of business
| and have lords raped, tortured and killed
| FredPret wrote:
| You seem swell. Give those 0 hour contract workers an
| actual zero hours (and lower bargaining power due to
| lower demand), just to stick it to the upper class.
| Super!
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| It's giving people the pressure to obtain other means of
| survival, as we've seen, when the restaurants closed, the
| people in hospitality were able to have time to learn
| other things and changed careers, so that right now the
| whole industry can't find enough people. Good thing, so I
| am not sure what is your point, to have a sector which
| can only survive by exploiting workers because there is
| nothing else? There is something else, as we're seeing
|
| And as far as I'm seeing, their bargaining power is only
| going up, workers can survive without their bosses, it's
| the bosses that get richer by thieving wealth from their
| workers
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Uh oh, "bosses stealing wealth from their workers" - now
| that's yet another despicable stance I despise. You
| really repeat word for word the slogans of soviet
| socialists who went on to plunder the country and kill
| off or expulse the majority it's most capable people.
| It's a shame how such poisonous views proliferate in
| modern society.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Or someone good at math just made some calculations and
| found out that if people at the top have a villa and a
| tesla and people at the bottom can't get to the end of
| the month without a side job, some wealth stealing is
| happening somewhere, it's not like "Oh they were saying
| the same things so they are not true and we should not do
| anything about it"
|
| But we should stop thinking about the past and think
| about the current situation and how to fix it
|
| I've read a bit and I think the problem with russia was
| not the communism, it is cultural, it sucked even before
| when the tsars were burning books and limiting the
| expression possibilities, including the fact that Russia
| and the eastern europe has never been through the
| renovation process of western europe and the liberal
| movements never took place there, I would hardly use
| russia as an example for anything, so please stop using
| russia as a background to don't add anything useful to
| principle exposed, we fought fascism which was on-par
| with the totalitarianism of tsarism and communism, and
| created a fair society that lasted for few decades, which
| now needs help in order to get better, if you guys
| decided to suppress a totalitarian government with a
| worse one, it's not the fault of ideas, it's just your
| culture and/or approach that is wrong
|
| I'm sorry to come off as harsh but it's been all day that
| you wanted to use Russia as an example ignoring that you
| have had the same issues of lack of freedom,
| redistribution and fairness even before communism was
| even an idea
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > I've read a bit and I think the problem with russia was
| not the communism
|
| You've read the wrong bits. Before the WW1 Russia had a
| booming cultural and scientific spheres, was undergoing a
| rapid industrialization and had a lot of philosophical
| schools and movements. All was hampered by an ineffective
| and inadequate authoritarian rule, but the human capital
| was there and rapidly closing the gaps to leading
| economies. In fact, the seeds planted at that time
| allowed Russia to quickly rebuild and industrialize after
| the revolution, withstand Germany in WW2 and emerge as a
| leading world power on par with the USA, maintaining this
| status for many decades, doing all of this _despite_ the
| ineffective socialistic rule.
|
| Now, the reds came to power only after they have staged a
| successful coup late in 1917, toppling the interim
| government that was in power after the Tzar abdication.
| After the coup the Reds won the brutal civil war,
| chanting those very slogans you are repeating. I believe
| that if not for this unfortunate event, Russia would
| peacefully transition to democracy and by now would be
| one of the leading European economies, with twice the
| population it has now. The world could have learned a
| lesson from all of this, but the ideas of _equality_ and
| _justice_ are sounding so seductive to unlearned
| audience. If only they knew that _equality_ means
| _mediocrity_.
|
| Oh, and Tsars never burned books, that was what Nazis
| did.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| I would happily read sources that prove this as being
| false Or at least the closest paragraph in terms of
| timeline with the birth of Soviet russia
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Censorship_(Russi
| an_...
|
| But even seeing at what's happening now, you have a rogue
| state, made of oligarchs, killing journalists, and I
| guess it's hardly communism to be blamed, I think
| happening in Russia was the worst thing that could've
| happened to the communist ideas
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| There sure was censorship. Most famous russian poet
| Aleksander Pushkin was even personally censored by the
| Tzar. But burning books (as in, theatrically staging a
| ritual of burning offending books) - no, that didn't
| happen. Offending books were simply confiscated and
| likely left to rot in some warehouse..
| FredPret wrote:
| There's no arguing with someone who's a communist after
| 1991.
|
| It's morally and intellectually equivalent to neo-Nazism.
|
| I suppose the Nazis were defeated in 1945, and the bulk
| of the Communists in 1991, so maybe we just need a few
| more decades for the cancer to die out.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Another cancer that might be useful to kill is the one
| associating wealth misredistribution and equality to
| communist regime, it's kinda of implying that the current
| system doesn't have any tool in order to achieve that and
| the only way to make a fairer world towards the working
| class is through the adoption of regimes? Because if you
| look closely those against the communism are the only one
| that brought it in the conversation, so are those only
| possibly in that setup?
| LurkingPenguin wrote:
| Even as an expat who has been traveling and living abroad
| for years, I'd have to admit it's true that tourism
| doesn't necessarily remain a beneficial thing as tourist
| numbers get larger.
|
| I'm generally not a fan of the word "sustainable" so I
| won't use the phrase "sustainable tourism", but it
| behooves cities (and countries) to find a balance between
| making themselves attractive to tourists and making sure
| that the costs of tourism don't exceed the benefits.
|
| Tourism should allow tourists to experience a different
| place and everything that it's home to (the people, the
| food, the culture, etc.). When places fundamentally
| change in an effort to serve tourists, you basically have
| what I like to call "Disneyland syndrome". They become
| artificial destinations and the interests of the people
| who live there are sacrificed to create an optimal
| experience for the guests.
|
| Airbnb is a parasite and one of the first things cities
| should look at when rethinking their tourism strategies.
| pietrovismara wrote:
| > tourism doesn't necessarily remain a beneficial thing
| as tourist numbers get larger
|
| I always said this. Italy is addicted to tourism, an
| addiction that so far has only benefitted a few, while
| impacting negatively the majority of the population.
| tristor wrote:
| > Airbnb is a parasite and one of the first things cities
| should look at when rethinking their tourism strategies.
|
| As someone who has traveled extensively, I agree entirely
| about "disneyland syndrome", and I'm one of those
| travelers that tries to avoid such things. I generally
| don't travel to places which are tourist destinations, in
| the first place. Regardless, my mode of travel is to try
| to meet people, stay long enough that I can live normally
| as a local, mostly buy groceries and cook, and work
| during the week only going out in the evenings and
| weekends.
|
| AirBnB is essential to the way I travel, because it
| allows me to rent an apartment for a month that has
| normal apartment amenities like a basic kitchen. Many of
| the places I've visited have few or no hotels. One place
| I actually did stay in a hotel... the only hotel in the
| entire town, which also had the only restaurant in the
| entire town in it. In communities like this, someone
| offering you a room in their home or letting you rent
| their apartment while they are away is a critical pathway
| to being able to travel there in the first place and I
| don't think attracts the sort of people expecting a
| packaged experience.
|
| From my perspective, AirBnB has enabled me and others
| like me to connect to the world and experience things
| that would be impossible otherwise, and at the same time
| has provided opportunities for those we interacted with
| along the way (I leveraged my network while traveling to
| help many of the people I met, connecting a budding craft
| brewer with resources to help them succeed, introducing a
| very good local photographer to english-language
| resources online to let them sell their photography,
| connecting someone who wanted to come to the US as an SWE
| with the right people so they could get hired and have
| their H1B sponsored, etc).
|
| It's not really AirBnB, or rather what AirBnB is in
| essence, that's the issue, it's that it creates and
| enables a pathway for individuals to skirt location
| regulations to make a profit. Many of the places I
| visited had no regulations against short-term rentals
| because the idea that someone might do such a thing
| wasn't really on the mind of local regulators, but in key
| tourist destinations this is very much on the mind of
| local regulators, not the least of which because they can
| tax tourism directly via stays.
| LurkingPenguin wrote:
| > Regardless, my mode of travel is to try to meet people,
| stay long enough that _I can live normally as a local_...
|
| The thing is that as a tourist/traveler, it's not all
| about you (or me). You need to consider and be respectful
| of the impact your experience can have on the very locals
| you want to live like.
|
| Your desire to have a kitchen is reasonably not more
| important than a local's desire to not see the apartment
| next to them converted into a illegal short-term rental
| where random strangers routinely come and go, or to be
| priced out of the market because it's more profitable for
| landlords to convert properties into illegal short-term
| rentals.
|
| Incidentally, "living like a local" is about more than
| having a kitchen and this is in my opinion one of the
| most overused terms among the nomad set, but that said,
| if you really want to stay somewhere longer term and have
| a visa that lets you do so, you can try to rent a
| property legitimately. In fact, finding a legitimate
| rental, meeting a landlord, signing a lease, etc. is a
| perfect opportunity to "live like a local".
|
| > Many of the places I've visited have few or no hotels.
| One place I actually did stay in a hotel... the only
| hotel in the entire town, which also had the only
| restaurant in the entire town in it. In communities like
| this, someone offering you a room in their home or
| letting you rent their apartment while they are away is a
| critical pathway to being able to travel there in the
| first place and I don't think attracts the sort of people
| expecting a packaged experience.
|
| As you said, some places don't even have regulations
| because they don't see many tourists. It's one thing to
| show up in a town that's off the beaten track and be
| introduced to someone who will rent you a room for a few
| nights. It's another to have property owners interested
| in maximizing their earnings advertising their property
| to every Tom, Dick and Harry using the internet.
| tristor wrote:
| That's a fair point, I suppose while I am not Tom, Dick,
| or Harry, it is also a significant barrier to not know if
| you will have accommodations ahead of arrival, so for
| those off the beaten path places AirBnB is pretty
| important. FWIW, I have in fact signed leases and stayed
| in places with "legitimate" rentals (I think AirBnB is
| only illegitimate where it violates law, which is not
| everywhere). A minimum stay for me most places has been
| about a month, in some I've stayed over a year. It
| depends on what is allowed by the visa I am able to
| obtain and whether or not I find that there is reason to
| stay longer. I would consider what I do "medium-term"
| rather than short-term. I can't necessarily sign a
| 13-month lease everywhere I go, but I also am there much
| longer than the typical tourist which is between 3 and 7
| days.
| LurkingPenguin wrote:
| > I suppose while I am not Tom, Dick, or Harry...
|
| How are you not Tom, Dick or Harry? When I first started
| traveling, I believed the "I'm different" thing too, but
| it's a bit hubristic. Tourists come in all shapes and
| sizes these days and there are a lot of location-
| independent folks ("nomads") who will move around every
| few weeks or months, not days.
|
| In my experience, most "off the beaten path" places that
| have Airbnb listings almost always have at least one
| legitimate hotel, hostel, or homestay. In fact, I'd go so
| far as to suggest that most places that have Airbnbs
| aren't nearly as "off the beaten path" as you're telling
| yourself.
| tristor wrote:
| > In my experience, most "off the beaten path" places
| that have Airbnb listings almost always have at least one
| legitimate hotel, hostel, or homestay. In fact, I'd go so
| far as to suggest that most places that have Airbnbs
| aren't nearly as "off the beaten path" as you're telling
| yourself.
|
| I think that's kind of my whole point, to some degree. In
| the Age of the Internet, the world is more connected than
| it has ever been before, which means the path is less
| beaten by roadways than it is by wires and signals from
| wireless towers. If a place has any form of reasonable
| Internet connectivity, it's probably not really that far
| "off the beaten path", but that's also essential as a
| basis for any reasonable accommodation. So, no, I'm not
| visiting remote tribes in the Amazonian jungle, but I
| also wouldn't for many reasons including ethical
| considerations. Visiting a rural village in the
| countryside of a country not known for tourism, but that
| nevertheless has broadband Internet, is not as far off
| the beaten path, but it is still outside the awareness of
| typical tourists.
|
| The world being more connected is generally a good thing,
| and I'd say a net good, but it's not all roses and
| cherries, and in fact there are many negative
| externalities to this connectivity as well. AirBnB
| provides people a way to arbitrage those externalities,
| but it's not wholly evil either, it also has positive
| attributes that can benefit both parties.
| LurkingPenguin wrote:
| > AirBnB provides people a way to arbitrage those
| externalities, but it's not wholly evil either, it also
| has positive attributes that can benefit both parties.
|
| On the whole, Airbnb is a parasite. Those "off the beaten
| track" places we're talking about (where, again,
| legitimate hotels, hostels and homestays are typically
| available as well) almost certainly account for a very
| small part of Airbnb's listings, bookings and revenue.
|
| The high-volume locations (think cities like Barcelona
| and Amsterdam) have experienced significant damage as a
| result of Airbnb.
| phicoh wrote:
| Relatively speaking, Amsterdam doesn't make that much
| money from tourists. In a city center that is completely
| overcrowded, there is no net gain of having even more
| people.
|
| Tourists are good for certain local business. Mostly low
| quality bars, restaurants, shops. Anything more upscale
| doesn't benefit from an endless stream of people who seem
| to have nothing better to do than just walk around.
|
| Without tourists, buildings would quickly fill with
| residents. Bars, restaurants, and shops have to up their
| game to sell to local people.
|
| Obviously, there is no reason to get rid of all tourists.
| But restricting the number of tourists to avoid an
| overcrowed center is a good idea.
| TomSwirly wrote:
| How could we possibly think of changing with the times?
|
| Why wouldn't we want to continue have mobs of drunken
| British yobbos throwing up in the streets? (Note: I'm
| British for a little bit longer, so I can say such
| things.)
|
| And we're seriously thinking of banning cruise ships here
| in Amsterdam - against, too much hassle, not enough
| revenue, lot of pollution. If that happens, they will
| raise the bed of the river IJ 4 meters and put a bike
| tunnel underneath it!
| elzbardico wrote:
| Let me tell you. I was a poor boy growing in a tourist
| city in a latin american country. It was a small town, a
| bit sophisticated, so we got the cream of the tourism
| business: Upper middle class families. Indeed, plenty of
| money flowed into the city. But, it was not distributed
| equaly. Social mobility was almost null, because tourism
| have lots of jobs, but most of them low skill jobs.
|
| Then, there's this permanent humiliation of feeling like
| a servant in your home-town, because the local upper
| class makes very clear to you peons, that you're less
| important than the tourists, and they also think this
| very clearly.
|
| Any business not related to tourism is basically
| discouraged, because it could "change the character of
| our lovely paradise".
|
| Basically, unless you're rich and have business in
| tourism, tourism is not that great. Yeah, it puts food on
| the table when you're poor, but so other jobs that you
| could have if it were not for the damned tourists that
| make you a second class citizen in your own place of
| living.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _Then, there 's this permanent humiliation of feeling
| like a servant in your home-town, because the local upper
| class makes very clear to you peons, that you're less
| important than the tourists, and they also think this
| very clearly._
|
| We see this happen in the US, too, when a handful of
| billionaires buy up small town property and turn it into
| a resort town, driving out the locals. Some of my friends
| in that situation got "servant" level jobs as teenagers
| and really think that, somehow, serving the rich for
| $12/hr will lead to them becoming "one of them."
| elzbardico wrote:
| Not to mention this whole attitude from rich tourists
| that don't understand how can you not be grateful for the
| opportunity to carry their golf bags in the sun for a
| pittance. No asshole, I would prefer working in the
| factory that couldn't open because it would spoil the
| city for you assholes.
| solveit wrote:
| Somehow I suspect you're not being very charitable
| towards your friends. Would they describe their own
| thought processes as
|
| > somehow, serving the rich for $12/hr will lead to them
| becoming "one of them."
| nitrogen wrote:
| At least one would, yeah.
| wikidani wrote:
| Entirely agreed, I also lived from tourism in a european
| city and it's miserable. Also, living near a tourist
| destination is awful just for the sheer amount of people
| going in and out. Massified tourism is really not that
| great as people make it out to be
| mmarq wrote:
| Tourism is for the largest part an extremely low value
| added activity, for which location is the most important
| factor. So the owner of the hotel makes millions and
| everybody else makes peanuts.
|
| The very last thing we should work hard to achieve is
| turning cities into major tourist destinations.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Half-Croat, half-German from Munich here. To add some
| perspective - tourism is a double edged sword for popular
| destinations, and it's... worse than a serious heroin
| addiction for everyone, in the end.
|
| On one side, many tourist destinations are happy to share
| the beauty of their landscape, the clean beaches,
| historical areas and the likes. And they make _lots_ of
| money from it.
|
| On the other side, it's extremely easy to delve into over-
| tourism, _particularly_ if local politics are bought out /
| otherwise influenced by tourism profiteers (e.g. large
| hotel owners in the whole Balkan area, or breweries in the
| case of Munich's Oktoberfest). Then, you have problems like
| hoteliers building out a massive over-supply of hotels in
| areas that could also be used for regular housing (which in
| turn drives the housing market mad, such as it is in
| Munich), or hotels built too close to protected habitats,
| forest fire lines etc., or - inarguably the worst result -
| hordes of tourists swarming natural beauty spots for
| Instagram photos and ruining them by sheer mass (trampling
| over plants, disturbing animals with noise, relieving
| themselves, ...).
|
| The "heroin" aspect comes into play for the really big
| destinations, the likes of Venice or Amsterdam. Over the
| last decades, tourism only knew one direction - upwards,
| and steadily. That meant that often local economies shifted
| towards tourism, sometimes completely... and then corona
| hit, and suddenly there was nothing to do, no reserves to
| weather the storm. Cold turkey, and no methadone (aka,
| government assistance for affected people and businesses)
| in way too many countries.
|
| Edit: and actually, now after almost two years of pandemic,
| the situation is now _worse_. Many people who worked in
| tourism (and hospitality in general) had to move off to new
| employment, hotels and other industry closed down / got
| sold or otherwise repurposed. Again, the heroin comparison
| comes into play... as the infrastructure for tourism has
| shrunk, even lower numbers of tourists than a decade pre-
| Corona will now make the system fall over. Just look at the
| chaos at the Berlin airport BER
| (https://www.rbb24.de/politik/Flughafen-BER/BER-
| Aktuelles/av7...)... that's a forewarning of what is to
| come.
| pietrovismara wrote:
| I agree so much on the heroin aspect as I always made the
| same comparison between tourism and drugs.
|
| Withdrawal syndrome is the only word I can find to
| describe the state Firenze was left in without tourists,
| during the initial lockdowns.
| jaynetics wrote:
| I think the "heroin" comparison is needlessly dramatic.
|
| "Over-tourism" as you describe it is just one possible
| symptom of excessive capitalism.
|
| There are many nice spots with tourists, and many ways to
| ruin a place without any tourists when regulations are
| lax or poorly enforced, e.g. privatization and massive
| price increases in the crucial infrastructure, or
| reckless industrial projects.
|
| And some things are just dumb traditions. Of course
| Oktoberfest sucks for the locals, but so does new year's
| eve in Berlin if you dislike continuous explosions until
| dawn and rockets flying horizontally. Tourism doesn't
| change the nature of these events much, just the scale.
|
| Many other big economical sectors are also highly
| dependent on a small set of factors that could quickly
| change and cause ripple effects when they go down. This
| is not unique to tourism. Think e.g. the decline of
| Detroit.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Of course Oktoberfest sucks for the locals
|
| I don't care much about 2 weeks of drunkards. The problem
| is that the hotel supply is _excessive_ as it 's scaled
| to the peak demand times Oktoberfest and Bauma
| (construction fair) - the average occupancy is only 50% (
| https://www.welt.de/regionales/bayern/article172019924/Ex
| per...).
|
| Assuming a total of ~85k hotel rooms, that is room to
| house 40.000 people!
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| Nice twist. A country that is a tax heaven and enables a lot of
| business to avoid due taxes in other jurisdictions is now
| concerned that it can't get its own share of taxes.
| rocqua wrote:
| We are a tax haven for foreign companies. Not for our own
| citizens. The point is to get more rich people inside the
| country manning the headquarters or at least hiring our
| financial services. We can then tax those rich people or
| financial service providers to still increase our income.
|
| (Note I think we should not be as much of a tax haven)
| obrienk wrote:
| There's a limit of 30 nights per year that private individuals
| can let out their homes. Before the mandatory registration,
| there was no way for the municipality to enforce or even check
| that people complied. Now that people can't let out their
| properties all year round it's not worth it so they're selling
| up or getting in long term renters.
| the-dude wrote:
| 'Social housing' normally forbids subletting. It can get you
| evicted.
| dspillett wrote:
| This varies a lot depending on location. In some places
| private landlords can not (legally) block sub-letting (except
| of course where it would cause other breaches, for instance
| health & safety wrt having too many people living in a
| property) and this carries over to "social housing" that is
| provided via public/private cooperation schemes.
|
| (NOTE: I'm not intending to imply that it is the case here: I
| have no idea what the situation is in Amsterdam in this
| regard)
| the-dude wrote:
| Is your comment in the context of the Dutch market?
| TomSwirly wrote:
| You cannot sublet social housing in Amsterdam. (I live in
| Amsterdam.)
|
| People do, and people get caught. Both have happened to
| people I knew.
| scrose wrote:
| Years ago when Airbnb was picking up steam and I was in college
| I got a gig building a tool to automate cross-referencing
| Airbnb listings with housing records so the city could request
| the optional tourism tax.
|
| What we found surprised all of them. A handful of people were
| listing sometimes over a dozen properties and avoiding the
| larger, but not optional, hotel tax. The 80% figure doesn't
| surprise me much now just knowing how a few individuals can
| flood the short-term rental market in an area.
| dorchadas wrote:
| > how a few individuals can flood the short-term rental
| market in an area.
|
| And, if it's like some cities (Dublin, Galway), they do this
| at the expense of the _long-term_ rental market.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Yeah, but at least the Irish regulations are now involving
| Revenue, which means they'll be implemented.
|
| A common strategy in Irish government is if there's a
| problem, and you don't really want to do anything but want
| to make it look like you're doing something, then you give
| it to local government to implement, as they won't have the
| resources to do it.
|
| As a bonus, you get to point to the law, secure in the
| knowledge that it won't be implemented.
| pietrovismara wrote:
| Pretty much the same happens in Firenze, Italy.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| That is one of the given reasons the municipality pursues
| this. There is a housing crisis in the Netherlands, so that
| gives some context to this.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > There is a housing crisis in the Netherlands
|
| Is there any western city where there isn't a housing
| crisis?
| mrep wrote:
| Pretty much the entire midwest and southern US [0].
| Granted, they benefit from basically having no
| geographical barriers to sprawling and building out ever
| more subdivisions and americans don't seem to mind
| suburbs.
|
| [0]: https://www.supermoney.com/inflation-adjusted-home-
| prices/
| drdec wrote:
| Don't forget about the rust belt. Our problem is no one
| wants to live here.
| Spivak wrote:
| Why wouldn't American's mind the burbs? In the midwest
| you get a huge really nice house with a garage, with as
| much storage and rooms as you could ever desire for
| hobbies and/or children, lots of land for pets and
| gardening on the cheap. Like half the cost of a run-down
| shack in a place like Boston cheap. All ~20 minutes from
| downtown where there is plenty of parking and a 10 minute
| walk to your suburb's satellite "downtown."
|
| You won't make SV money but cost of living is unreal. I
| pull well over the 6 figure mark while getting to put
| ~60% of my take-home pay straight into savings and
| investments. And I'm not even close to frugal.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| It depends on the suburb. Midwestern suburbs don't really
| have the downtown in the same way large cities do. IME
| they are either just glorified strip malls or touristy
| places. (TBH I'd really like to know how so many chain
| restaurants can remain in business... is it just a real
| estate investment?).
|
| Once you account for some states have terrible weather,
| dysfunctional state governments, higher property taxes,
| etc. it might not make sense to trade a a net 20% change
| in overall CoL if it means you have significantly less to
| do. If your first thoughts are kids, pets, and gardening
| than sure the midwest is pretty good. If your primary
| concerns are career advancement, educated social/dating
| pool, variety in food and music, niche/luxury hobbies
| like skiing or surfing, etc. then your options for places
| to live becomes essentially drastically smaller and more
| competitive.
|
| That said there are certain midwest cities that might
| strike a good balance.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| This whole COVID crisis has rekindled what I think many
| already knew. That neighbors and the overall community as
| a whole contribute to the value of the house. The crisis
| is basically over in the urban areas and the blue
| suburbs. Not so for rural. You can't change how other
| people think but you can choose to live near like minded
| people(which is what seems to be happening).
|
| Today its dealing with the crisis, tomorrow its something
| else. I don't know how prevalent this thinking is but it
| could be on peoples minds as they look at property.
| thow-58d4e8b wrote:
| Finland is ok. A square meter in the capital area goes
| for about 1.5 months of net average wage, and about a
| monthly income in other provincial towns. A decent house
| can be had for ~10 years of single income
|
| The benefits of not being a tourist destination
| Ekaros wrote:
| 10 years considering the taxes still makes it pretty
| bad... Really why I don't want to live there. Other
| cities are somewhat more sane, but still should be
| cheaper.
| pietrovismara wrote:
| Perhaps there's something deeply wrong with western
| housing systems?
|
| I don't want to sound too radical, but this seems to be
| inextricably connected to capitalism. We won't ever solve
| it without structural changes.
|
| What Amsterdam is doing is a decent start at least.
| jupp0r wrote:
| The discussion here is centered around very desirable
| centralized locations. Out in the countryside things look
| very different. You can buy surprisingly cheap houses 2h
| outside of Berlin. Nobody does.
| dundarious wrote:
| You also need an income to live.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Buy a house 40 years ago, pay your mortgage like a good
| workerbee
|
| Finish paying mortgage, use the equity to buy a house 20
| years ago and rent it out. Rent income > mortgage
| interest (and capital too)
|
| House price increases, use equity to buy a few more
| houses.
|
| Fast forward to today, you have 3 million in equity and
| 10k/month coming in after costs.
| hatchnyc wrote:
| It's old vs young, new vs established. For most
| homeowners, their home is their most valuable asset. It's
| just not possible to simultaneously maintain high
| property values and have affordable housing.
|
| Given this, any "solution" to housing affordability is
| "solving" a problem that a sizable and highly influential
| segment of the population doesn't want solved. On the
| contrary, you see real government action whenever home
| prices fall.
| dorchadas wrote:
| And that's what I think OP was alluding to about it being
| "inextricably connected to capitalism". As long as we
| treat housing like an asset, we'll have this problem. And
| I don't see how there's any other way to treat housing
| under a capitalist system.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The problem isn't a result of treating housing as an
| asset, it's a structural regulatory problem. Housing is
| treated as an asset in Tokyo, but they don't have the
| same regulatory constraints on zoning, so they don't have
| outrageous housing prices.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| That's a good point. By some measures it isn't just the
| wealthy keeping the poor vulnerable; it's everyone who
| isn't poor. In this case, middle class voters.
|
| In the US, our shortsightedness has begun threatening the
| lower-middle class. People with some cash in the bank are
| facing homelessness, due to a historic lack of housing.
| The housing shortage came following dozens of
| contributors including NIMBY, AirBnB, single-use zoning,
| tunnel-vision'd pols/voters, corp house buyers, etc.
| Pointing to a single factor delays solutions.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| It's not really multiple factors. There was only one.
| Restrictive zoning. That constrained supply. Everything
| else is just the various parties fighting over the now-
| insufficient housing supply.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Single use zoning lives due to NIMBY and voter/pol tunnel
| vision. The former stays forever while the latter is in
| play.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| It's not just "NIMBY and voter/pol tunnel vision."
| Corporations that own houses don't want their value to
| decline. People renting properties out on AirBNB don't
| want their value to decline. They're just different
| categories of existing property owners who want property
| values to stay high or increase more.
|
| The mechanism they all use for that is restrictive
| zoning. To win that you have to defeat them all. That's
| why it's hard to do.
|
| Having failed to actually solve the problem, some people
| have had the idea to foist it onto someone else. Restrict
| who you can rent to, so people can't buy a property and
| use it for vacation rentals, on the theory that it will
| shift supply to long-term rentals. Then that makes the
| problem worse for short-term rentals, creating an
| incentive for regulatory arbitrage by AirBNB. Then long-
| term renters condemn AirBNB for thwarting their attempt
| to shift costs onto people who can't vote in the
| jurisdiction with the zoning problem.
|
| All of that is bike shedding and friendly fire. The only
| real solution is to increase the housing supply.
| rocqua wrote:
| Houses are assets.
|
| Houses were the most commonly owned assets, so
| governments that increased the price of housing made most
| of the middle class richer, making those policies
| popular.
|
| Re-formulating the above, making housing expensive is
| popular policy.
|
| Doing that policy long enough causes new entrants into
| the market to not be able to afford housing. So yes,
| there is something wrong with our housing system. Part of
| that is that we marketed 'own your house' as a great way
| to earn money, and then made good on that promise at the
| expense of new entrants into the market.
| subpixel wrote:
| I moved away and returned to NYC twice between 2010 and
| 2020 - both times it was impossible to miss the impact
| AirBnB had on the residential rental supply. All over the
| city, wherever weekly demand was high enough (read, in any
| neighborhood remotely desirable), rental housing stock was
| lost to short-term rentals.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I've heard a lot of anecdotes suggesting that this has
| happened in many cities across the world. It certainly
| seemed to be a trend in New York for a while, which was/is
| already suffering with restricted supply, wild speculation,
| and immense demand driving up prices.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Poor Galway. The rental situation there is utterly bananas;
| while buildings are lying vacant for years in the heart of
| the city.
|
| Yes, the rest of the country is like this too, but for
| whatever reason Galway seems to have it extra bad; I know
| families that have split up over it.
| dorchadas wrote:
| Yeah, I know how bad it was when I was trying to find a
| spot in 2016; I can only imagine now. I actually dread
| trying to stay in Dublin after I finish this masters (I'm
| an international post-grad, so I was able to avail of
| UCD's scheme for on-campus living thankfully), but I
| almost dread going to Galway more (though ideally, that's
| where I'll be).
| simias wrote:
| And the housing market at large, since they also buy flats
| to turn them into short term rentals.
| prox wrote:
| Decreasing house availability and upping prices, in turn
| making more money. Starters are usually the victims in
| this trend.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Developers were building apartments that were meant for
| the short-term rental market, too. Even the small amount
| of new housing that did get built were short-term
| rentals.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| A friend was visiting NYC and staying in my Brooklyn
| neighborhood at an Airbnb back in 2019. One night we were out
| and we ran into his Airbnb host at a bar. He was French and
| told me he had about a couple dozen units in the neighborhood
| all converted to Airbnb hotels, none of which he owned, all
| of them in some sort of agreement with the landlords. He said
| he had some in Paris as well and wanted to get up to 50 by
| the end of the year. He had zero insight into how this was
| completely problematic and was ruining life for the locals,
| all he cared about was making lots of money.
|
| It's infuriating that we let companies like this be founded
| on completely illegal premises and continue operating.
| [deleted]
| toshk wrote:
| Not completely. Most were dormant advertisements.
|
| There is not a big tourist tax here; the biggest tax evasions
| for private people is probably on their income tax level, but
| that's not solved by this.
|
| The direct issue it addresses is the take over of many tourists
| of certain neighborhoods meant for living.
|
| The favorite hobby of habitants of Amsterdam is complaining
| about tourists.
|
| The fight against Airbnb is a symbolic fight for the left
| winged parties in the city. Airbnb stands for big bad
| capitalistic wolf that makes the city unlivable for the normal
| people.
|
| The issue this bigger fight addresses is that Amsterdam is
| slowly becoming unaffordable for normal people and especially
| families. Tourist rentals are partly to blame, but there are
| many more causes (low interest rate, rich parents, students,
| limited space and more)
|
| So there are a bunch of restrictive legislations trying to deal
| with this, this is just one of them. Another one for instance
| is that since last year it's required to have a permit if you
| want to live in a house with more then 2 adults.
|
| Already for years it was required to register every night you
| rented out your appartment. Airbnb however refused to open the
| books so there was no way to check it for the city. Probably
| this way Amsterdam can check every registered appartment that's
| publically listed without the help of Airbnb.
| ralfn wrote:
| >The fight against Airbnb is a symbolic fight for the left
| winged parties in the city.
|
| That is just bullshit. The people complaining about their
| AirBnB neighbours are mostly in Zuid. Definitely in not
| Social housing.
|
| Please don't start projecting left/right schoolyard tribe
| politics in an international context. You embarrass our
| country.
|
| Usage of the phrase "left" and "right" is already dumb when
| Americans do it. But at least with their first past the pole
| democracy it is somewhat fitting.
|
| We have many political parties that differ in more than one
| dimension. From immigration to taxation to gay rights.
|
| Just go back to Dumpert already.
| toshk wrote:
| GroenLinks has always been the most outspoken against
| Airbnb. Complaints are probably heaviest in West and not
| South. But it doesn't matter where, the green left is the
| most dominant party under upper middle class, together with
| D66.
|
| And indeed I wrote it in a way that complaining people led
| to the fight against Airbnb but I think there are many more
| reasons. GroenLinks ideology is definitely not caused by
| that to be sure.
|
| And whether you agree with their policies or not. It's hard
| to argue against that they at least have made some symbolic
| political moves, for instance the removal of Iamsterdam
| because the I was to indivualistic.
| ralfn wrote:
| >Complaints is probably heaviest in West and not South
|
| Not all complaints are treated equally. This policy
| actually being made effective is due to the
| grachtengordel and amsterdam zuid elite being annoyed by
| the partying brits renting nexting door, and all the
| start-ups complaining the rents are too high for their
| somewhat underpaid engineering staff. Tourism isn't
| actually how Amsterdam makes money, but it definately can
| come at the expensive of the things that make it such a
| prosperous city (such as the financial district and
| fintech scene!)
|
| Or worse: slightly annoy the rich folk.
|
| >dominant party under upper middle class, together with
| D66
|
| Liberal (free-market, free-speech, freedom of religion),
| conservative (own religion/race/culture first),
| progressive (woke), socialist (income redistriction) are
| all different political ideologies. The words left/right
| historically means socialist vs liberal.
|
| When you start calling the rich upper class of Amsterdam
| 'anti capitalist' left wing, you sound like a retarted
| child that spends too much time on reactionary dutch
| blogs focused on selling adspace to poor teenage incells
| from villages. D66 has always been the party with the
| plans that would lead to the highest income and wealth
| inequality! See any CPB calculation of the last 40 years.
|
| It is also why they prefer open borders, but they dislike
| AirBnB. Because the extra cheap labor is good for their
| wealth and stock portfolio, but the drunk brits next door
| is a slight inconvience.
|
| All the money the socialists (the left, like PvdA) forced
| the liberals (the right, like D66) to spend on your
| education, it seems, was wasted.
|
| I suppose you just grew up in a time when all the talk
| was about immigration and islam, and on this topic the
| left/right switched sides after the 90ties. It used to be
| the SP and such that was warning against the EU and mass
| immigration, but i doubt you are old enough to remember
| that.
|
| D66 is the most pro-capitalistic party in the Netherlands
| in every election since 1966. Obviously, they are the
| most popular political party for the upper class in
| Amsterdam, the birth place of modern day capitalism, but
| I suppose they dont teach that in Urk.
| toshk wrote:
| Do you always attack people so personal? "Education on me
| has been wasted" :)?
|
| I said GroenLinks was dominant under upper white middle
| class. Which it is since it's the biggest party in the
| council at the moment and was by far the most popular in
| White upper class neighborhoods like west and ijburg last
| local elections. And is by far, with it's dominant
| leader, the most dominant voice in the current council;
| to call them left is not a stretch, it's in their name.
|
| D66 likes to join coalitions and then mostly leans in the
| direction of the dominant party, the house restrictions
| policy for sure can be described as anti capitalistic
| since they limit the free use of your capital (,house).
| For instance needing a permit to live with more then 3
| adults in your own house is a new law they passed last
| year. Or only allowing buyers that will live in the
| houses.
|
| I don't agree or disagree with all policies; but it's
| definitely not a stretch for me to classify them as left.
| ralfn wrote:
| >Do you always attack people so personal? "Education on
| me has been wasted" :)?
|
| I specifically take offence that you were suggesting on a
| forum like this that Amsterdam is some anti-capitalist
| stronghold, which is just ridiculous, and if you spread
| that notion in a place like this, you are doing economic
| harm to the Netherlands, which i am assuming you are part
| of. So that would be .. not so smart.
|
| >I said GroenLinks was dominant under upper white middle
| class
|
| It's not though. It's dominant under all those students
| here. Amsterdam is also a student city. Which makes
| sense, since its a progressive environmentally
| reactionary party, but their demographics dont really
| extend beyond 30.
|
| >Which it is since it's the biggest party in the council
| at the moment
|
| We don't have a first past the pole system, so 'biggest'
| doesn't mean anything. No single party has a majority. In
| terms of ideologies there is a progressive majority,
| there is a capitalist majority, there is an environmental
| majority.
|
| The previous city election had a lot of VVDers voting for
| GL because they want to kick the cars out of the center.
| (which would double the property value of most real
| estate there)
|
| But now compare those results to the results of the
| general election in Amsterdam, where they are just the
| 3rd party, after both D66 and the VVD.
|
| >And is by far, with it's dominant leader, the most
| dominant voice in the current council; to call them left
| is not a stretch, it's in their name.
|
| Femke is not dominant at all. She doesn't actually set
| the policy, she reports to the Hague. Thats how a mayor
| works in the Netherlands. The central government
| generally doesn't want to deal with anyone not in the
| inner circle of national politics. And making her mayor
| was Rutte trying to buy some votes in the 1st chamber,
| when his coalition didn't have a majority there any more.
|
| She does have the ability to veto in her position, or to
| give a direct order to the police, and she has used it
| twice so far. The first time was when the city councel
| wanted to ban booze on boots in the canals, and she
| considered it unenforceable and ridiculous. The other was
| quite recently, when she banned fireworks for this New
| Years Eve. In both cases, i suspect she did that based on
| direct feedback by the police deparment.
|
| >the house restrictions policy for sure can be described
| as anti capitalistic since they limit the free use of
| your capital (,house)
|
| The basis of capitalism are: - ability to incorporate
| (the company itself being a legal entity) - contract law
| (the words in the contract holier than any human
| relationship) - state monopoly on violence (enforcing the
| exact words in the contract) - regulated and well defined
| ability to own things (esspecially real-estate)
|
| If cars weren't regulated, you wouldn't dare buy one. If
| hotels aren't regulated, tourists wouldn't dare to come.
| You need the gilds, you need a waag, you need a court and
| a city hall where all the merchants can use a democratic
| process to avoid the tragedy of the commons.
|
| So, your example. You don't own the land. It's all a
| lease. A lease of which the terms can change at will, by
| the true property owner, which is the city of Amsterdam,
| which is owned by the state.
|
| The merchant of Amsterdam democratically decided they
| prefer less AirBnB, because it means more monies on
| average. Because tourists are poor, and residents are
| rich.
|
| >Or only allowing buyers that will live in the houses.
|
| Again, the city buys what it wants. It wants a high
| income earner to come live in Amsterdam, and they are
| much more likely to do that, when they aren't burning
| their rent. Same thing with social housing. We all need
| nurses, teachers and police officers. If they can't live
| here, the city can't hire them. If they can't teach, heal
| and protect its rich citizen, they will leave.
|
| >but it's definitely not a stretch for me to classify
| them as left.
|
| I understand, and i would definatley agree that GL brands
| itself as left wing. But you shouldn't confuse the
| marketing for the products.
|
| There are very few people in the city counsel without a
| fat stock portfolio. Amsterdam is a very capitalistic
| place. If you still dont believe me, try getting an
| organic juice at one of the far-left hippie bars in
| Amsterdam Noord for free.
| toshk wrote:
| Rutger not Femke.
| mercy_dude wrote:
| I agree using right vs left is dumb on occasions but OP has
| a point. Liberals (at least in US/Canada) used to be the
| one who would care about working middle class and their
| living conditions. In US and Canada all major North
| American cities(almost all of which I had left leaning
| politicians) the prices have exploded. You hear for example
| Canadian prime minister making it election pledge to make
| housing affordable, when under the same leadership housing
| prices have gone up 100% over 5yrs in many areas. So there
| is one of two things happening here - left is now out of
| touch with what's really happening with middle class in
| North America who can't afford a house without parents help
| and thus many choose not to start family etc or they cater
| to house owning rich upper middle class who have
| increasingly become their base.
| ralfn wrote:
| > Liberals (at least in US/Canada) used to be the one who
| would care about working middle class and their living
| conditions.
|
| This confusion is understandable, but liberals never
| cared about the working middle class. Its just that in
| the US, the democratic party is a big tent of liberals,
| socialists and progressives, and the other side is a big
| tent of evangenicals, libertarians and conservative.
|
| The ones that (claim to) care about the working class are
| the socialists. Liberalism comes from the French
| revolution, and is exported to the world through
| Amsterdam (appropiate in this topic!) and its value
| system is the foundation of modern day capitalism and
| enterpreneurship by free individuals (no matter how you
| pray or what you say) in a republic (every vote equal).
| So standard, you take it for granted.
|
| You find the same disconnect between values in the other
| tent. Libertarians preaching small government for a
| republic ticket, even though every republican president
| has ended up spending more money than any president
| before.
|
| One of the big downsides of first-past-the-pole is that a
| political world simplified to just two sides, doesn't do
| most people justice. Don't vote for the democrats if you
| want socialism. Don't vote for the republicans if you
| want libertarianism.
|
| Evangelicals and progressives on the other hand, can do
| bussiness with the liberals and conservatives, since what
| they want isn't incompatible. Liberals hear progressives
| talk about 'inclusion' and they hear 'more customers'
| (hello, rich gay couples) or 'cheap labour' (hello, poor
| immigrants) and they get all wet in their stock
| portfolio.
|
| Sidenote: If you ever wonder what America would look like
| when its just libertarians and socialists having to come
| together .. its called Burning Man, where autonomous
| libertarians feed socialist hippies, without liberal
| transactions or conservative judgment.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| It's quite hard to follow your line of reasoning here.
| Unless you can explain how "leftist" policies have led to
| housing inflation, the fact prices have gone up doesn't
| seem to contradict your PM pledging to reduce them.
| ulucs wrote:
| Expansive immigration+highly regulated housing. Car-
| dependent city building which forces people who can't
| afford cars to live in the city. Small apartments and
| multi-home houses being regulated out of existence which
| push immigrants into windowless basements.
| mrep wrote:
| > There is not a big tourist tax here
|
| Seriously? Numbers I just googled show like 10-20 million
| tourists vs a metro population of 2.5 million and you guys
| have some of the highest taxes in the world? Why are you
| taxing yourself so much when you can tax the tourists because
| it is pretty much the opposite in most tourist places in the
| US?
| TomSwirly wrote:
| > you guys have some of the highest taxes in the world?
|
| I moved to Amsterdam from NYC, and honestly the taxes are
| about the same, with NY city and state taxes taken into
| account.
| mrep wrote:
| Heavily depends on where you are on the income curve.
| Also, I think a more apt comparison would be a more
| touristy place like florida which has no income tax and
| relies more on tourism taxes.
|
| As an example, a person making $100,000 would pay $22,754
| in florida whereas someone in the netherlands making
| EUR86,176 would pay EUR32,989 in income taxes. Then you
| also need to factor in the 21% vat vs 6% sales tax. Also
| gas is $3.179 a gallon vs EUR7.158 a gallon. That's a
| pretty big tax difference!
| saddlerustle wrote:
| It's not about taxes, its about making it easier for the city
| to enforce the ban on short-term rentals.
| eecc wrote:
| It is definitely about both. And about returning the city to
| citizens who've been priced out by the tourism industry.
|
| There's nothing wrong with being a cultural hot-ground, a
| travel destination, a mindshare icon... but turning a city
| into an intensive farming Disneyland is another thing.
| toshk wrote:
| It was already obligated to register every time you rented.
| eecc wrote:
| For what I know, it was rarely done for very short stays
| as it was meant and organized around the concept of
| traditional seasonal rents (i.e. students, workers on
| short assignment dispatches, transitions between longer
| stable residential arrangements.
|
| This is especially designed around the distributed hotel
| business model, for which the previous tracking and
| enforcement infrastructure was not qualified for.
| Hendrikto wrote:
| > The number is linked to an address, which makes it possible
| to check whether landlords are complying with municipal
| regulations regarding the maximum number of rental nights
| allowed.
|
| I think the problems wasn't that they were not paying taxes,
| but that they operated private apartments as hotels without
| permission.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| Amsterdam is trying hard to fight against tourism. They even plan
| to move the red light district and possibly demand dutch ID in
| coffeeshops. Nice to see that. 20M tourists per year for 1.2M
| city is too much.
| vadfa wrote:
| Yeah, who cares about those who make a living off tourism. They
| should learn to code.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| Fortunately these people had their chance to learn new ways
| to earning wages during the pandemic :)
| vadfa wrote:
| The condescension and lack of humanity that some people
| here have is baffling.
| hnuser847 wrote:
| And you know every single person on this site likes to
| use their FAANG salaries to see the word, so the hate for
| tourists is oddly self-referential.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| not for me though, I quit travelling a long time ago
| after realizing that tourism is just another form of
| consumption that is essentially no different from
| purchasing useless stuff
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| how does noticing that a lot of people changed their
| occupation during the pandemic connect to lack of
| humanity? I am puzzled.
| yunohn wrote:
| Well-paid software engineers sneering at the general
| public for not changing careers during a global pandemic,
| exhibits an obvious lack of humanity.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| But I said exactly the opposite: - a lot of people
| changed occupations - it's good for them
| vadfa wrote:
| No, that's not what you said.
| streamofdigits wrote:
| Regulatory arbitrage of some sort seems to be involved in many
| recent digital business models. Whether it concerns or involves
| (lack of) data privacy regulation, "reinventing" labour contracts
| or undercutting taxation frameworks, it is a most cruel reminder
| of how poor the management of the commons.
|
| While many of the efficiencies and attractions of re-inventing
| various businesses for the "digital age" seem genuine, their
| deployment within a fog of regulatory risk seems like a lose-lose
| proposition for anybody but the most short-term minded.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| The prosocial case for regulatory arbitrage is that regulations
| can be good or bad but either way are usually sticky- so when
| they're bad they're bad for a long time. Societies, like all
| things, accumulate cruft over time and without arbitrage bad
| regulations won't get reset until govt or economic collapse
| forces a major reset.
|
| Arbitrage offers exposure to a world without some regulation
| and people can decide if they like that or not.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Right. Regulatory arbitrage aside, I think it's hard to make
| the case that Uber was anything but a massive improvement
| over incumbent taxi companies.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| It was there from the start, piracy was rampant in most
| companies that appear "serious" today, youtube is the most
| memorable.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > Regulatory arbitrage of some sort seems to be involved in
| many recent digital business models. Whether it concerns or
| involves (lack of) data privacy regulation, "reinventing"
| labour contracts or undercutting taxation frameworks, it is a
| most cruel reminder of how poor the management of the commons.
|
| Well here is the thing, in my country the majority of Airbnb
| rental are(at least were) illegal. Authorities knew this but
| hypocritically, illegal rentals were good for tourism, so the
| state cracked down on a few illegal rentals, for the example,
| while allowing 99% of them. This is regulatory arbitrage.
|
| Uber on the other hand, didn't have the same luck since legal
| taxi drivers started to beat up Uber drivers so Uber quickly
| shut down their operation, as they were running illegal taxis
| and they couldn't have their cake and eat it too with the
| justice system... Sometimes it does backfire.
|
| One of the reasons why all these SV tech business got away with
| it is the fact that they are all located in US, only the
| landlord or the driver are taking real risks legally. As I said
| before, if I tried such an operation in my own country, I'll be
| shut down in no time and sent straight to jail for running
| illegal hotels. "it's just an app" wouldn't work.
|
| I still think that my government could have banned these apps
| if they really wanted to at first place, they are so eager to
| shutdown torrent/illegal VOD websites for instance, but they
| didn't.
| SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
| > Uber on the other hand, didn't have the same luck since
| legal taxi drivers started to beat up Uber drivers so Uber
| quickly shut down their operation, as they were running
| illegal taxis and they couldn't have their cake and eat it
| too with the justice system... Sometimes it does backfire.
|
| In my country taxi drivers also started to beat up Uber
| drivers, but it backfired hard on them, it only reinforced
| the notion that taxi drivers are dangerous, not to be trusted
| (after all, if they are the kind of person capable of
| randomly assaulting business competitor, they certainly are
| capable of assaulting a client in a disagreement, so why
| would I risk ride with them?), so the beatings helped steer
| the public opinion in favour of Uber, resulting in the
| legalization of Uber. Also, in my country breaking a minor
| (administrative/civil) law doesn't mean you are not protected
| by more important criminal law, so the victim Uber drivers
| did seek criminal charges against the offending Taxi drivers.
|
| Interestingly, in the aftermath, the taxi lobby (which used
| to be fiercely anti-consumer) worked to reform taxi laws to
| be much more pro-consumer in order to compete with Uber, they
| lowered their prices, removed the ridiculous accessory fees
| (extra for baggage, extra for more than 2 passengers, ...),
| added a requirement for background checks for drivers (this
| was a important one), gps tracking of cars, ... . So official
| taxis actually got much better due to Uber.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| > One of the reasons why all these SV tech business got away
| with it is the fact that they are all located in US
|
| Well, they could still be (at the very least) prohibited from
| operating in your country.
|
| Sadly, most of these services (Airbnb, Uber) were also
| illegal here in the US, but for "some reason" (aka lots and
| lots of $$$), no one ever bothered enforcement against them.
| Eventually they spent enough money on bribes^H^H^H^H^H^H
| lobbying to legalize themselves.
|
| (Then, of course, at least in the case of Uber and friends,
| once they were established they quietly raised prices and
| reduced driver income, which were the very reasons the short-
| sighted public liked them so much.)
| greggman3 wrote:
| I'm curious if Uber/Lyft is going to last in SF. It does
| not take more than one $90 for 3 mile ride experience for
| me and my friends to never want to count on Lyft again.
|
| The way it works is, you think I'll just Uber/Lyft to meet
| my friends. So you order one say 20 minutes before you're
| supposed to meet only to find an extremely high price. You
| pay it so you're not late but then you also vow to plan
| ahead so you never have to take it again. I haven't taken
| one since I was burned in June. Another friend got burned
| last month and I'd guess he's likely to not take another
| either.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| I mean, the $90, 3 mile experience doesn't happen as a
| surprise occurrence... you agree to the price upfront, so
| you must have really needed to get somewhere 3 miles away
| as fast as possible. The price being high is just a
| function of there not being as many drivers available
| (its especially bad these days as many drivers have moved
| on to better jobs or not engaged in the workforce or
| don't want to do this job during covid times)
|
| To your second point, there are still scheduling options,
| "wait + save" where they do offer pickup 20 min from now
| and locking in your price, but... if you are using those
| features couldn't you also use the bus?
|
| I don't see any of your problems steering you back
| towards taxis, especially in SF where they were AWFUL
| (can't say if they have improved in the last 7 years)
| VoidWhisperer wrote:
| I noticed this too. When I was in the bay area previously
| (temporarily) before moving out here permanently, about 2
| years ago, I was able to uber places like the grocery
| store due to not having a car. Flash forward to today and
| I actually opted to buy my own car because uber and lyft
| have become ridiculously expensive
| toast0 wrote:
| > You pay it so you're not late but then you also vow to
| plan ahead so you never have to take it again.
|
| This is (usually) a better situation than when you're
| burned by phone dispatched taxi than never comes. At
| least you got where you were going.
| hattar wrote:
| In defense of the short-sighted public (me), I don't know
| the operating costs, profit requirements, accounting model,
| etc of a hired car service. I can't assume any time the
| price of a product goes down, that someone is trying
| something shady.
|
| I can say I loved Uber et al primarily because unlike any
| experiences I ever had with calling a taxi, a car actually
| showed up to bring me to my destination.
|
| If I correctly interpret your definition of "the public" to
| mean "the common men and women using these services": it's
| a bit unfair to give them the blame, rather than pursue a
| failure of regulators or regulations.
| awillen wrote:
| Everybody forgets that this is why Uber did so well in
| SF. The cabs are complete garbage - they don't come when
| you call, their credit card machines are always "broken"
| and the drivers are screaming at people on their
| cellphones for the whole ride.
|
| Before UberX was a thing I was paying more for Ubers than
| for cabs because I would get actual, quality service that
| way. The SF cab industry abused its regulatorily
| privileged position. If that industry (or their
| regulators) had enforced even basic decency and respect
| for their customers, there would've been no need for Uber
| in the first place.
| psychlops wrote:
| > Eventually they spent enough money on bribes^H^H^H^H^H^H
| lobbying to legalize themselves.
|
| It worked for the hotel and taxi industry, seems a logical
| way to succeed for Uber and Airbnb in the same domains.
| naveen99 wrote:
| The irony of law abiding vigilante drivers beating up
| regulation abritraging drivers
| aerosmile wrote:
| Decades ago, if you wanted a work-when-you-want lifestyle
| and no boss, and you didn't know how to start your own
| business, becoming a cabbie was the obvious career path.
| And cabbies do occasionally experience unpleasant customers
| with nobody to turn to for help, so you have to have a
| thick skin to last in that job.
|
| For whatever reason, in the US the crowd self-selected
| towards the immigrant population, whereas in many less
| developed countries it went towards the bare knuckle boxing
| type of crowd. No wonder that the latter didn't hesitate to
| use their knuckles on Uber drivers, whereas in the US that
| rarely ever happened.
| yetihehe wrote:
| Recently I heard a joke about postmen leaving aviso instead
| of delivering post. If you see him leaving aviso, you can
| legally beat him. You have his signed proof that you
| weren't home at the time.
| secondcoming wrote:
| 'aviso'?
| yetihehe wrote:
| Written notification about tried delivery of a letter or
| package which can only be received in person. If you are
| not home, you can go to nearest post office and receive
| it there. Sorry, I thought it's english word.
| [deleted]
| tamcap wrote:
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/avis#Old_French Wiktionary
| says it comes from Latin.
|
| In English "advise", alas, not used in the common
| language in regards to mail, like it is used in Polish
| (and Czech?).
| tecleandor wrote:
| In Spanish 'aviso' would be 'notice' or 'warning'.
| Italian 'avviso' is kind of similar.
| belter wrote:
| Interestingly not far from the semantics you wanted to
| convey :-)
|
| Collins ...in British English (@'vaIz@U) - NOUN
|
| "a boat carrying messages; a dispatch-boat"
| rvba wrote:
| The thing with legal taxis is that the quality of their
| service is complete shit. At least in some countries.
|
| You dont know how much you will pay (their estimates are
| always too low) and the first questions by the driver are
| to check if you know the town. If you dont sound like a
| local, then they will drive you through the longest route
| possible. And worst: you can do nothing about it. No way to
| report the licensed driver. Before uber it was like a
| license to steal.
|
| In uber you can give 1 star - so the cheaters dont get any
| customers + you have some idea of price and route.
| Aerroon wrote:
| And because taxis are so heavily regulated it wasn't
| possible to compete with those bad taxis either.
| Regulation _can_ cement an oligopoly.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| I wonder if we can make Yelp for taxis. Open the app,
| scan the plate, check the reviews, if they're bad, go to
| the next taxi. But I guess dodgy taxi drivers would just
| buy new license plate (e.g. for their "own" private cars)
| and swap them - ok in a lot of jurisdictions taxi plates
| look different to normal car plates.
|
| Or the taxi driver can be made aware of the bad reviews
| and they'd have to do a deal with the app user, e.g. a
| fixed price with a 20% discount, for a fair review.
| (Rough idea, there are probably bigger issues when you're
| dealing with crooked drivers).
| ratww wrote:
| In some countries there are some private apps for Taxis
| that work just like Uber. I know of some stories of
| drivers who were banned after dodgy behaviour, or
| cancellations.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| I know it's normal for taxi drivers here to own their
| taxi, and therefore be the only one who drives it - I
| wonder how common that is throughout the rest of the
| world? Are there places where different drivers might
| drive the same cab in shifts?
| pverghese wrote:
| It's not even normal in the US for medallioned taxis. 50%
| of the medallions are owned by one man and leased out to
| others who can loan the car out to others as well.
| nradov wrote:
| In locations that have taxi stands like airports and
| large hotels, passengers are required to take the next
| taxi in line. You can't pick and choose.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > The irony of law abiding vigilante drivers beating up
| regulation abritraging drivers
|
| Who's going to go file a complain? Uber running illegal
| taxis? Judges looking into this would be delighted for Uber
| to get a local presence in order for them to file a
| complain so the police could arrest a few of their
| executives...
| short12 wrote:
| Wouldn't they just send a lawyer. Even if they did send
| an executive there is zero chance of an arrest being made
| beckman466 wrote:
| > a lose-lose proposition for anybody but the most short-term
| minded.
|
| "[I]n recent years the realisation has dawned that what's good
| for Silicon Valley is not always good for everyone. What
| started with scrappy upstarts promising to make the world a
| better place has morphed into something more sinister: a
| pantheon of faceless multinationals who collectively dominate
| the world's digital infrastructure, flouting regulations,
| avoiding taxes, and taking advantage of precarious labour to
| make a small number of people tremendously wealthy."
|
| https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley
| tim333 wrote:
| There's some good and some bad out of Silicon Valley like
| with most things but you can always ban the bad and take
| advantage of the good.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| Can you? The businesses that were actually illegal have
| legalized themselves, and the businesses that virtually
| everyone agrees do bad things have been getting
| "investigated" by Congress with no action for the past
| decade...
| pdimitar wrote:
| It hasn't "morphed" into anything. It always was a way to
| easy money (while lying through their teeth), but way too
| many people are naive and couldn't see it earlier.
| dghughes wrote:
| No breakfast either. Air"bnb" my ass.
|
| It's been a scourge on my small town. We were down to 0.01%
| vacancy. People were renting porches in a desperate attempt
| to find a roof over their heads and not pay $2,000 for the
| porch.
| GDC7 wrote:
| > It always was a way to easy money
|
| Tell me again how Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Apple and
| Facebook were "easy money"
|
| The devil personified in here, Mark Zuckerberg turned down
| the most "easy money" ever. 1 billion in cash for a couple
| years old company with an unproven business model, very few
| paying customers and no moat to speak of.
|
| You gotta choose one, if extreme luck is involved in the
| process then it's not "easy" because it could have gone the
| other way as well, and the protagonists knew it too, but
| still decided to step into the arena.
|
| We all know what happened to Digital Equipment which was
| the "easy money" company for the longest time.
|
| Kodak? What happened to that "easy money printing machine"
|
| Xerox anyone?
|
| The reality is that you either die as a hero or live long
| enough to become the villan.
|
| So now the villans are Bezos, Gates and Zuckerberg. Jobs
| and Allen died so they are the dear heroes who we miss and
| things would be much better if they were here today.
|
| Musk is the hero charging on his white horse right now, but
| unless he OD's on that pure cartel coke he snorts or blows
| up together with one of his rockets , I expect the tide to
| turn against him violently and suddenly.
|
| Then it's the turn of the crypto guys such as Brian
| Armstrong and Vitalik to have their moment of glory, and on
| and on and on.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Just like informed people knew about why Gates was bad
| while he was still CEO of Microsoft, we all know most of
| the shenanigans that Musk is up to and it seems like
| that's already been folded in to his image.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| >You gotta choose one, if extreme luck is involved in the
| process then it's not "easy" because it could have gone
| the other way as well, and the protagonists knew it too,
| but still decided to step into the arena.
|
| No, you can make very easy money playing the lotto. All
| you have to do is give the gas station guy $2 and you're
| a billionaire. Just because you're the one who got lucky
| doesn't mean it's hard work or anything.
| GDC7 wrote:
| The hard work is concentrated in the process of betting
| your life on a very unprobable outcome
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Betting your life? Zuckerberg was at Harvard and I assume
| has well-off parents. FB could have been a total dud and
| I'm sure he would have done fine.
| solveit wrote:
| You got me curious, so from Wikipedia:
|
| > Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born in White Plains, New
| York, on May 14, 1984,[9] the son of psychiatrist Karen
| (nee Kempner) and dentist Edward Zuckerberg.[10] He and
| his three sisters (Arielle, businesswoman Randi, and
| writer Donna) were raised in a Reform Jewish
| household[11][12] in Dobbs Ferry, New York.[13] His
| great-grandparents were Austrian, German, and Polish
| Jews.
|
| Sounds like the typical HN contributor to be honest.
|
| Anyway, I agree with your stated point that children of
| rich people are "merely" risking a few years of hard work
| and an opportunity cost of a few hundred thousand dollars
| when they found companies, and disagree with the possibly
| unintended insinuations that children of rich people
| can't work hard because they have a safety net, that
| facebook was an easy success, etc etc.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > I disagree with the possibly unintended insinuations
| that children of rich people can't work hard because they
| have a safety net, that facebook was an easy success, etc
| etc.
|
| did you really just try to defend the children of
| billionaires?
| beckman466 wrote:
| > but way too many people are naive and couldn't see it
| earlier.
|
| right, yeah, so others are dumb and you're enlightened?
|
| > It hasn't "morphed" into anything. It always was a way to
| easy money (while lying through their teeth)
|
| i don't get comments like yours. i'm sharing this quote
| because i like that whole article by Wendy Liu. Wendy
| agrees with you, and so do i. so why not just read it? your
| comment comes across know-it-all-y and bitter.
| olalonde wrote:
| It's a most cruel reminder of how bad regulations are.
| ralfn wrote:
| I like the regulation where you can't physically murder your
| competitor.
| tim333 wrote:
| Some regulations.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| The ones passed in response to fat campaign donations.
| eg:anti municipal broadband, ever-ratcheting copyright laws
| ralfn wrote:
| Sounds like you dont have a problem with regulations, but
| with political corruption.
|
| Obviously, if we just get rid of regulations entirely,
| the corruption problem will be solved.
|
| .. or maybe the carton of milk i buy can now kill me.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| The presence of corruption poisons the soil for well-
| constructed, effective regulation. Corruption fueled
| regulation thrives in those toxins.
| cyberpsybin wrote:
| Good. Another scam american corporation folding on first
| legislation to benefit common people.
| sumedh wrote:
| What makes it a scam?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Providing a service without following the laws. In this case,
| a hotel booking site without hotels.
|
| It's like uber, a taxi service without drivers/cars.
| sumedh wrote:
| > In this case, a hotel booking site without hotels.
|
| It did not start out as a hotel booking service though.
| jacquesm wrote:
| How it started out is irrelevant, how it is today is what
| matters.
| dorchadas wrote:
| And didn't AirBnB start out in dubious circumstances too?
| I seem to recall reading something about it, but can't
| find it now.
| sumedh wrote:
| Sometimes you need to break some laws to make progress
| that does not make it a scam. Sometimes the existing laws
| hurt consumers breaking such laws is good not bad.
| Macha wrote:
| This kind of thinking is less well received in Europe,
| which is why e.g. so many cities banned uber and only let
| them back in as a registered taxi app to contact
| registered taxi drivers charging regulated taxi prices,
| while a lot of US cities turned a blind eye.
|
| Those same regulations also kept a higher floor of taxi
| quality, which helped avoid the stereotype that exists in
| the US of "regular taxis are always dirty and late", so
| there wasn't consumer outcry for their return like US
| cities which had tried banning them.
| unionpivo wrote:
| Expect if I did it I would have huge penalties and real
| possibility of jail time for repeat offences
|
| But because its USA megacorp it takes years before it
| gets slap on a wrist.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I'm a power user of Airbnb. I have never disliked a service as
| much that I pay continue to pay for other than LinkedIn. Both of
| these are because I have/had little choice. What it all comes
| down to is getting a shitting experience and paying a premium for
| it.
|
| I have a 30+ day stay that had been booked close to 6 months in
| advanced canceled 7 days before my stay because the user sold
| their house. Airbnb said they would help me find a new comparable
| place. What they meant was they would send me a $200 gift card
| and say tough shit that all the comparable houses are booked
| already.
|
| I hope they get regulated hard. Maybe someday they will start
| giving a shit about their users too.
| dcgudeman wrote:
| What? Kind of a illogical reaction to a tough situation right?
| What is AirBnb supposed to do if one of their hosts sells their
| house without notifying them and all similar listing are
| already booked? Would more compensation satisfy you? Honestly
| confused why you would want to punish a service you admit to
| using frequently.
| zachrip wrote:
| I think the ethical failure here is on behalf of the house
| owners. They knew they were selling the house and could've
| told their customers that but I'm sure they didn't _just in
| case_ the sale didn 't go through.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Airbnb said they would help find a comparable place for us to
| stay. A comparable place was $2000+ more than the place we
| had booked initially (due to most places being booked 6 days
| before a holiday trip). They gave us a $200 coupon. Which
| meant we spent $1800 more on a place than we planed to.
|
| I expected them to have some plan to ensure users don't get
| fucked if someone sells their house. Dozens of similar, but
| more expensive, places sat empty during that holiday. Airbnb
| could have given us a coupon for the difference between one
| of those and what we pair for our original place. That is
| what their initially made it sound like they were going to
| do. That is not what they did.
|
| I'm a frequent user but not because I like them as a company.
| Because they are a monopoly.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| > I expected them to have some plan to ensure users don't
| get fucked if someone sells their house.
|
| Well, they probably banned the owner from the platform,
| easy-peasy;)
| teachrdan wrote:
| AirBnb should put you up in a hotel at no extra charge. It's
| what real hotels do if the room you reserved isn't available.
| anm89 wrote:
| Looking for long term stays on airbnb is an absolute minefield.
|
| Yeah the owner should be forced to pay to put you up in a hotel
| of your choice if they optionally choose to cancel on short
| notice.
|
| > I'm a power user of Airbnb. I have never disliked a service
| as much that I pay continue to pay for other than LinkedIn
|
| As someone who has more or less been living out of Airbnbs for
| 5 years as as digital nomad I couldn't agree more. There is
| however a secret code language for talking to there support
| where you can generally get them to treat you fairly by being
| very selective in the language you use to describe situations
| to make sure you never fall outside the boundries of their
| insane policies.
| mysterydip wrote:
| I find it interesting that the law has been in place since April,
| but only enforced as of October, which is presumably when all
| these listings were removed.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Pretty common practice, give folks a decent chance to comply
| and develop a history of not doing so before starting to
| enforce a regulation, especially when compliance is really low
| (80% of listings after half a year noncompliant... jeez)
| hesselink wrote:
| It is worth noting that according to a (Dutch language) article I
| read this morning, 90% of the listings that were removed had not
| been booked in the last year according to an Airbnb spokesperson.
|
| Paywalled Dutch language link: https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-
| achtergrond/airbnb-raakt-dr...
| tgv wrote:
| Almost as if there was some global event preventing travel.
| Vinnl wrote:
| Non-paywalled Dutch language link:
| https://www.ad.nl/amsterdam/verhuurplatforms-door-registrati...
|
| > Het gaat vooral om slapende advertenties van woningen die al
| een tijd niet verhuurd werden.
|
| > _It mainly concerns sleeping listings of units that have not
| been rented out for a while._
|
| The number of listings is also expected to increase again if
| the number of tourists bounces back up after Covid.
|
| Of course, the linked article also mentions this, albeit
| without claims of it being large part of the number:
|
| > This may concern 'dormant' advertisements of which the tenant
| is no longer active. For example, because the corona pandemic
| has shut down tourism in Amsterdam for a long time.
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