All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

@Cody L. lol... and what does it sound like airBNB is or isnt doing? Not breaking the law? There is a demand for short term rentals, airBNB is trying to 'illegally' enter the space and meet some of the supply through its website. Part of the government's role in just about every society is to set public policy; as a business, there are consequences when your practices conflict with those policies, regardless of how you try to twist it into an issue where the government is inserting itself into a matter were it shouldnt.

@Rod Desinord Now that you mentioned, this is sort of a similar issue... what Napster was doing way back when was illegal and they got into tons of trouble for that. They later became Rhapsody which was a different business model and apparently back to Napster again. The government isn't always bad but when you start promoting, enabling or facilitating illegal transactions on a scale that airBNB does, it would be irresponsible to suggest government does nothing about it.

 @Kevin Coggins This has no relevance to what the discussion is. AirBNB got in this mess because they are in the wrong space...Hotels.com, bookings.com etc... aren't because they aren't busy breaking the law or facilitating illegal transactions in what appears to be knowingly in some cases.

@Kevin Coggins In most states currently crack, either possession, distribution or manufacture is illegal...but, you can set up a website to match buyers and sellers of crack, lets see how that goes... tell them BP told you you could do it. They can choose to go after whomever they please especially if it has been credibly determined that a target is a material cause and factor for the menace.

@Kevin Coggins No Kevin, I only count 12 items here... it need to be at least 12 pages... you still have quite a few pages to go... :)

@Cody L. Someone mentioned drugs on here being distributed through a website... who would have thought. But think about it.... drugs (as in crack, weed etc..) is a serious problem in society. Sure you can arrest each smoker when caught, charge them with possession etc... but whats the grand effect in thwarting the problem? So a different approach is to target the distributor and manufacturer... thats were the money is at... try to get at the source of the issue. You can have an entire police dept. run after smokers all day or target the source to cure the problem. Thats whats going on here.

@Andrew Johnson lol... sometimes its the landlord vs tenant; sometimes the landlord uses airBNB illegally himself so its then a City vs landlord issue and again sometimes both the City and landlord have an issue with airBNB. There are just quite a few cases floating around currently and strangely airBNB is somehow mysteriously the catalyst in the middle.

@Kevin Coggins Thats a no... the liability policy is just another one of many factors that make the argument of it just being harmless advertising moot. 

Its also a completely different business model from craigslist. Craigslist is a free service for the most part except employers are charged a fee for job related ads. Craigslist doesn't collect any fees or the transaction amount from a customer. AirBNB however isn't free. AirBNB not only collects these monies buy goes way beyond that.

AirBNB is in the rooms/hotels booking business, period. But it does so by targeting the wrong customer base - residential renter. Residential zoning and commercial/hotel zoning are completely different subjects. If a structure is zoned residential, guess what its use is/should be?

If they really want to get in the room leasing space, they should target actual hotels. Not try to turn residential space into hotels while profiting for facilitating what is increasingly becoming an illegal transaction in many localities. 

With the switch of a button, hotels.com, bookings.com etc, could also target residential renters to have them sell out their spaces as hotels, illegally.

Regarding you trying to loop in wholesaling, I can tell you this... if the 'State of Space' says in order to broker real estate within its borders you need to get you a State of Space RE license or face felony charges, and you say no I don't, guess who's getting arrested when you get caught?

@Kevin Coggins You look at the scale and scope of the issue and airBNB is the enabling source of the issue. Did we have a problem and violations on this scale prior to airBNB? You also can't compare the other companies you mentioned with airBNB, very different lines of business. 

Craigslist for instance is a classifieds business, general, with forums for discussions, jobs etc. They don't for instance offer a $1,000,000 lodging insurance policy in 50 different countries for liabilities resulting from the transaction. 

In some ways you would compare airBNB to say, hotels.com. If someone is trying to rent a room for a day or two, neither Craigslist, Twitter, Facebook etc. comes to mind. They however would be thinking hotels.com or wait... airBNB. 

If tenants were to go on hotels.com and start advertising rooms from their residential address, hotels.com would also be in court here. This is isn't a matter of someone picking on airBNB. There are some real issues of concern.

@Bettina F. Its like the restaurant business... public health and safety is of concern... that is why you sometime have inspections, so they can know whats going on; are they violations that endangers the public etc... but if you are running an unlicensed restaurant out of your house, off the grid, no one knows whats going on. The health department or whoever regulates restaurants don't know if that chicken is really chicken. They also of course have an eye on taxes.