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Airbnb Has Sued Its Hometown Of San Francisco (cnn.com)
Robert Mclean, reporting for CNN:Airbnb is taking its hometown to federal court. The company has filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco, objecting to short-term rental rule changes approved by its Board of Supervisors. A new ordinance set to take effect in late July would require all Airbnb hosts to register with the city. If they do not, Airbnb would be fined up to $1,000 a day for each listing, putting the burden on the company to make sure each listing is legal. But the city's $50 registration process is analog enough to turn off many hosts. It can't be completed online and requires submitting all the documents in person. Airbnb contends the new rule violates the Communications Decency Act, Stored Communications Act and the First Amendment.
Most municipalities do not have the ability to submit registration forms on-line. Sack up and deal with it Airbnb. Your first amendment rights are not being trampled upon but you are wasting tax payer money just to be a dick.
The point is that politicians in San Francisco are purposefully imposing onerous regulations on Airbnb because they're owned by the hotel and hospitality companies who want to throw as many roadblocks at Airbnb as they can.
Just like the taxi companies and cab-driver unions and their pols did with Uber
Uber IS a cab company.
Some good reasons I can think of off the top of my head:
I'm sure there are more, but I only had a few moments to consider it. Conversely, the $50, and fill out a form seem like remarkably low burdens to impose. I mean, "I'm suing because this form isn't online" is pretty stupid.
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Why do people keep trying to make this about the hotel industry? Airbnb is fucking up the entire real estate market which is already horrible enough in SF of all places. Landlords are turning apartments into hotel rooms to make a bit more money, reducing housing availability and driving up prices in a city that already has a desperate shortage of it.
Some modern companies seem to complain excessively about regulations that people have been living with for years without complaint. We've seen Uber complain that their taxi service is sometimes regulated like a taxi service, requiring commercial driver's licenses, commercial insurance, and background checks (nobody's applying medallion limits to Uber).
You seem to be saying that regulation shouldn't be applied when it's actually needed, but rather has to wait until numerous people have suffered for the lack of it. You're also calling for metrics that don't really exist. It's usually not possible to directly compare results with regulation and results without regulation over time. Consider background checks for taxi drivers: the idea is to reduce crime perpetrated by the drivers, but there really isn't much measurable other than how many people failed the check. In order to see if it reduces crime, it would be necessary to take some of the people failing the check and put them into cabs over a period of time and see how many passengers were crime victims.
Life requires judgment calls. If you don't like the calls your elected representatives are making, campaign against them in elections. If you get no traction, then it may well be that everyone else is happy with the situation.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Why should any temporary lodging require any such registration in the first place. Before you go off half cocked, I want actual facts, and not emotional violence typical of those that love government intrusions into business activities.
The problem is, you probably can't show ANY reason why (factually based) the government should be involved.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Really? There's a black market for housing in San Francisco because people can't buy it on the open market for any price? (This is an objective sign of a true shortage, just ask Venezuela.)
No, I think it's far more likely that the "shortage" is actually just your way of saying that the prices are higher than you think they ought to be.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
There are a number of cities that rely on the tourism industry that are undergoing negative changes due to AirBnb.
More rooms are available -> Hotels cant charge as much for rooms due to competition, and collect less taxes for the city. So the city has more tourists to support, but less tax revenue
Real estate prices go up -> Long term residents have incentive to sell/rent, renters have incentive to live elsewhere
It's similar to gentrification, but instead of replacing poor people with yuppies, its replacing residents with absentee landlords. There are increases in tourist dollars to local businesses, but less money from local residents. The overall effect is unhealthy for the city as a whole, since it drives residents away. Ultimately a city cant survive without locals who actually live in it.
Why should people follow building codes? Why should hotels and restaurants follow health codes?
Because we as a people have decided to enact laws that require them to follow the rules to make things safer for us, and because people have proven time and time again, that on their own they will cut corners to make an extra buck.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
That's all the city's fault. There is a desperate shortage of housing in SF, and I personally hope it gets far, far, far worse.
The shortage is caused by the government itself, and all the NIMBY regulations. If there's not enough rental units, then WHY are there no giant high-rise apartment buildings being built, like you see in other big cities? Because incumbent property owners don't want "the view" to be messed up. Well, if you refuse to build anything higher than 2 stories, then there's only so many apartments you can pack into a given space.
I say let the housing market in SF implode. At some point, catastrophic change will be forced. If service workers can't live in SF, too bad: they don't have to! They can live somewhere else. And if that means they can't reasonably commute into SF to work, no problem! That means local SF business will have to go without workers, or they'll have to pay them six-figure salaries to come work there. If that means all the local businesses in SF (like grocery stores and restaurants) have to shut down, no problem. At some point, this will cause a complete implosion of the property values in the area (because whoTF wants to live in a city full of ultra-expensive housing and absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to shop or even get any food?), and change will be forced. The sooner, the better too.