New Book Describes How AirBNB Influenced City Laws (backchannel.com)

"For years, Airbnb was the friendly foil to Uber, aiming to work with cities rather than against them," writes Slashdot reader mirandakatz. "But as it grew and regulatory challenges mounted, the startup had to grow fangs." She shares an excerpt from a new book called The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World. The reality people saw often depended on where their sympathies lay. Regulators, left-wing politicians, hotel CEOs, union leaders, affordable housing advocates, and angry neighbors tired of carousing guests saw Airbnb as nothing but a rule breaker from the far-away land of arrogant, entitled billionaires. Investors, hosts, property owners struggling to make their monthly mortgage payments, travel-discount shoppers, and high-tech aficionados tended to believe in the startup with good intentions that was disrupting the stultified hospitality industry.
The book is by Brad Stone, who also wrote The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon. He describes how "good AirBNB" got Portland to eliminate the $4,000 permits for B&Bs by agreeing to collect lodging taxes from AirBNB hosts (and by opening a Portland call center). But his excerpt ends as "momentum was shifting" against AirBNB in New York City, as powerful hotels and their service employee unions convinced city lawmakers that legitimizing the company would be "politically radioactive" -- while the company's CEO "was going to fight for every inch of territory".

Comments

Re:Regulations

[kinthalas]

Because god fucking forbid I take a ride in a car and don't have to worry that the driver is a rapist or murderer.

Or that I stay in a place that isn't a fire prone death trap.

Or that people make a living wage doing what they're doing, so they don't have to starve in the damn street or die of a preventable illness.

Fucking government, making rules and shit to protect people, even though most people aren't violently killed by the very things they're trying to prevent.

Hmmm

[rmdingler]

Without playing to either side of the political spectrum, I mean, honestly; do you see anti-hotel legislation flourishing during Mr. Trump's administration?

Re:Regulations

[93 Escort Wagon]

I tend to lean in the same direction as you - but it's not like the entrenched companies are all sweetness and light. I think we need to realize this isn't an either/or situation, but more of a continuum.

The regulations which exist weren't originally put there to protect special interests - by and large, they were created to protect customers. But companies, being companies, have done what they could to mold the regulatory environment into something which gives them a leg up on any upstarts. And the agencies tasked with protecting particular regulations often act to serve their own power.

I see unions in the same light. They were created to empower to workers who were at the mercy of abusive corporations - and I still think they serve that important purpose. But in my personal experience, when those same unions have to choose between what is best for a worker versus what protects the union's entrenched power, the worker loses.

Basically Lord Acton was right, in other words.