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PG was cheering lambda school's free 4 weeks developer intern trial a while ago. If he doesn't think that is exploitative, maybe huge difference in morality.

Airbnb spamming forums early on, sketchy marketing techniques, avoiding commercial regulations that hotel has to go through for good reasons and displacing genuine local rent seekers is not exploitative then maybe the bar is high enough for YC.

Should the founder have to think about whether the idea could potentially be exploitative or he just needs to think about what is good for the users aka not exploiting the tourists?

discuss

an_opabinia|5 years ago

Airbnb feels like a very bad example. It’s rich people renting out their homes to other rich people. You’re saying that’s more exploitative than rich people renting out those same homes to poor people? How do you think that really pans out?

damnencryption|5 years ago

No. Residential areas are different from commercial areas in good parts of the world for a reason. This is not a bad example.

Many people took loans to buy airbnb to aggressively rent them. Criminal activity go through roof with tourists in the neighborhood. You don't know who your neighbors are because they keep changing. It doesn't feel safe to let your 10 year old son out for many.

Drugs, garbage on the road, covid hot spots. Hotels also have to pay taxes which airbnb avoids. Price in the area goes up for locals. People move out to surrounding areas and have to commute more.

mellavora|5 years ago

My brother works for HUD. They have many examples of people (ab)using Airbnb to operate as slumlords; a type of exploitation which is outlawed. The corporation Airbnb has historically not been cooperative in assisting the HUD in this process.

So no, it is not just rich people renting to rich people. In many cases it is rich people using the platform to avoid regulations which prohibit exploitative renting to poor people.

And the corporation which enables this actively hinders investigations. Because Airbnb is also getting a cut of these rents.

throwaway2245|5 years ago

Airbnb is banned where I live, because it exploited democratically agreed norms of short-term rents in the city.