from Hacker News

Krueger Statement on Use of Airbnb for Floating Brothels

by parsley on 4/15/14, 9:28 PM with 84 comments

• by brownbat on 4/16/14, 12:04 AM

  We have some inconsistent intuitions about what the government should be allowed to regulate.

  It seems like I should be able to give a neighbor's kid a 20 to pick up some leaves without getting the government involved. It seems like I should be able to give a friend a dollar for running and grabbing me a coke without consulting minimum wage laws or local sales taxes. I should be able to lend my cousin some money without registering as a bank.

  A business hiring leafblowers or messengers with a "no questions asked" policy, or even an individual loan shark, seems like the law should get involved.

  The internet as a communication platform blurs these lines. It lowers the barriers between strangers and acquaintances and friends. It lets private individuals behave like businesses some of the time. It lets small transactions rapidly scale.

  I don't think one set of intuitions is necessarily right or wrong. But I think these conflicting intuitions make some people libertarians towards businesses like airbnb and uber, and other people think those businesses are just profiting off of skirting regulations.

• by tpeng on 4/16/14, 12:05 AM

  The issue is not between AirBNB and its customers; its customers can evaluate the risks of renting on AirBNB, and factor that into their rental price, as well as insure for adverse outcomes.

  The real issue is that AirBNB also imposes these risks on communities (i.e., AirBNB's customers' neighbors) by exposing them to, in the worst case, criminal elements, but even in a normal case, temporary renters who lack incentive to follow social norms or respect communal property.

  This doesn't mean that AirBNB's business can't work, but it does mean that AirBNB needs to work with regulators to find a solution acceptable to the communities in which it operates. Such a solution would most likely be a combination of technical solutions to minimize bad outcomes and perhaps a tax on AirBNB, the proceeds of which could compensate communities for the externality imposed by AirBNB.

• by rch on 4/15/14, 10:55 PM

  > we need to protect the limited housing stock we have from being arbitraged into other uses

  This seems like a more compelling point than the title topic.

• by RV86 on 4/16/14, 12:52 AM

  The runaway success of AirBnB has to largely be viewed as a reaction to the alarming trend of increased % of income spent on rent.

  What used to be a standard of 25% has approached 45%+ in a very short amount of time in cities like NYC, San Fran, LA, and more. Wages have stagnated and tenants are doing everything they possibly can to afford to live in their city of choice. For politicians to go after AirBnB is to miss the underlying problem.

• by 001sky on 4/15/14, 11:13 PM

  This is the NY Post'a article which the kreuger text references, it's in the headline article

  but for those skimming the comments or who missed the hyperlink:

  http://nypost.com/2014/04/14/hookers-using-airbnb-to-use-apa...

• by dkarapetyan on 4/16/14, 12:25 AM

  Wait. Isn't this a problem with motels and other temporary housing situations as well? What makes Airbnb so special?

• by frandroid on 4/16/14, 12:12 AM

  I was expecting a story about airbnb getting to the waterborne rental market.

• by mturmon on 4/15/14, 10:21 PM

  From the press release:

  "Prostitution wasn't really at the top of our minds when we passed the 2010 law helping NYC enforce against illegal short-term rentals, but in hindsight it seems kind of obvious."

  You have to admit, I think the enterprising minds here at HN also failed to foresee this.

• by jhonovich on 4/15/14, 11:09 PM

  Let's demand her resignation!

• by moron4hire on 4/15/14, 11:18 PM

  Clutch those purse strings! Clutch them tiiiiiiiight. Lest some ne'erdowell slip something like DRUGS into your bag. And then you might accidentally take them, and LORD KNOWS one dose is enough to make you so addicted to the marijuana shots that you will be shooting cops and blowing judges for your next hit.

• by pbiggar on 4/15/14, 11:46 PM

  So is every apartment. In buildings near where I lived in Dublin there were known brothels in rented residential apartments. Long before there was Airbnb, obviously.

  This is a standard part of success: criminals hack the system. Much like AWS being used for bitcoin mining, and every cash-in-cash-out system being used for money laundering.

• by honksillet on 4/15/14, 11:27 PM

  > Real estate is an extremely well-developed industry here in New York City Should read over-regulated industry

• by maxwell2022 on 4/15/14, 11:27 PM

  Hotels have so much to lose they won't let it happen and this is an opportunity to give them a bad publicity.

• by aalpbalkan on 4/15/14, 11:14 PM

  > (underlined) Today it's a prostitution ring, tomorrow it could be an illegal gambling ring, and maybe next week it could be a drug operation.

  This is textbook 'slippery slope' fallacy. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope You said that if we allow A to happen, then Z will eventually happen too, therefore A should not happen.

• by vijayboyapati on 4/15/14, 11:20 PM

  It's always painful to watch luddite bureaucrats pontificate on technology and how it needs to be controlled to "protect" the population. I remember when I was at Google in 2003 there was a California politician who demanded that Google be regulated like a utility company because it was so important. That was when it was still a private company! Or when another California bureaucrat wanted to ban gmail because it violated people's privacy by showing targeted ads next to emails. Listening to people like this requires a perma-facepalm.