> Still, logic and decency would suggest that when you’re in danger, as Mr. Lopez claimed to be, Airbnb would come to your rescue.
Does it? AirBnB doesn't have duties to guests because they're just a transaction middelman. Hotels are liable for the safety of their guests, but they also have control over the premises they rent, which AirBnB does not.
Of the various criticisms against AirBnB, this is the least sympathetic one in my opinion (the tragedy of Mr. Lopez's individual situation aside). When you rent off AirBnB, you're renting from some random stranger, with all the attendant risks. You're not renting from a company that bears liability for your well being. That's just the nature of the transaction.
By "coming to your rescue," it doesn't mean actually coming... It means just call the cops at least. Instead, they asked her to call cops then let cops call them to get address. It seriously increase the response time, and potentially cost lives. It seems to be common sense to me. So, it does!
Perhaps the case here is that AirBnB is misleading guests into thinking that it'll assume responsibility equal to the responsibility a hotel would take, when it really doesn't.
I'm beginning to become annoyed with you for insinuating the same falsehood every time one of these stories comes up. You've done it countless times, and it puts us in the position of either saying nothing and letting the falsehood stand—which isn't right—or having to answer it, a dreary chore that steals cycles away from things that actually help the community.
It's time you supplied some evidence (which you won't, because we don't do the things you say), or dropped this. Repeating the same falsehood ad nauseum is not legit.
The only thing that happened to the present post is that users flagged it, presumably because it was an obvious duplicate. We didn't see the post until a few minutes ago, and the only moderation we did was unkill it so discussion can continue. That's standard practice.
> I'm beginning to become annoyed with you for insinuating the same cheap falsehood every time one of these stories comes up.
Every time? That's very much an exaggeration! Secondly, if you read my comment you'll see I did not accuse YC of flagging the story, I was myself thinking it was user flags (though, when one considers that flagging privileges are sometimes revoked... and only "good" users are left to flag, userflag starts to seem very much like a YC-flag - but that's a story for another day). Anyway, I do think I didn't choose my words very carefully, there's arguably some connotation of YC being `directly` involved in flagging in my comment, that was unintended.
Your oft-repeated claim/insinuation/smear that we censor anti-YC stories isn't true, nor fair, nor even reasonable, since to run HN that way would be stupid and the whole thing would have fallen apart years ago.
It's also mean—you have no idea how hard we work to make sure that stuff like that doesn't happen.
> since to run HN that way would be stupid and the whole thing would have fallen apart years ago.
That's just not true though. Huge governments have survived through propaganda, brainwashing, etc. (not necessarily accusing YC of doing that, just making a point). Forums can persist in any direction you want if they're carefully and meticulously managed, one can partake in rampant banning, censoring, etc. and it'll all still be fine, it happens everywhere all the time.
You're arguing technicalities, but the important points are: (1) we don't censor stories for being negative about YC because doing so would be wrong and bad for the community, and (2), it would be a stupid risk to take with HN if we did. "Whatever you do, don't do that" is literally the first thing pg said to me about how to moderate HN.
This story hasn't been submitted before. It was ranked #1 for a little while, and promptly was demoted to non-front page. This happens a lot, most people just miss it/forget about it.
Okay, thanks for the proof! I should mention that in most cases the story seems to not have persisted in the top, even though it's a story that likely many HN users would want to discuss.
I wish you hadn't escalated this to usage of profanities, but it's all good.
The thing we need precaution against is AirBnB hosts who've turned renting out apartments into full fledged businesses. Because in my experience when someone doesn't actually live in the apartment, quality drops and there's no actual home-iness. One exchange: "Is this a mattress? Is it not just a box spring?" "I'm sorry you don't enjoy this type of mattress... For this price point for this rental, this is what you can expect."
As far as full apartments go, I'd seriously like to meet one AirBnB host in Japan or China (the main places I've used it) who aren't part of AirBnB based businesses, just 1 person who is actually sharing their home while they're away for a bit, or whatever AirBnB claims it's all about.
This is the giant elephant in the room about AirBnB, and I doubt they're ever going to discuss it publicly.
The majority of AirBnB rentals in NYC are "entire place", or at least they were when it was easier to compare available numbers. This despite the fact that renting out your entire place when you're not there is illegal in NYC unless you've specifically been licensed as a bed and breakfast. Not just illegal as in 'violating your lease' (the majority of AirBnb) but illegal as in a violation of the law. Interestingly, AirBnB's NYC commercials only highlight the private room with the family also present since they own the place aspect - which is a very small portion of AirBnB's NYC business.
In China, many people invest their money in properties. So, you would have a well-off household owns more and more apartments just for safekeeping. I would imagine it's a good opportunity for AirBnB type of services to thrive. At the same time, a lot of Chinese are quite distrusting of unknown person for good reasons. Renting out their own place with all their belongings can just be asking for trouble.
Japan on another hand, might be doing a better job welcoming guest to stay over their own home. I wouldn't know though.
Companies and products get their reputation damaged often because of the people who answer the call lack of common sense and empathy... At the same time, they expose the problems more effectively than anything else.
