airbnb is a bad actor? Come on. It's not nearly that simple.
The Helsinki Design Lab (HDL), a governmental agency originally created in 1968 to encourage design thinking in Finland, engaged in an interesting study. In Helsinki, there's an unofficial day where historically, citizens have essentially opened illegal restaurants for the day. They sell out of homes and apartments and open windows, or often just give it away for free. Obviously all of this is highly illegal, but it's an amazing cultural experience that is beloved.
HDL polled some of the people who created these pop-up restaurants, trying to figure out whether they had any interest in openning real restaurants. The answer was an overwhelming no.
So the lab set out to answer an interesting question: "Why is it that none of these people who open free restaurants for a day -- these entrepreneurs who clearly love the essence of serving and creating food -- why is it that they find it such a ridiculous proposition to open a business?"
It's a good question and worth asking.
Here was a result of that investigation (among other things, such as streamlining the bureaucracy around registering and managing the business):
You say AirBnb is a "bad actor" for breaking the law, and I say that that's incredibly unimaginative. Every single person on airbnb wants to open a hotel, but they frankly disengage from the formal process, likely for valid reasons. AirBnb is helping to identify that this is a problem that needs solving.
> Every single person on airbnb wants to open a hotel, but they frankly disengage from the formal process, likely for valid reasons.
I wouldn't say they guy in the article wants to run a hotel. Running a hotel is hard work with ordinary margins. HFT (in all likihood exaggerated day trading), illigaly importing iPads to France and running an illigal airbnb business all strike me as someone looking to get rich quick. Drug dealing would fit in better than running a legit hotel.
As someone who has started a business myself, let me say that there's a big difference between doing it for one day and doing it long term, and also a big difference between passionately wanting to do it and the day-to-day long-term reality. Not just because of obscure regulations. And if you've ever got food poisoning from a restaurant, you'd understand why we have some of those regulations.
Plenty of organizations in the US have bake sales to raise money. People donate baked goods and they are sold to the public for a profit.
These people don't want to open a hotel, they are doing it illegally because it is easy money without having to do all the hard parts. No pesky tax forms, no regulators sniffing around, no employees to have to pay payroll taxes to. I'm guessing he probably hires some illegals or homeless people under the table to clean the place and pays them in cash. That's like saying all drug dealer want to open a store, and would if drugs were legal.
This doesn't follow. AirBnB does what it does. The laws in each and every area do what they do. There is no need for them to overlap, nor does a legal entity taking a position against AirBnB's potential customers make them a 'bad actor'in the general sense.
He breaks the law directly. AirBnB merely induces its customers to break the law. In both cases, they're bad actors.