Can't help but think of the obvious time and time again with the faux-sharing economy. Sharing is a pathetic use of neural linguistics, you're not sharing, your not doing anyone a kindness, you're making money and you're providing a service.<p>Uber and Airbnb will be regulated legislative or through unions. Ask yourself just wtf are cabs so much more inefficient than Uber and hotels more expensive then Airbnb?<p>Few drivers depend completely on Uber for their income, Airbnb is still on a legal gray zone.<p>This won't last forever. Uber drivers will unionise, tenants who live around Airbnb hosts will pressure the government for legislation and so will hotel providers.<p>Uber is pivoting to logistics. What's Airbnb doing? Wouldn't surprise me if they soon build their own hotel.
First amendment, for sure.<p>I'm guessing this is about this, "The new law would require Airbnb and other short-term rental websites to post registration numbers on listings or email the number and name of the host to the Office of Short-Term Rentals, The City’s agency tasked with enforcing the regulations." (From <a href="http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-poised-require-airbnb-list-registered-hosts-pay-fines/" rel="nofollow">http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-poised-require-airbnb-list-regi...</a>)<p>So "their" "free speech rights" are "violated" because they have to post registration numbers.
When does Campoes term out anyway?<p>There certainly is a struggle between ownership rights and the right of cities to regulate business within their jurisdiction.<p>As a renter, I can sympathize with wanting to avail more rental properties to renters, but I am also very uneasy with politicians dictating what you can and cannot do with your property when that act in and of itself is not otherwise illegal. It's not confiscation, but it also kerbs your ability let your property as you wish --and I say this as a renter who arguably would benefit from this politician's policies.<p>PS move HQ to Brisbane and take the corp taxes with you.
No legal expertise, but the thing that struck me is Campos' extremely flawed analogy. If we want to make comparisons to rental cars, the hosts are the rental companies. There is no third party platform to compare to AirBnB.
So basically SF wants companies like Airbnb to do their police/enforcement work for them. The city should be going after the unregistered renters themselves. Sure, that's potentially harder, but I can see that it'd be a burden to order a company to do it for them.
They must be extremely dependent on these commercial operators listing multiple units, else they wouldn't be fighting this so hard.<p>It kind of makes their whole "helping the middle class" shtick even more nauseating.
Regardless of how strong Airbnb's legal standing is or isn't, they are the definition of a company who believes it better to ask forgiveness then permission. I believe that maxim is all fine and good when you're a person who cares about the well being of others, but when it's a corporation whose only goal is profit or growth it has the potential to be extremely detrimental to society.
> David Campos, a supervisor who has been harshly critical of Airbnb, called the ordinance a "modest piece of legislation," according to the San Francisco Chronicle, adding "If you are a rental car agency, you have to make sure the person that you rent that vehicle to has a license before you rent them a car. That is exactly what we are asking the short-term platforms to do here."<p>This analogy is obnoxiously flawed.<p>rental car agency:consumer != (airbnb:host or host:guest)
Free speech rights are a stretch here. I wonder if you could make a viable case for the 3rd amendment though (to my knowledge it has never been done).<p>Strictly interpreted, the 3rd amendment prevents the government from being able to force homeowners to quarter soldiers. If you think about the real intent of the bill though, it's obvious that the mindset is "you are free to use your own house without government interference."<p>Realize that at the time, HUGE numbers of homeowners informally had a room or two for boarders to supplement their income. It would have been considered ridiculous at the time for the government to say you couldn't lend a room out for money, which is probably why this interpretation was not formally codified.<p>It's a stretch, but amendments have been interpreted in more creative ways to accomplish personal-freedom goals (think, right to privacy -- interpreted as an implied constitutional right, but not mentioned anywhere).