Replies

I read the article, too. I'm still trying to figure out how Airbnb has any relevance to addressing a "housing shortage." I don't think the author has a clue what he's talking about on this subject.

Why is this so hard to understand? The guys who started AirBnB came up with the idea after having trouble finding affordable places to rent in San Francisco, and had to rent out one of the rooms in their loft as a mock "bed and breakfast" in order to make ends meet. They trialed their idea during big conferences in SF where conference attendees couldn't find hotel rooms and didn't have a mechanism for finding potential properties to rent.

This has nothing to do with zoning issues and everything to do with crony politicians bought and paid for by the hotel industry getting beaten by the voters.

This is a great development for crying out loud. Uber in San Antonio and AirBnB in San Francisco have proven you can fight city hall, and WIN. There's no reason for a pro-market, pro-liberty person to bitch.

That still doesn't make any sense. Maybe Airbnb helps offset the high cost of housing in some of these places, but it doesn't add a single housing unit anywhere on the planet (as far as I know). So it hardly does anything to address a housing shortage.

I have a whole different take on Uber. Personally, I think their business model is eventually going to fall apart for a number of reasons. And I'm familiar enough with their dealings in New York City to know that there's nothing "pro-market, pro-liberty" about the company, at the end of the day.