this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024
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On 21 June, Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni announced plans to ban short term rentals in the city starting in November 2028. The decision is designed to solve what Collboni described as "Barcelona's biggest problem" – the housing crisis that has seen residents and workers priced out of the market – by returning the 10,000 apartments currently listed as short-term rentals on Airbnb and other platforms into the housing market.

Barcelona is not the only city to be strongly regulating – or even banning – short-term rentals outright. It has been illegal since September 2023 to rent out an apartment as a short-term let in New York City unless you are registered with the city and you are present in the apartment when someone is staying – a change also made to assuage the city's housing crisis. Berlin banned Airbnbs and short-term rentals back in 2014, bringing them back under tight restrictions in 2018; and in many of California's coastal cities, including Santa Monica, short-term rentals are either banned or highly restricted.

In British Columbia, Canada, Premier David Eby put the issue succinctly as he clarified new short-term rental rules: "If you're flipping homes, if you're buying places to do short-term rental, if you're buying a home to leave it vacant, we have consistently, publicly, repeatedly sent the message: Do not compete with families and individuals that are looking for a place to live with your investment dollars."

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[–] SpacePirate@lemmy.ml 81 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It hasn’t even been in existence for 15 years, literally any adult with an income can imagine what life without Airbnb is like.

[–] ilmagico@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While that's true, short term (vacation) rentals existed well before airbnb, they just weren't so prevalent.

[–] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes, rentals existed before Airbnb but they were not monopolized by a foreign multinational company that is causing housing crises across the planet and that operates outside of legality

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago

Agreed.

I see people posting questions about life in the 1970s and wonder, "Don't you know any one who was around then?"

[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

They aren't banning Airbnb. They are banning short term rentals. Huge difference. You can do long term rentals on Airbnb, and you can do 2 day rentals on other websites like VRBO. Those other sites have been around for a very long time.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

AirBnB was founded in 2007.

So almost everyone who is an adult knows what things were like before AirBnB.

Personally, despite having taken advantage of them (others have paid), I would like to go back to how things used to be.

For one thing, making sure I clean up is not what I should be worrying about when traveling.

[–] Bye@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Short term rentals would be fine if companies like Airbnb weren’t getting a cut. Like they existed on Craigslist and as actual bead-and-breakfasts way before airbnb et al existed.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I imagine people are willing to give a cut to Airbnb because they perceive, rightly or wrongly, that Aribnb is taking care of all the details. Insurance, liability, blocking troublemakers, data and time coordination etc.

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I use to travel a lot before airbnb existed, and most of it was to uhh, old school bnbs.

Lovely! Amazing! But maybe that was just the areas we were going to were amazing. I wonder how well they'd work in cities and such? All my experiences were in much more rural areas, so you got a lot more room and such.

[–] Floey@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

The problem isn't that AirBnB gets a cut, the problem is that they make such a process more efficient and accessible. Property is a finite resource, especially when talking about a specific area like a city. We don't want to turn cities into amusement parks that the workers have to commute an hour to get to, even if that's what is the most profitable. Housing should be affordable and available for the people who actually use and make the city run daily.

[–] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Airbnb is yet another monstrosity created by neoliberalism that is completely amoral and aims for profit above all things

[–] toastboy79@kbin.earth -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

created by tech bros

Neo liberalism is a Boogeyman that means literally nothing thanks to everyone calling everyone else it. The real issue (with Airbnb) is that tech bros decided to create a business solution to something that in all honesty wasn't a problem and now we're here. The same can be said for Uber, and all the other "gig economy" companies.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

In my country, Uber fixed a lot of problems that existed with Taxis.

  • Sometimes taxis wouldn't show up.
  • Sometimes taxis wouldn't pick up certain people because of how they look
  • There was no app that'd show you where the nearest taxi was and when it'd arrive. I'm not aware of any taxi company that has such an app now...yet there's an app that'll show you where the busses are (even across different transit agencies)
  • You wouldn't know how much your trip would cost until you arrived at your destination.
  • Drivers would take longer routes or otherwise drive in "favourable ways" to increase the fare meter.
  • In my experience, taxi drivers have been more rude than Uber drivers
  • Taxi drivers would occasionally not accept certain methods of payment upon trip completion (and some would even try to use this trick to scam their passengers and likely their companies or the government by not reporting fares).

These all could've been solved by a regular taxi company, but I guess there was no incentive to make the product any better to the customers.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Over here in Germany, they ran against a brick wall:

  • Taxi apps already existed. Pioneers were taxi.eu, where a consortium of local dispatchers plain and simply introduced another way to access their services, and what's now called Free Now, circumventing the old dispatchers, directly connecting clients and individual, licensed, taxi drivers. Both predate uber's founding, and definitely uber's introduction into the market here.
  • Regulations exist. Taxis are classed as public transport, prices are regulated, no congestion pricing, no not taking on a passenger to the outskirts because you wouldn't get a return fare, no nothing. On the flipside you need a license so that there's few enough taxis around for every driver to still be able to make a living. Uber didn't care a bit about that kind of stuff, bringing us to
  • Regulations are enforced. Drivers taking uber fares without both taxi and passenger transport license were looking at court orders giving slaps on the wrist, but also threatening 1000 Euro fines for every subsequent passenger transported without proper licensing.

Oh:

  • Public transport is a thing. Most trips are covered by buses, metros, etc, more rural areas by collect taxis. Needing to hail an individual one is very rare, I think most of their fares are from people with too much money on hand. Also if you need to hail that taxi chances are your health insurance is going to cover the cost they prefer you hauling your broken leg to the doctor with a taxi, transport ambulances are more expensive and it's not like you need medical supervision on the trip, or the thing would need to accommodate a wheelchair or such.
[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

All that sounds great. I'm not pro-Uber so much as I'm anti-Taxi (as they exist where I live), lol

Sometimes taxis wouldn't pick up certain people because of how they look

Unfortunately, at least in the US, Uber is just as bad. I've got a friend who's blind and has a service dog - Uber drivers legally can't decline a ride because he's got a service dog, but very frequently they'd pull up, see the dog, and cancel the ride. Taxis are more likely to know and follow the law.

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Thankfully taxi services have finally gotten off their ass and most large cities have a taxi app. I used to fucking hate taxis because I never carried cash and the driver would get all huffy when I wanted to use card despite clearly having a card machine. I know most of it was they prefer cash to skirt taxes and also avoid the card fee (which they could add to the charge) but sorry, not sorry.

Uber came along and card was the default and you knew how much the ride would be before you even called them. No more guessing how much it would cost and having to pay attention to make sure the driver isn't taking a scenic route to drive up the meter.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Neo liberalism is a Boogeyman

that tech bros

Pot, meet kettle.

[–] toastboy79@kbin.earth -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Techbros are a very real and rather well defined term and collection of people.

Neoliberals not so much.

update:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Neo-Liberal

vs

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Techbro

notice how the definitions are much more consistent for a techbro.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can you tell us more about these techbros? Are they with us now in this room? Do they sometimes tell you to do things, bad things?

[–] toastboy79@kbin.earth -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I invite you to read my updated comment asshole :)

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] toastboy79@kbin.earth 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

presents information that would lead to a meaningful discussion even though it contradictions your point

nah I'm good

You're exactly as bad as the people you complain about.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world -3 points 1 year ago

Calm your nipples kettle.

[–] son_named_bort@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago
[–] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I do not use AirBNB anymore. I just use hotels or actual BNBs.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world -3 points 1 year ago

Maybe hotels should cost less money and they wouldn't have as much competition from clearly inferior products.