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https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Airbnb-asks-people-to-donate-money-to-hosts-15407730.php
Airbnb's latest attempt to appease hosts and customers amid a tumultuous year was met with a searing backlash on social media.
The online vacation rental marketplace, headquartered in San Francisco, initiated a feature this week offering customers the chance to donate money and "kindness cards" to hosts.
"Today we're introducing a new way to connect with your favorite hosts. Now you can create personalized kindness cards that make it easy to send a message of appreciation or encouragement, with the option to add a contribution. We hope these cards will make hosts smile, and bring a little joy your way," a message from the company to customers read.
"Airbnb has lost its f---ing head, why would I donate to my host? I can't even afford one house." Twitter user olenskae fumed.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 20 2020, @02:46AM (8 children)
There is absolutely nothing legitimate about taxi cab medallion monopolies.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday July 20 2020, @08:16AM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 21 2020, @11:00PM (4 children)
One way to change the law is to drive the businesses supporting the law out of business via the allegedly illegal competition. You don't eliminate political merchants by rewarding them. You do it by driving them into bankruptcy.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 22 2020, @09:02AM (3 children)
Have you never stopped to consider why so many people think you're a loon?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 22 2020, @06:11PM (2 children)
What is there to consider? I realize already that there are people who disagree with me. And some of them are incapable of understanding that.
I think there would a whole lot less concern over the rule of law, if Uber and Airbnb were doing stuff that was pro-Taxi cartel and pro-labor. Further, our rule of law has provided numerous constraints on democracies no matter which ones you consider. And a big, universal constraint is that one's rights don't disappear just because one is on the wrong side of a bureaucratic tussle.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 22 2020, @11:24PM
Fixed.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday July 24 2020, @09:29AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2020, @12:41AM (1 child)
You're ignoring history. They were created due to corruption of the taxi companies competing with each other. They were successful in reducing crime, blackmail, kidnappings, assignations, and reducing roaming bands of unoccupied taxis (those older companies operated like gangs). Sure the medallions were slowly corrupted and need to be fixed, but simply dropping them invites all the old problems to come back and we've already seen some of that. Uber making fake pickup requests to other companies, discriminating against which people they pick up (them creating ghost drivers and ignoring pickup requests from people they calculated were inspectors), varied rates, increased traffic, ignoring complaints, etc... Companies holding medallions are forced to meet the requirements for those medallions. If customers actually called into their cities to complain about abuses those companies would be held accountable or they lost the medallions (or you could vote someone in who would hold them accountable). Sure some of that has been corrupted, but services like Uber give you no resource. Further, if you complain too much you're the one who gets banned.
You're looking at all of the current cons of the medallions and ignoring all of the past pros. When you throw them out, you're throwing out all the pros as well.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 22 2020, @06:13PM