I never used Airbnb because I detest staying in strangers’ houses, it feels too Soviet. But now I’m definitely not going to be using it. Airbnb has gone nuts and is asking all customers to sign something nauseatingly called “Community Commitment”:
You commit to treat everyone—regardless of race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age—with respect, and without judgment or bias.
If you don’t sign like an obedient little child, you can’t use the service . Please note that no business is signing any pledges not to ddiscriminate, exploit or abuse the workers or the environment . We somehow owe a business venture the right to police our emotions or judgments but no business offers us any pledge of, say, offering parental leave or wage growth.
Fuck that shit, Airbnb. Go lecture somebody else on respect and community.
Clarissa's Blog 
When an organization ostensibly puts on a smiley face, you have to wonder why:
https://hbr.org/2016/07/airbnb-is-facing-an-existential-expansion-problem
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Yeah, signing that pledge will totally make hosts not screen non-white guests for their apartments. Yay, Airbnb is woke! It’s all going to be OK now. The housing crisis that Airbnb creates? Who’s got time to think about that?
Fuck this company.
And fuck how corporations have co-opted ‘social justice’ language to make it seem like they’ve offering something new, while doing absolutely anything.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, will gladly put transgender signs on Apple’s restrooms and get months of positive coverage from the fawning media but refuses to bring back a single dollar of the billions he’s stashed away in tax havens. Money that could really make a difference in people’s lives.
What’s also nauseating that the centrist liberals are completely happy with this arrangement. They don’t even ask for anything more. The more industrious among them have made a career out of it. One of the links in your ‘Thursday link encyclopedia’ referred to an article (“If you are still not tired of the screeds by wilting flower feminists..) by an idiot who used to post here. She now goes around the country lecturing people about inclusivity and privilege and shit.
2016 liberalism in a nutshell: wouldn’t it be nice to get bombed by a feminist fighter jet?
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/health/pink-fighter-jet-trnd/
Pretty in pink: Navy fighter jet painted for Breast Cancer Awareness month
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The pink fighter jet is obscene. The height of idiocy.
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The thing is that Air BnB does not own or maintain my infrastructure, I do. They’re super-extractive and the so-called sharing economy is a fleecing economy (as I have said before).
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“the so-called sharing economy is a fleecing economy”
I prefer the term “neo-sharecropping economy”
http://www.technologyasnature.com/sharing-economy-sharecropping/
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Great term. I agree completely that the word “sharing” is a total joke in this context.
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I thought that entire “User Agreement” came into place because many municipalities and courts are rejecting the claimthat AirBnB isn’t subject to the same laws about public accommodation that landlords and hotels are. (Or AirBnB thinks this will happen.) They know that any suit would be aimed at the company and not the individuals renting their pieces of property, no matter how many binding user agreements they set forth in front of people (“AirBnB is not responsible for screening guests or for any damages resulting from the use of this until the heat death of the universe. You and your descendants agree to hold harmless and non liable blah blah blah blah. Any disputes go to our special arbitration lawyers fart noises).
It has nothing to do with any warm fuzzy feelings on anyone’s part.
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Even if no such suits are possible, this secondary market discrimination affects AirBnB’s ability to make profits and expand its markets.
Oh wait:
As Airbnb Grows, So Do Claims of Discrimination
Ms. Cherry and Mr. Grant, who rented the Atlanta house, said that they were not waiting for Airbnb to address bias and announced this month that they plan to start Noirbnb.
“It’s a black-owned company that’s serving a market we know very well,” Ms. Cherry said. She added that the service, still in the planning phases, will welcome all people of all races. “We want to educate and empower other travelers of color.”
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