Two current darlings of the tech industry are Uber and Airbnb. For those unfamiliar with these companies, Uber is a ride-sharing service that provides drivers with an application that allows them to use their personal vehicles to provide rides to passengers who use the Uber app. Airbnb allows people to provide rooms within their house, or entire properties, for rent to individuals who can book these rooms over the internet or through the Airbnb mobile app. In the past year, both companies have raised massive amounts of financing that have valued the companies at well over $10B.
I question whether these companies are really pursuing innovation or whether they are making money by exploiting loopholes in the regulatory system.
Uber, at its heart, is an alternative to the taxi system. It was born in San Francisco where the taxi system can be frustrating and inefficient. Uber allows people to bypass the taxi system to hail drivers using their smartphone, but that isn’t the biggest difference. Uber’s drivers are not required to purchase a taxi license, or medallion, to operate their vehicles. Medallions often cost any where from $500,000 to $1,000,000 or more depending upon the city. There’s also question as to whether Uber’s drivers are required to carry insurance and how stringent the background checks are since Uber claims these are part of its proprietary processes.
Because of the lack of regulatory oversight, licensing costs, and vague insurance and background requirements, Uber has a distinct advantage from taxis out of the gate. In other words, Uber isn’t focused on innovation, it’s focused on exploiting loopholes.
I will acknowledge that the current taxi system is rife with issues. It’s corrupt, monopolistic and generally dysfunctional. It’s a system that’s been in place for a long time and one that could benefit from competition. However, doing it in a way that skirts regulation and jeopardizes public safety by avoiding oversight is dangerous and irresponsible. It’s not unlike a battle fought in the early 1900’s over jitneys. In fact, I would feel more comfortable with Uber if it was working towards cooperating with governments to improve the current system to accommodate their service rather than fighting them, which seems to be the case with every new location they enter, especially on the international level.
Airbnb, on the other hand, is an alternative to the existing hotel system. Much like Uber, Airbnb has tried to categorize its service to avoid regulatory oversight. Up until recently, hosts (those renting the properties) were not required to register with the city to pay occupancy taxes like regular hotel operators. It’s slowly changing as city and local governments are slowly getting their arms around the service, as evidenced in San Francisco.
To put this in perspective, a friend of mine who lives in a small Southern California resort community decided to rent out their guest house on Airbnb. In an attempt to be a “good citizen”, he approached the city about applying for occupancy tax so the city could collect its fair share. The city, who had not dealt with this scenario previously, took months to issue him the proper license. Upon doing a search of all the other Airbnb rooms available in his community who obviously did not go through the process, he estimated that the city was losing approximately $250,000 in tax revenue from people renting unlicensed rooms.
For a small city, $250,000 is not an insignificant amount of revenue. Its taxes that allows them to provide and improve upon city services, provide adequate police and fire protection, and maintain public areas – many of which tourists use. Skirting occupancy taxes hurts everyone.
It also creates issues related to zoning. Residential areas are meant to be just that, residential. Services like Airbnb (and others) allow investors to come in, buy properties, and then use them for short-term rentals. It’s another reason why many cities are re-writing code to limit the number of days a property can be rented during the course of the year. It’s a regulation to protect the residents of the city and neighborhood from investors looking to make a quick buck.
What’s ironic about this situation is that I’m generally against regulation and more taxes. However, I’m also pragmatic and understand why we need certain taxes and regulations. It’s to protect us from ourselves and our human greed and selfish tendencies. Left unchecked, people will do what’s best for them, not what’s best for the common good.
There are valid reasons why regulatory systems were put in place over ride-sharing and room-sharing arrangements. I find it disingenuous and selfish that companies and investors claim to provide valuable services by skirting these regulations. Instead of driving change by working to improve the current system, they are trying to drive change by avoiding it. They are exploiting regulatory loopholes for short-term gain rather than investing in truly disruptive innovations that will provide long-term benefits. It makes me question whether services such as Uber and Airbnb are using technology to create disruptive innovation or merely manipulating it to maximize short-term gain at the expense of the systems that can’t adjust fast enough.
“What’s ironic about this situation is that I’m generally against regulation and more taxes. However, I’m also pragmatic and understand why we need certain taxes and regulations. It’s to protect us from ourselves and our human greed and selfish tendencies. Left unchecked, people will do what’s best for them, not what’s best for the common good.”
You assume a divergence between what is best for people and what is best for common good and yet no such divergence exists with Airnab or Uber. You mentioned public safety and yet have failed to explain how Uber/Airnab threatens public safety over alternatives. Obviously both services have advantages otherwise people would not be using them. If the disadvantage in public safetey where big than we should be hearing about them. And yet you don’t even bother to make an argument which implies the disadvantages are small since if they were big they would be noticed and you would have made the argument.
And so we have two service that have obviously large advantages for all and no large disadvantages. Why exactly is it bad. I think the real reason you think its bad is that they didn’t follow the “rules”. As if this were a sporting contest and what they did was unfair. But in the end there are no rules. Whatever works….works.
“Instead of driving change by working to improve the current system, they are trying to drive change by avoiding it.”
Uber is doing far more to change the current system by avoiding it than they would by following your approach of working within the system. In fact change is mostly driven by companies which break/bend or skirt around rules rather than those that patiently work to change the system. Uber has done 3 things by skirting regulation
1) It has run a real world experiment on what the new system will look like involving thousand of participants.
2) It has created a constituency for regulatory change through its outreach efforts – namely the people using the service
3) It has provided funding for the new idea. Namely the money its making. This money is “donated” by people who believe in the advantages of the new system…namely its customers.
4) Its definitely created awareness
5) Uber itself can be consider a foundation for change.
6) It has paid thousands of volunteers to participate .. namely Uber drivers.
So it seems to me the have done a hell of a lot to change the system and that if they were a non-profit fighting fo social justice you would not have any objections. You would be applauding their efforts. But somehow the word profit, consumer get thrown in and you are thinking they are destroying the common good.
Very valid points, but let me explain the first piece. A service like Airbnb is disproportionately in favor of the people who use the system. As a homeowner in a residential area, I wouldn’t be pleased if houses in my area were purchased by investors who turned them into short-term rentals. While I would assume that the majority of the people who rented would be respectful, law-abiding citizens, I am just as certain that there would be those who would abuse the privilege and disrupt the neighborhood I call home at my expense. Certainly, I could move, but what’s to prevent any area I choose to live in being turned into a short-term rental area. Only some amount of regulation that proposes a balance will work, like that which has recently been enacted in San Francisco with Airbnb cooperation.
On your second point, I’d have to say I agree in principle. In order to demonstrate the way a system *should* work, bending rules may be necessary. However, at some point, these companies need to grow-up and work towards finding a solution with regulatory support. I’m not going to claim to be an expert on either company, but from the outside looking in, Airbnb appears willing to work towards a long-term business model with regulatory support while Uber seems more content to continue its scorched earth policy.