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Anywhere you could build a hotel you could also build more housing, so they pose the same issue. There is necessarily some tension between using space for permanent housing and using it for tourism / short term stays. Tourism often keeps a city's economy healthy, and having short term stays is important for those visiting even for non-tourism reasons (e.g. in town to visit family, for work, etc).

The housing issue is more complex than just Airbnb / short-term housing as well: is there enough housing investment? what is the effect of international or corporate investment? are local regulations supporting or sabotaging the effort to build more housing? is there a large speculation market?


Ignoring some nuances, I see what you're saying-- At least in the long run.

The issue is however in the short run, air BNB encourages taking existing rentals out of the market to turn into short term rentals. The effect is driving long term rental prices toward the short term price level supported by income level of the visitors. (untenable for most residents).

The conversation of new units refers to a decades long process dependent on credit cycles and investment interest.


It is like arguing that the exodus from the rust belt in the late 80s and 90s was good for the cities because it made the cost of housing go down.

This is true if we focus entirely on housing cost and basically ignore all the down sides. Of course, ignoring the perspective of those who owned real estate too at that time.

Real estate always has quite a bit of preference falsification associated with it too. Everyone is always publicly outraged at the cost increase of real estate while those who own the increasing real estate are internally quite happy with the situation. I suspect that is the main variable why we can never solve this problem.


But...why should some direct investment towards "housing" if they can direct them towards the day-rentals ? Its definitely in their economical self-interest. So as long as we allow these platforms (be it AirBnB, Amazon or FB) to amplify a single parameter at the detriment of everything else in the society as a whole, I am afraid all the philosophical discussions about "complex" aspects will not help.


This is a supply/demand problem. Your solution is to restrict the supply of short term rentals. Restrictions rarely work, the hypothetical situation you mention would benefit from allowing more building of long term rentals.


No, I did not suggest the solution you are implying my comment meant. What I am saying is that these PLATFORMS are not the right way to handle the supply of short-term rentals, as they incentivise the home-owners to take them off the market for long-term rentals. I would be perfectly fine with short-term rentals which were not the converted living units. We have to think differently here. But if the push comes to shove, actually restrictions would work here in favour of the long-term rentals, because being, as you said yourself, a supply-demand problem, it would raise the supply of long-term rentals and reduce the prices. Just as it was happening before AirBnB. Its just that we have to be moral enough to recognise that the basic human right of a local in a tourist location to live affordably is set higher than the luxury problem of the so-called digital natives, namely, booking a short-term rental in a city center (so they can produce yet another piece of "content"). Not to mention that a platform which does not generate profit should not even be allowed to exist.


Most of the case it is because more building is simply not possible.

And anyway as long as there is no restrictions on the day-rental, investor will choose the option in their economical self-interest. Restriction must apply to force long term rentals.


That's the problem, isn't it? Capitalism sucks. City governments could set rules like: you must build 3 residential units for every hotel room.


> Tourism often keeps a city's economy healthy

I would not say "healthy", there is many situation where it is wealthy but not really healthy


I think what's at play here is the unusually palpable crowding out effects of tourism compared to any other industry. That is, when local stores get replaced by tourism shops, Landmarks etc. become more important than everyday amenities and the town becomes a sort of museum of itself.

Of course tourism can pipe in money and help a place invest in high quality services and amentaties compared to catering to industry.

However tourism often has a tremendous income distribution problem (see Hawaii or Colorado living conditions of service workers). This remains a fundamentally political problem to guarantee income distribution through living wage guarantees etc.


> Anywhere you could build a hotel you could also build more housing

Not really in practice. Ex: there's lots of hotels around airports and highways. Would anyone want to buy a house there? Definitely not. The markets and thus economics are totally different.

> having short term stays is important for those visiting even for non-tourism reasons (e.g. in town to visit family, for work, etc)

I don't know about "important", but "useful" yeah. The thing is like, how ubiquitous is this? I'd naively guess for every 1 person who finds this useful, 1000s more are negatively impacted by Airbnb.


There is endless housing immediately by airports and highways. Like literally any major American airport or highway has tons of housing right next to it. Even in more rural areas people deliberately building a house right by the airport to make routine traveling easier


"Endless"? The proportion of housing near to not near airports and highways is infinitesimal.


Feels like a possibly important but unrelated issue. Is there some connection to billboards?


It's discussed in the article.


That’s interesting, because I read the article and it seems like a straightforward rant against billboards. The discussion here - except for your comment - is about either billboards or advertising in general.

If the article is really a metaphor for something else (racist town ordinances? zoning in general? something else?) I think a lot of us have missed it. Perhaps you could enlighten us.


I don't think it's a metaphor, I just think it observes a municipality demanding a business tear down and rebuild a facade for aesthetic reasons and uses that as a justification for banning billboards. Ban all the billboards you want, but municipalities should not be enforcing those aesthetic rules.


Baldur’s Gate 3 is recent and very much doesn’t follow the Bethesda model! It’s also turn-based which was a big plus for me as well.


Seems the App Store link isn’t working for me (in Spain). Would love to give it a try!


Mm, please see previous comments on dealing with the respective app stores.

In this case Apple have de-listed me from the various EU app stores while they verify my 'trader information' - the requirement to publish my name and home address on the app store, next to my app.


Just rent one of the business address, either mailboxes or virtual office one.


The budget for this has very little bearing on the debt. See where the money actually goes here: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...


I like this website, even though the numbers are a few years old:

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/u-s-federal-budget-breakdown...

For basically all future years, an even greater proportion (more than two thirds) of federal government spending will be for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (old and sick and poorer people).


You're confusing the budget (maintenance spending) with the value of the real estate assets. That is, all of the land, e.g. 95% of Nevada, about 70% of the entire western USA

If that land was generating income, we could pay off the entire $35+T debt in no time.


I'm talking about revenue, not spending


"The U.S. government has spent $6.75 trillion in fiscal year 2024 to ensure the well-being of the people of the United States."

Reads like something straight out of George Orwell


Only if you don't know Orwell was an lifelong socialist.


Oh I do know that Orwell was a lont time socialist (I cannot vouch for lifelong as I do not know how he felt coming out of the womb).

He also was very much opposed to authoritarian rule and one of the points of 1984 was to distrust how a government used words to mislead -like in what I quoted


What is the authoritarian mislead in said quote?


Contrary to popular belief, socialism is not "when the government does stuff".


I think it’s reasonable not everyone feels the same way about this. I’d prefer for my body not to be washed nor placed in a coffin.


Counterproductive, and makes Garry Tan look like a real asshole. Now people will have sympathy for the Supervisors whereas a thoughtful criticism could have put real problems with their leadership on display.


Garry Tan is already doing the "thoughtful criticism" https://growsf.org/

Ranting on Twitter should not be a crime IMO


Standing on a podium shouting "A,B and C should die!" to your audience should be a crime, and luckily is in many countries.


>Garry Tan is already doing the "thoughtful criticism" https://growsf.org/

The act of providing "thoughtful criticism" doesn't make it OK to tell people you wish them dead.

>Ranting on Twitter should not be a crime IMO

I don't really see anyone saying that it should be. People are welcome to rant on Twitter, just as people are welcome to take issue with said rant, and then form an opinion of that person based on the words they chose to post.


There are legal crimes, and then there are social faux pas that gets one convicted in the court of public opinion.


Wearing white shoes in October is a faux pas. Putting lemon and milk in your tea is a faux pas. Wishing your political opponents death is a threat.


Yes, he is in politics. His rant is more in line with today’s politicial speech than that PR website.


I'm Blocked By Garry Tan, but Tan appears to actively focus on convincing his enemies that he is a real asshole.


Makes it look like, or makes it clear that?


Thoughtless perhaps, but I don't think this is enough to indicate arseholery. People often get very emotional about things and rant about people while still doing good things and behaving in an exemplary fashion most of the time.


I think it is indicative that not only is he an asshole, he's a asshole with violent tendencies.

I mean, I and everyone I know have become very emotional and ranted about things every so often, but never has expressing a desire to see people die a slow death entered into it. That he did says something important to know about him.


> If your self-driving car kills or maims someone in a situation where a normal sober person driving wouldn’t have

What if it does this while also _not_ killing/harming in many other situations where a human would have?


You’re paying them to rank and collect information from things on the web for you. People can’t subscribe to everything and it’s nice as a user of a search engine to know if it’s a requirement.


In addition to not getting paid, the employees are left with a tax burden for the RSUs they are now unable to sell since the cancellation happened abruptly in the window between vesting and the liquidity event.


Are you saying that Cruise is going to miss payroll?

Or are you just saying that's one possible double-whammy that could occur?


No, to clarify the salary is being paid but the stock liquidity program ended. However, single trigger RSUs mean tax may still be owed on those RSUs at the market value when they were issued.

So some people owe tax on eg $100k in extra “income” for shares they can’t sell anymore.


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