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1) hotels don't use keys. The dodgy hotel guest can be shut out with the stroke of a key at the reception desk computer.

2) when things go wrong, hotels have staff on hand to deal with the situation.

3) hotels have insurance for when things go badly wrong.

All of these things cost money, which is partly why hotels are more expensive than AirBnB. The author assumed a lot of risk when subletting through AirBnB and is now complaining when the risk went wrong. I have very little sympathy for him / her.

The people I do have sympathy for are fellow residents of the apartment block, who had a reasonable expectation that their building wouldn't be turned into the site of a free for all sex party. They didnt get any say in this, and didn't receive any compensation. That is unfair.



Exactly.

The reason this vertical hasn't been disrupted in this manner is the inherent liability of dealing with humans.

An institution like a hotel chain can both:

-React to a situation like this immediately instead of letting it play out.

-Take the losses in the event that damage occurs and the guests credentials were fake.

------------------------------------------------

To an individual renting out less than 5 properties a loss like this is crippling.

Also agree that the real victims here are the fellow tenants +landlord, they won't be seeing any of that 90k+ or their shitty past tenant.


"3) hotels have insurance for when things go badly wrong"

Yes, and the reason they can buy insurance (or risk self-insuring) is that they have processes designed to limit the frequency and severity of these incidents.

I'm curious how much AirBnb pays for insurance. How much would you charge for an insurance policy if someone said they were going to let random strangers stay in their apartment, based on a few semi-anonymous comments on the internet?




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