Reasons not to use Airbnb

Airbnb is destroying communities which many people like to visit, as many houses in them are now used as hotel rooms and there is not much in the way of housing to rent for all year.

Since you have to identify yourself, the company can ban you arbitrarily.

Airbnb requires you to run nonfree software (an app, or Javascript). It puts you in a data base easily available to Big Brother (just like a hotel).

Even worse, it may reject you unless you have a Google, LinkedIn or Facebook account. And if it is a Facebook account, you have to be used the way Facebook wants you to be used, telling Facebook about lots of relationships.

In May 2016, Airbnb inserted a mandatory arbitration requirement, requiring those offering housing to accept arbitration for any dispute with the company.

Airbnb rents rooms in Israel's colonies in Palestinian territory.

Seizing land from the people of an occupied territory and settling people from the occupying power there violates the Geneva Conventions.

Airbnb was springing fees on customers after first providing a misleading low price to make the sale.

Letting a company get off with just a warning for this encourages it and other companies to try again. We need to treat this as a serious crime, swindling, not like stealing a base in baseball.

Every company caught doing this should be fined the total amount of the fees collected through the deceptive practice in all transactions during the past 5 years. A few fine bankruptcies will teach the other would-be cheaters to stop probing to see how much cheating they can get away with.

Airbnb increases the price of houses — and the rent for a place to live.

Some nasty things about Airbnb. For instance, most airbnb rentals belong to large companies that gobble up lots of houses that people used to live in.

This could be driving up your rent.

Richard Stallman's personal site.

https://stallman.org

Reasons not to use Airbnb