The betrayal of community ethics by the venture-capital financed ‘sharing’ companies
▻http://buff.ly/1k4A5iQ
"The other big announcement came from Airbnb, at a press conference at their very fancy headquarters. In addition to announcing new versions of their mobile apps, CEO Brian Chesky stepped away from his “our hosts are regular people” line to tell them ”You’re in the business of hospitality”. Airbnb is bringing back a program calls Superhost, which “is meant to identify and reward some of the platform’s most active and highly recommended hosts”; as well as offering a Host Rewards Program to encourage people to rent more often. So again there is a move away from regular people “occasionally” renting a room out and earning a little extra money, to a revenue model that is driven by higher volume hosts. Airbnb already relies on these increasingly professional hosts for a significant chunk of its (...)
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