I think you are overlooking the word "experiment." I would expect this to be rolled out more extensively if the experiment were successful.
Is the so-called "experiment" focused exclusively on a jurisdiction that enforces those rules?
A/B testing tends to be randomized per session or per user or per marketplace, not per jurisdiction and specially only on those where AirBNB already lost lawsuits and thus has to face a precedent.
Also, is Oregon the hotbed of racism and discrimination in the US rental market?
According to Oregon government:
Among people living in Oregon in 2016, 76% identified as white, 13% Latina(o), 5% Asian and Pacific Islander, 2% African American, 1% American Indian and Alaska Native, and 3% two or more races.
And then that is further bolstered by the original point of Oregon to begin with. The territory and state was founded on extremely exclusionary and unambiguously racist principles, specifically against black people setting foot in its borders, and that can always be used to undermine how convincing its progressive rebranding is. Simple because its so meme-worthy how hard they are trying, without ever being confronted with a circumstance to put it into action.
It also stands to reason that there are people, families, dynasties, that harbor the continuous exclusionist ideals of Oregon, from its inception.
The point being, if the company was honestly concerned about racial discrimination, wouldn't it run this sort of experiment in problematic, high-impact regions?
I mean, would it make any sense to fight discrimination against Eskimos in Florida?
Many jurisdictions, including the federal government have similar laws. The challenge of the law itself never reached a judicial conclusion, so if AirBnB was willing to settle there, it was either because they thought it was a pretty solid law, or they made a cost benefit analysis to settle. If the latter, then the same is true other places. But instead they are making a harder business decision to resist changing anything, just to spin it as being an ally to marginalized customers.
This is a puff piece for a technology that AirBnB could roll out anywhere randomly across any population for the A/B test. Its harder for them to geofence this, harder for them to spin this, as opposed to just doing the normal software rollout strategy.
So that’s why. Think about it from the affected plaintiff or customers perspective.
Yes, sure, potentially roll it out after this “experiment”. But this is yet another example of why representation matters. This wouldn’t have even gotten greenlit this way if there were more decision makers familiar with this segment of the population by living it.
I’d believe they cared about this as an experiment to drive greater equal treatment in their platform if they complied with this agreement (and shut up about that) AND rolled out that same code someplace else, treated that as an experiment, and talked about that.
(I do see “hey, we have to do this anyway, so we might as well look at the data and see what outcomes it drives” as an inherently positive company action. I think the messaging around it as “we’re totally doing this as an experiment” while omitting the settlement agreement feels shady to me [to the point of it being an unforced error, albeit a minor one relative to the scale of the company])