Comment by Zak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Zak | Hacker News Reader

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Obviously, a micro-entrepreneur, like any other entrepreneur, runs a business, and the laws for businesses apply.

I see two difficulties here.

1. Much of the time, it's difficult to draw a clear line between an individual doing normal, unregulated things for which they happen to receive a bit of money and a person acting as a business. If some government official tried to punish me for running an unlicensed taxi service when I give a friend a ride in my car and ask for gas money, the case would be laughed out of court. Is it different if it's someone I just met, say at the airport instead of a friend? Is it different if it's a stranger and the arrangement was made online? Is it different if a third-party intentionally facilitated the transaction?

2. These kinds of regulations seem unlikely to change unless people are actually doing things that arguably violate them. The strategy of getting a large number of individuals to use and/or provide services that don't play nicely with existing regulations is likely the only way a startup has any hope of getting the regulations changed to allow its new business model.

As an airbnb customer, I'd be more happy if they'd properly work on improving the legal situation than playing this silly PR game.

What does this mean? PR is generally how one changes the laws, especially in a representative democracy. I suppose hiring lobbyists and bribing politicians might also work; do you think that's better? By what method would you suggest airbnb work on improving the legal situation?

Item #1 isn't a problem at all. Every day, courts have no trouble differentiating a business from what you do with your friends. Courts aren't stupid.

Additionally, laws are not executable code, not every hair has to be split up-front. Each of your scenarios would be addressed individually in a court of law.

As for #2, AirBNB could operate 100% entirely within the law tomorrow, if they wished: assiduously ban rentals that aren't owner-occupied.

This is exactly what I expect them to do.

Obey the damn law. Comply with investigators completely reasonable requests. Stop trying to "improve the legal situation" by shielding lawbreakers and issuing nonsense press releases.

not every hair has to be split up-front

This can make it difficult to know whether what you're doing is legal before incurring liability. It becomes a problem if a new official has a different interpretation of the law than the last one and decides to pursue enforcement aggressively. People can lose their livelihoods this way.

Comply with investigators completely reasonable requests.

You mean turn over private information about their customers to government officials who intend to take actions against those customers when they haven't been legally compelled to do so? If a company did that to me, I'd probably never do business with them again, and I would do my best to notify others.

Much of the time, it's difficult to draw a clear line between an individual doing normal, unregulated things for which they happen to receive a bit of money and a person acting as a business.

I think that one is quite straightforward.

If you're providing something in return for payment with the goal of making a profit, you are running a business.

When your friend gives you gas money, they're just paying their fair share of expenses you already incurred on behalf of the group. You're not making a profit and not running a business.

As has been answered by others, a micro-entrepreneur is collecting cash for profit. If you are splitting costs with your friends, you're hopefully not doing that to make a profit. If you indeed rip off your friends, I'd also be fine with you paying taxes :)

Re PR: I didn't suggest they should not be using PR, I said they should not play this silly PR game. It is not the method I'm after, it is the content.

Instead of pointing fingers and calling names, airbnb could lead a constructive dialog. I think they actually do have a valid story to tell on how their service is a net-benefit for society as a whole, how it's different from running a hotel and why their micro-entrepreneurs should therefore be taxed differently (!= not at all) from running a hotel.

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