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SMNTY SuperHosts an AirBnB Episode · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to step.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told your production of iHeart Radio and today
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: we are continuing our tech streak. Yeah, I would say
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: this is in the tech. I'm thinking like I keep
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: saying we're in a mini episode because I think we're
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: gonna do like chunks of things. But yeah, we're definitely
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: for the bigger episodes in tech with some splashes of
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: things here and there with some splashes. Yeah. I also
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: like that you put steak and now I'm hungry. I
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: don't know joke. No one believes me about this. Speaking
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: of technology, my spell check doesn't work, and you know what,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I've explained it to you. Um butause basically, I've got
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: competing apps. I'm sure it's super easy to fix and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I just don't do it. But I always forget and
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: then I'll be going over and have the most embarrassing
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: like typos. Steak is a real word, so a word
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: sa a techish steak, which I think there has been
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: a three D printed steak, so you know, I'm sure
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm on another level. You're ready AI level? Yes, yes,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: which is an episode we are working on as part
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of this tech mini series. So listeners, if you have
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: any thoughts on that images you want to send very
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: controversial thing right now. People are love hating this thing,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: extremely controversial. It actually came up kind of a surprise
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: hang out with my friends last night, and they bought
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: it up without me saying anything, and I was like, wow,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: if no offense to them, you're you're probably know more
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: about technology than me. But I was like, wow, if
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: you're talking about the controversy of this, okay, okay, um.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So for this episode, you can see We've done a
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: couple episodes on traveling. A while back. Bridget did one
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: about women traveling alone, so if you want to check
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: that out, I think that is related to this. And
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: then I was thinking, recently we released a classic wherein
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I did not really explain why I bought up Barbarian
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: when I really listened to the intro of Barbary in
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the movie, I bought it up. And I think it's
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: related to this conversation because my landlord has recently kind
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of like just showed up without any warning at my
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: apartment and one time like tried to get in without
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: like any me saying I was there or like come in.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: The door was locked, so we didn't get in, like
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: he's a nice guy. I think it was an innocent thing,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: but it was one of those things that where the
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: line of Barbarian, which, as I explained, and that I
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: think it was a work from home revisit. Uh is
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the woman they both book, A woman and a man
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: booth book this airbnb. She says like, if I had
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: gotten here first, I would have never let you in
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: because he kind of like, oh, no, come in and stay,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and she's like, no, that would be ridiculous, like dangerous
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: for me to do. And that's kind of what I
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: thought with my landlord is like you you don't. You
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: live in a different world than I do. Right, You're
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: not thinking about to you, You're just like I want
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: to get in and do this. To me, I'm like,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: oh god, somebody's trying to get into my apartment, right.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many horrid teals anyway, and Barbarian
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: was one of them. And of course in horror movie,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: you expect the worst. So nothing panned out as you expect.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna spoil it, but so you were out
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: on edge at all times. And even when one scene
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: she finds his wallet takes a picture of his license
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and sends it to a friend about yet exactly what
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I would be doing. M That's what we talked about
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: in are the differences between like women and men dating
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: in a very heteronorma way. Is that kind of thing
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: like you had friends once so well, but the restaurant
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: make sure you have these safety things in place. And
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: one of the things the reason I bought up barbarian
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and net work from Home episode intro was because he
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: kind of my landlord kind of gave me this excuse
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: or not not excuse, but like he had the understanding
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: that because I work from home, he can come anytime.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: He doesn't have to check I'm going to be home.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if she's working. I can show up anytime. Um,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: which is what we were talking about in that intro.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: So that was something I was I kind of had
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to be like I record, like it has to be quiet.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: You can't just show up. You need to warn me.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: What does he think is like many times we when
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I take it worked from home, people talk about having
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: meetings left and right and being on this Like what
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: does he think this is? Like I know and that
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I went over the out of my way to be
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: like I record, it has to be you cannot just
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: come in. You shouldn't just come in exactly. Also like
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, I do think it's different for women, but
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: in general, you just shouldn't do right. That seems like
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: a violation and gittal. I know a lot of Lisa's
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: say you have to give a twenty four hour notice. Yeah,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, which just makes sense. Like the thing he
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: was trying to fix, which is still not fixed, by
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the way, is my refrigerator. It's a whole drama. Everybody,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Oh the drama of me and this refrigerator. And if,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: like you know, ideally I would know he's coming, he's
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: going to try to fix this. I can move everything
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: out the refrigerator. I can take everything off because everything
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: is cluttered in my apartment. Is Samanthan knows. But he
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: just showed up and I told him he had to
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: be done by a certain time. This is becoming a
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: rant about my landlord. I don't mean to be um.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: And then he was kind of flum mixed when he
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, I can't get this done, and then
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of time and I was like, yeah, that's
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: what I said, that's what you said. Yeah, And I think.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I was talking to a friend of mine who uses
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Airbnb a lot last time, Marissa, who's been on the show,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and that she said, like, generally her experience has been great.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: She loves it because she's a travel nurse. And she
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: talked about but the one time she bought something up
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: was when a man who owned the property showed up
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: and tried to get in, and she was like, thank god,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I was wearing pants and all this stuff. But that's
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: sort of the thing is, I think it's a different mindset.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: You don't just you don't just pop in. I feel
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: like that shouldn't be Why would why why? Just like
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: many people, my father was one of those who also rents,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: but he would be like, you know, I'll let you
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: know I'm coming tomorrow because of what if they're not dressed,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: whether if they're not decent, like that's what that's a
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: common saying. Be like, also are you decent? Like right?
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: And when my landlord when he showed up and he
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: tried to get in, it was Halloween weekend. I was
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: with a friend and it was like eleven thirty in
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: the morning, and we were definitely not dressed. I mean,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: we were had pajamazon like, and I was just thinking, what,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like on a
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: holiday weekend, which I consider how we know on Sunday
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: early on a Sunday for a couple of young women
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: who I said, somebody was staying with me that weekend,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: they're not going to be up and ready at eleven.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: That's very very optimistic, naive. Yeah, just out of touch. Yeah. Um.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: But a lot of the issues we are discussing are
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: some of the things that have come up around airbnbing,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: especially Airbnb with women, which we're going to be talking
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: about one of the big ones that we're going to
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: dive into a little bit that Samantha knows we've discussed.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I have learned how to look for hidden cameras surprisingly easy, actually,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: But that's one of those things we're like, I can't
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: believe I I'm doing this thought in my head, right,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: that I have to even worry about this, right? And
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: there are other than Barbarian. There have been a lot
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: of horror movies about Airbnb. Actually, I mean rental in general,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: but specifically lately Airbnb. There's one called super Host. There's
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: another one called like the Resort. I don't know, there's
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: more than one, which is not good for their publicity.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: And it's strange. I remember the first time I used Airbnb,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: which I do like generally. Um, I like the experience
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: of it. It's got a lot of issues, but it
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: is strange to sleep in somebody else's potentially their home
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: or like see their pictures and like us their stuff. Yeah,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: they have luked out With most of my experiences, it's
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: usually second homes or like a company. Now, I've definitely
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: say that that's happened a lot because I typically do
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: a full apartments or full homes instead of like shared.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Shared always weirded me out. The room shared to me,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I was like, so we had to hang out. That's
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: this introfer cannot handle this sacious introfer cannot handle sleeping
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: someone's house while they're there and just that especially not
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: knowing them. Um So I've always been like individual houses
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: or apartments or whatever whatnot. So I've looked out that
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: it's always been looks seems like older couples who have
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: retired and had that second home or a different home
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: or whatever, and they've been really cool about it. And
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: because airbaby is fairly new and everyone go into history
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: when air baby was fairly new. It was people trying
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: to get their ratings up so you would get the
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: good deal, so you might get like I got a
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: large house in Boston for cheap, cheap, um, and it
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: was like for five of us in the room in
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the house, and everybody had their own little rooms. Like
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: it was fantastic, and had like two baths, two or
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: three baths in the kitchen. It was close to the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: main area, so it's like amazing. But I was her second,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I believe guests, and so they were like trying to
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: get those ratings up to be verified, and it was fantastic,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: you know. So then you know, I've had some other stories,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: but you know, it's an interesting concept when they went
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: out the whole houses. But it's also one of those
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: like y'all are rich to be able to do this. Yeah, yeah,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I definitely I could do a whole podcast about interesting
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: airby and be experiences. I've had some of them really good.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: One time I stayed in San Francisco apartment was amazing.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: The guy was there, he turned out to be super cool,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: but we were sleeping in a room in his apartment
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: like he was there. And then one time I said
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: this one I think was misleading. I would never like
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: go out of my way to leave a bad review
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: unless there was something real terrible. But I do think
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: the posting was misleading because it was like a small room.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: It was in Boston, in this older couple's house, and
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: it had like the loudest, clankiest radiators, and like the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: bathroom door would entirely close. There's like older house kind
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: of thing. I wasn't really mad about it, but it
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: was I don't think it was properly advert I definitely
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: had a moment where former host Caroline and I would
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: do a trip almost once a year, UM, going out
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and about. We decided to go to Nashville one year UM,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and we went and the advertising was standalone home, two bedroom, bathroom.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: All these things were like cool, cool cool in this neighborhood.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Neighborhood was shady or like but it's okay, you know,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: we get it. We pull up and the house was
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: not a standalone house. It literally was this house where
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: a college student was living. And this was how he
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: was off setting his home by saying that it was
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: an individual house because the kitchen was shared, but he
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: had like a gate between the dining room and the
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: kitchen to separate the two bedrooms in the one bathroom
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: we shared, as if to say, there's a whole room.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: But what was so on top of that was he
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: was there for that night, but another person was also
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: staying on the couch. It was wide open space, and
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: there was a dog in a crate in this wide
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: open space, and we were like, what is happening? And
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: that home was so engrossing dirty, But this he said,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: we were the last people to be staying, so he
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: gave no about the review. So we left like the
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: next morning. I think we stayed that one night and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: it was so creepy the way like it was going.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: The kid was up all night doing things and just
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: because you have a gate, like a baby gate, that
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't make it sound proof. So we were looking at
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: what was happening. So the next day we left and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: got a very fancy, like a nice hotel. But it
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: kind of was like, Okay, this is where we have
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: to be like, yeah, this is a complete lie and
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: they can't and won't do anything about it. They are
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: probably one of the worst to be honest, uh, to
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: help and refund. That's what I've seen because they definitely
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: didn't I remember correctly, they did not refund us for that,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: right right, right right, And they also make fun of
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: that whole thing in Barbary. Yes, like extra space, added room,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: whatever you can do. As always when we do these
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: tech episodes, we're focusing specifically on Airbnb and it's issues.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: It does have benefits. We're gonna talk about some of
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: those later. And it's also not the only like rental
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: temporary rental company that has these issues. But today, yes,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: we are talking about Airbnb um, which does have a
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: fascinating history. Okay, so if you don't know, Airbnb is
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: basically an online resource where renters can match with hosts
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: to stay on their properties, and then both parties can
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: rate and review each other. So sort of like a
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: website where you can find places to rent that belong
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: to other people that are generally not hotel owners or companies.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: But that is changing, as you said, we'll talk about
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: that too. It might be their vacation house, their home
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: while they're away, or just the property they purchased solely
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: for renting, like cabin renting, but not necessarily a cabinet.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: In fact, that's kind of what differentiated it at first,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: was just like not role. You can do it in
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: cities specifically, so it was everywhere like you could find
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: you could find one potentially anywhere. Some of them are
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: quite extravagant. Some of them are themed with things like
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Star Wars. I've had friends try to convince me, like,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: let's get a property and do a Star Wars theme one. Um.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Some of them are literally closets, which is going the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: DJ Khaled and I think which is closet admittedly is
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: probably bigger than my apartment, right but probably a giant space.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: So yeah, but it is a closet that he's renting
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: out on Airbnb. They do they do a lot of
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: promotions like that. I think you could get the hocus
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Pocus house for a minute. Yeah, they do a couple
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: of things like that. Some of the rentals are long term,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: but most of them are short term rentals and that
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: was kind of the original intent. There can be a
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: lot of like h o A stuff around it, um
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and where they can be more on that later too,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: and they you there have been a lot of issues
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: around gentrification, bad host secret cameras and right now fees
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: as a big one. More on that eater too. Um.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: But it is also night when it works out. It's
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: nice to stay in a place that has a living area,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: kitchen space. Um usually there perhaps not in the like
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: trusty part of town or all of the hotels are
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: like there's a nice part of that, there's also a
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: dark side of that. But a host often leave advice
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: about where where to go. Um, and they'll even customize
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: to whatever you're doing or interested in, or a lot
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: of them. Well, um, sometimes they leave snacks or drinks
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: for you, especially like when I went to New Orleans,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: they left a bunch of like specific beers and snacks
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: to New Orleans. It feels generally, I would say, more
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: personal and of the place you're staying in then a
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: hotel does. But um, there can also be a matching
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: limit to it. I guess where like you can you
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: can really customize what kind of stay you want. Yeah,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and that took a minute because originally it was just
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: stay here for this many days, here's your fees. Um.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: They expanded to things like the themed uh stays and
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: then yeah, they did customizations like I just saw one
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: on TikTok and I believe it was in Iceland where
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: they on Airbnb they could book a tour with this
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: one dude for a certain amount of money and he
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: would take you on this giant trip for two days
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: and it was all through Airbnb, but they didn't know
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily the same booking and they did that
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: outside of right. Yeah, that's true. I had I stayed
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: with an Airbnb once where the the guy who's very
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: nice who owned the property had a huge tour book
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and he ran a tour company. And when he like
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: plopped it down in front of me and it did
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: like the cartooners stood. It was like all these stories,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I can't take you cool, Okay, So let's break down
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: the basic history of Airbnb. The story begins with Joe
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Gibbia and Brian Chesky. The pair had met at the
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Rhode Island School of Design and were rooming together in
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: San Francisco in two thousand and seven, and at the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: time they knew that a huge conference was coming to
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the city and people were struggling to find hotels, which
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: is also mentioned in Barbarian not a sponsor, but we
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: did like it and give you a cent Chusky this email, Brian,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I thought of a way to make a few bucks,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: turning our place into quote designers Bed and Breakfast, offering
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: young designers who come into town a place to crash
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: during the four day event, complete with wireless internet, a
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: small dust base, sleeping mat, and breakfast each morning. Yeah dude.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: They thought that they could not only provide the space,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: but they could also act as tour guides. So to
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: enact this plan, they created the website air bed and
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Breakfast dot com. And I never realized this with the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: airs for air mattress Yeah, so yeah, they went out
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: and purchased three air mattresses. They set them up in
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: their space, and then voila, they got some hits. Their
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: first guest, two men and a woman, paid eighty dollars
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: each for the air mattress in place to stay. One
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: of the guests, designer named them All, said in being
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: one of the first Airbnb guest feels like being on
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: the Tonight Show. But I didn't know I was on
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: the Tonight Show. Mm hmmm uh. Realizing they were onto something,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Gebatsky reached out to an old roommate of their's named
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Nathan charge Sick and I hope I didn't completely butcher that. Um.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: It was not smooth sailing at first. They spent about
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: four months working on essentially a roommate matching service before
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: realizing that it already existed. It was called roommates dot com,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: so they pivoted back to their air bed and breakfast idea.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Their second launch flew totally under their radar, really didn't
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: get much attention at all, and their third launch in
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight at south By Southwest only garnered
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: to customers including Chesky, so one of them um but
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: they were determined, so that same year, the creators went
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: looking for investors. They'd redesigned to make a simpler experience
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: that promised a lodging in three clicks. Out of fifteen investors,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: eight rejected them and seven completely ignored them. Uh Still,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: this did not stop them, and they launched yet again
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: at the two thous Democratic National Convention in Denver because
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: they knew a hotel room shortages worked to their benefit. However,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: they still weren't making money from the site, so they
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: took Cereal boxes. They made them into Obama's Hope and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: every Bowl was the catchphrase, and Captain McCain's that they
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: were selling for forty dollars and it was fairly successful.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: The boxes included their company information, the whole thing earned
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: them dollars, so this was a side hustle. Yeah. Basically
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: they were like, buy these commemoratives cereal boxes, and then
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: their company information was in there. I feel like that's
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: so many there's gonna be like train mood violations. There
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: seems almost sketchy. But okay, you do you bro, you
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: make that money, I guess. So this gets into complicated
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: finance stuff that isn't really Yeah, our expertise. We were
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: talked about this before, but essentially a venture capitalists was like, yes,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: I'll work with you. So in two thousand nine, the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: creators participated in an accelerator that offers money and training,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and they strove to really nail down the product and
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the experience they wanted to offer. So even so, many
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: investors were skeptical, and one later admitted he never even
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: looked past the name and the fact that the original
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: model basically called for air mattresses on people's floor, so yeah,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: not too thought up. But just to note, a lot
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: of this happened during the Great Recession and people were
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: eager for cheap travel, so it was it was a
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: thing that people wanted. But yeah, the investors were like
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: yes and for us who when I was cheap traveling
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: it was six people in uh also a great hotel
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: room with two queen beds and yes, air mattresses, so
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: we could do that instead for a night for us. UM.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: So the founders stayed with the original host in New York,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: taking pictures and writing reviews, and in two thousand nine
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: they shortened their name to Airbnb. Soon after they secured
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: a six hundred thousand dollars in seed money. One of
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the founders described this as going from eating cereal all
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: the time to being Roman profitable. I'm wondering if it
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: was Obama, ohs or the McCain Captain McCain's. So when
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the founder's apartment got too crowded with employees, one of
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: them lived only in airbnbs for role months. M so
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: that made you've sleeping on air mattres the whole town. Yea.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Despite these troubles, Airbnb was in eighty nine countries. By
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: one million nights had been booked on their platform, and
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: they won Breakout App of the Year south by Southwest
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: that year. Um. On top of all that, they received
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: over one and twelve million dollars in investment. A Silicon
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Valley unicorn, which people have explained to me. I still
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: don't really understand. But I came up a lot when
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I was researching this, so yeah, sure. But with this
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: vast growth came growing complaints from host about guests leaving
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: their places trashed or receiving noise complaints from neighbors. On
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: top of that, host started reporting being fined or evicted
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: for putting their place on Airbnb. UM, and that's thousands
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: of dollars both of those things. UM. Cities like New
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: York started to threaten to ban all short term rentals,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: including Airbnb, and several cities illegalized renting out a unit
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: if you were there for less than thirty days. UM.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Even in San Francisco, where they got this idea, a
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: citizen led ballot sought to crackdown on Airbnb in the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: company spent eight million dollars to fight that. UM. They
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: also promised to collect quote community compact reports and started
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: collecting and remitting hotel taxes in some cities. Elizabeth Warren
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: called for Airbnb to be investigated for its role in
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: short term housing shortages. So all that's not good. And
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: to combat this, they did another redesign in but it
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: didn't go quite like they would have liked. I never
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: realized this. I never this didn't come on my radar.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: But many people mocked and criticized the new logo as
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: looking like Genitalia. Yeah, I'm trying to remember, it's like
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: a bubbly it's there's there's still their logo. Um, I
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: see it, but I'm not. It wouldn't be the first
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: thing I would have. I don't know. Even one pointed
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: it out. I was like, okay, But before that, I
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: was like, this looks like an a to me. Got
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: your attention. So this company is quite lucrative. We all
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: know them, yes, and it has been a good conversation
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: about rental shortage as well as housing crisis. So it's
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: a whole different thing. Um, and it can earn hosts
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of money. Airbnb was worth about thirty one
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: billion dollars as of twenty UM. This is more than
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Hilton and Wyndham combined. However, they obviously took a big
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: hit during the pandemic. US travel slowed and by some accounts,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: loss up to eighty percent of their business. Wow, the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: pandemic did see a real jump of women uh using
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Airbnb are are being hosts on Airbnb, in part because
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: they were being force out of jobs due to various
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: COVID real added reasons which disproportionately impacted women. Talked about
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: that a lot in more women joined the platform than
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: men of host identify as women, and in the US
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: that numbers fi women host new to the platform raaked
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: in at one point one billion dollars that year over
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: five dred and fifty million of that from the US.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: It's one of these numbers. I'm like, I'm not sure
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: we're getting the whole picture here, but women made more
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: than twelve billion dollars on Airbnb. Still, a recent study
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: found that women on average earn a quarter less than
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: their male counterparts on Airbnb. Are we talking about hosts?
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Are we talking about employees? Host host? For sure? Uh,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: women do generally receive higher reviews compared to men six
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of super host, which is, you know, like the best
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: rated and most consistent hosts they have a badge are women,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: which coincides with I think socatical expectations around host in
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: our service industry in general and women's role in that.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: And indeed, while these numbers have gone up for Airbnb,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: women have generally made up the majority of hosts on
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: the platform. Some stats suggest that they make up a
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: majority of renters as well. Is it because they're the
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: ones in charge of planning so it's in their name?
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: It could be your I think that's a big part
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: of it. It could be um. I know we we've
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: used Airbnb for work a lot, and I'm always the
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: one that is in charge of booking them. Not that
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: that necessarily says anything, but yeah, that's a good point.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: The global head of Airbnb Hosting, Katherine Powell, claims that
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the trench she sees is more women become host during
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: times of transition, where that's you know, maybe you lost
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: your job, or you're moving in between jobs or something
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: like that. That's when more women become host. Um, And
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: speaking of this brings us to so this is our
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: history bit, but we did want to talk about some
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: of the issues here andally with women. And I think
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: going back to what we were talking about in the beginning,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: there's just a whole difference in safety concerns for men
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and women when it comes to traveling at all, but
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: when it comes to staying in an airbnb. And I
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: know you and I have talked about this like sometimes
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: all the time, I try to find information about the host.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I try to go and see, okay, are they kind
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: of like reading or they left? Like I try to
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: find information UM, so that I don't get there. I
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: feel like totally unsafe, uncomfortable the whole time. Oh yeah,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: like we even when we did you and I went
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to a cabin. I told you. I went through everything
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out everything because I didn't want to
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: support anyone who was bigoted or racist, and I didn't
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: want to feel unsafe. I didn't want the neighborhood to
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: be unsafe. Again, I have a lot of color for
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: going into like country settings or US roles stings. I'm like, yeah,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I have to be really, really cautious because I don't
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: want to be uncomfortable for any reason, especially just being
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: who I am. UM. And I'm making a lot of
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: gestures listeners because that is something that I have to
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: think about constantly. And that's one of the things that
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: had a big complaint in Airbnb. I'm sure we're gonna
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: talk about it that a lot of hosts were racist
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: and therefore may change their mind after seeing a person
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: um and taking back the reservations and or any of that.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Canceling them and finding excuses to keep the money, which
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: is very very concerning in itself. But yeah, like that's
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: become a thing. It was like I have to research you.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I have to look at every single review and if
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: it looks any suspicious and if there's no only two reviews,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I'm less likely to go. Yeah, which sucks because I mean,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I'm totally with you, but it's one of those things
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: where you're like the hosts trying to get more reviews, right,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: but no one's coming because you don't have the review right.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: And way back when, I don't think I would have
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: thought about it as much as I do today. Yeah, yeah,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: and I don't don't think the things you're talking about,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: like those aren't only Airbnb things, because I was thinking
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: about you know, like motels or hostiles especially. I saw
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: some people will say, like, you know, at least at
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: a hotel, I got a pretty generic experience, like maybe
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I don't like the owner, but I'm not gonna have
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: to interact with them or your whole thing. But it
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: is like just a fact of life as women, as
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: marginalized folks. This is a thing we have to worry about, um,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and it is we're going to talk about some of
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: where it's gone pretty wrong recently. But it's like it
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: sucks because you know, if you're you're going on a vacation,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: you're very excited about it, and to show up and
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: not feel safe or to have your reservation canceled in
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: it become a whole thing. Like that's right, heavy side. Okay,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: So I found this really interesting. Lots of women host
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: and guest have expressed a desire to work only with
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: women um either way, but that is currently only allowed
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: if there's a shared living space. But I did want
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: to share some of the comments to show you how
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: this conversation is playing out, because it basically a host
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: had asked, Hey, I'm curious, is this an option I
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: can do on a forum? And here are some of
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the responses. Okay, I don't know, I'm a guy. Can
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I just rent to women? Sounds creepy, doesn't It doesn't
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: matter your gender. You're fundamentally being sexist because you predetermined
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: that there are cons to renting two men. I don't
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: fault you for it. The world is a disastrous place
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: that can be fickle and terrifying at times. My suggestion
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: delete this post post the listing. Deny all male applicants
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: with a fabricated, legitimate sounding reason rent to women only.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Problem solved. Don't be some weirdass person baiting people into
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: your spike cam invested contraption. If you do, let it
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: be known that someone eventually will bludgeon you when you're caught. Hypothetically,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: of course, interesting. I would say, I think it's the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: odd if it was like women only, and yeah, like
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: why because I have a partner, you know, like in
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: a relationship, I don't understand what's going on. Um, that
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: would be odd. But as a woman, Yeah, I'm looking
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: more at women. I don't know, maybe I haven't. I'm
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: thinking about it. But typically it's always been couples and
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: more again, like it's become more an organization. That's that's
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: doing it, a company. So I'm like, okay, I guess
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: that's better. Well, I know, I think ubern left have
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: to like women. They don't. They don't, but they talked
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: about it. They people have been begging for it, yeah,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: which I get. I had a very informative conversation with
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: the driver once and I was like, okay, yeah, another
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: episode that we should probably do about ride chairs. Well
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: we have a classic coming back, but yeah, we should revisit, yes,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: because it's gotten sketch. And here's another one. You will
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: be severely limiting your guess pool if you do this,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: and nine of male guests are not to be easier
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: to host than female guests. They respect privacy and are
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: less critical and demanding. However, having said that, there are
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: some males on the earth who failed to respect the
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: rights of women, and sadly that reflects on all of
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: us men. If it puts doubts in your mind set
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: a few visible boundaries, and if you do, the gender
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: issue will never happen. That seems really optimistic and ridiculous,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: But okay, I love the they respect privacy and are
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: less critical and to man, I mean statistically, women are
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: less likely to complain or send things back typically typically yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: And then here is one less quote. Yes you can
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: if the living spaces are shared, and I understand why
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: you'd want to, just to ease your mind about being
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: physically safe when you're renting to people you don't know.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: There are plenty of Airbnb choices for men if you
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: choose to rent to women, So you can, and it's
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: totally fine. I love staying at places that are female
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: only so that I don't have to worry about the
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: anxiety of being physically afraid. Men who have a problem
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: with this feel personally rejected, but because they don't understand
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: or appreciate the reality of the degree to which women
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: feel physically afraid of men every day, I understand. That's fine.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to read it because this comment thread
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: was very, very many pages along. This was these were
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the first three companies, and I think there's like a
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: more nuanced conversation to be had about the benefits and
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: negatives of this. But it was the first two from
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: men that was very much like right, it was without
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: you telling me I was men. Yes, I made these
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: complaints yep. So I just thought that was interesting. And
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: then there have been a few stories of hidden cameras
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: in airbnbs, but it is worth mentioning that many have
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: been debunked weren't actually true. Um, any amount of hidden
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: cameras is not good, but just saying do your research,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: they're actually fairly easy to search for. As I said,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I think it gets more complicated when something is cauldored,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: like my apartment. UM. But generally there have been a
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: stories of abuse of hosts dying while some people have
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: been there, which is horrifying. UM. I did find an
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: article all about like how to make your rental more
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: women friendly and it was, um, pretty fearmongery and sexist,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: right yeah yeah. And women have shared stories of sexual
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: assaults surrounding airbnbs. In an alleged rape that took place
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: in a New York Airbnb, the person received a seven
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: million dollar uh settlement that was secret um. As part
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: of the settlement, she was forbidden from going public with
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: her story. In a woman from New Mexico alleged sexual
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: assault from a super host on their property. In particular,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: black women have raised their hands about sexual misconducts they've
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: witnessed or experienced in The hashtag Airbnb while Black started
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: trending after a video showed a white host shoving a
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: black South African woman that was staying at her property
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: down the stairs in Amsterdam. Um, it was a dispute
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: about late checkout and a lot of racist phrases were used.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: People with black sounding names have been disproportionately rejected from airbnbs.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: A recent study found an on a similar note, one
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Trump supporting host had to pay five thousand dollar fine
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: and take an Asian American studies class after refusing to
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: rent to an Asian American guest. So not good. Also
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: not good queer guest have phrased issues because yeah, for
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: queer people, traveling can be risky. You can look at
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: what's going on in the world cup Um, Queer couples
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: have been kicked out by a host expecting a straight couple.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: One reported having their reservation canceled and then getting the
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: message no LGBT people please, I do not support people
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: who are against humanity. In response to that, a company
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: called missed or BnB got started in with over three
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand gay friendly host in one hundred countries. That
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: is one. I think there's a couple of companies that
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: did that. Um. And this is one of those things
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: that I get but annoys me, and it annots me
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: that it's a thing. But I do get it because
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: it provides some sense of comfort and security and even
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: awareness because of the reality we live in. But I
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: hate that it is a thing. When someone posted in
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: an Airbnb forum about adding an l g B t
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Q plus friendly sattus, the first comment was, oh, man,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: completely unnecessary. If you want to be treated like everyone else.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Stop acting like you're different than everyone else. As hosts,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: many of us have a legal responsibility to treat everyone
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: the same. Remember, money has no feelings like that. Even
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: though there's many reports of people being rejected. Okay, I
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: start a comment from a man. As hosts, we can
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: make sure that we treat you equal in giving guests
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the same amount of tell, coffee, tea, etcetera. Why the
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: hell would we want to know someone's gender orientation, etcetera,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: or even want to pander to that. I would be
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: very suspicious of those that are interested in what private
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: things I may prefer. This notion reminds me of how
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: far and the gut of the world has gotten. People
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: do not want to feel equal. They want to feel special,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: totally different. Most of the time, I get the sense
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: that when people are actually being treated equal, they realize
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: it isn't all it's cracked up to be and really
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: just want to be favored instead. Because being treated quote
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: equal is being treated as standard, says the dude who
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: has never been harassed or probably stalked and or yelled
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: at or rejected. Okay, being to be you go to
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: be treated like me, A white man who gets paid
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: fine and doesn't have to worry about their safety. That
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: would be lovely. That would be lovely. Oh yeah. The
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: next two comments were from women, and they were actually
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: helpful in my opinion. One said, some gay friends have
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: remarked that they don't use Airbnb without a recommendation because
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: they are Their friends have been embarrassed in the past
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: when their hosts claimed to have double booked when they
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: learned they would be hosting a gay couple. I now
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: have a stated nondiscrimination policy in my listing. Um. Another
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: man said, I still look on this l g B
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: t Q plus thing as a fashion. Discrimination is still
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: alive around the world and maybe will always be. Ten
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: years ago, there was not even the word lbg T here. Uh.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: There was many gays, lesbians, et cetera around, but no
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: one was paying attention on them. And I'm pretty sure
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: that ten years ago there was less discrimination against these
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: people than today. They were also in the closet, So
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: a fashion all right. This, by the way, was not
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: one of the helpful comments I was mentioning. Just to
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: be clear. Um, here's another one. Most definitely not if
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: an LGBT person is of the temperament that he or
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: she wishes our only feels comfortable surrounding themselves with LGBT host.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Then there are platforms out there that catered for them
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: to have your sexuality described on your host profile. Actually,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: what I believe discriminate against non LGBT host in this
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: day and age, it really should not be an issue.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: I am talking from experience here as a gay man
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: who has hosted on Airbnb for three years. I also
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: briefly listed my property on a specialist gay platform. It
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: was a disaster with guests expecting much more than a
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: room and bathroom for the night. Okay, there's a lot
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: to impact there. I feel like this kind of fearmongering
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: thing at the end, we've seen a lot, especially for
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: target it against transgender people of this sort of like
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: deviant perverted sexual being um, which is gross in wrong.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Also like oh, I get oh, I'm trying to like
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: find the like point here, but I can see the
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: argument that you know, this could backfire in some ways
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: for hosts, But also like this is not the argument
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: you wanted to right at this whole level of like
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: they have rights, they need to be quiet, why do
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: they want to be special is obviously very very homophobic,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: like it's everything to do with your discrimination and feeling
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: like you may lose to it a status quo like that, obviously,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: what's happening with this conversation and being like, I'm gay,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: I don't do this right. I think it's the same
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: thing when like when I wear the Futures Female I
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: have a Futures Female hat and every I swear to
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: God every time I wear it. At least one man
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: tells me I want to live in a few sure
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: where we don't even need to say that, and I'm like,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: you know what I do too, But the truth is
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: we don't. We did live in a in a moment
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: where you thought you didn't have to say it, but
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: you should have because that's what made it bad, right,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of that same thing if like I
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: get I would also love to live in a world
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: where we don't need to think about, you know, putting
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: lgbt Q friendly like host status on there, but we
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: don't live in that world. We would love to be
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: treated equally and not have to worry about our safety
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: once again, and that you are going to be respected
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: as humans. That would be lovely. Also, we would love
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: to get to there. But until that happens and we
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: see people stop being murdered for the orientation or their sucks,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: then we'll talk about it. Yeah, it is. We've talked
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: about this a lot because it is. It's a frustrating
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: and problematic thing because we were talking about that in
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: self defense, Like the reality is women do face more danger.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: But then you're selling self defense, right, it's like making
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: money off of that. I get it's it's camp located,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: but it's also like we have to not self defense necessarily,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: but this we have to think about the reality of
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: the right having a guarantee that you are actually going
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: to have that space, um and not show up and
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: be like, oh you're not what I thought you were.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Let me reject you. M that's different exactly. Yes, there's
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: also been some uh some issues around able is um
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: in disabled Airbnb host went viral on TikTok after she
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: shared the story of how Guessed demanded a refund because
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: they didn't like her accessible doorbell. The allegations are really terrible, like, um,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: she should have warned them in case they caught her
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: disability from her She uploaded the videos to get air
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: and B and B attention because like you said, they're
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: not great about because they the people continue to stay.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Uh and then wanted a refund from the host um
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: and she was obviously like no, yeah, it was not
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: being helpful, so she did it on TikTok. I think
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: it's ongoing and then yeah, like this is probably it's more.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: It's denser than what we have for this podcast. But
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: there's huge issues around gentrification and Airbnb. Um. It caused
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: us a lot of problems in neighborhoods. It inflates housing prices.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: In fact, that Airbnb I mentioned that I stayed at
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: in New Orleans, across the street it was a sign.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: People have signs in their windows like no Airbnb, right. Um. Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: In the state of Georgia, they put in a new
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: law that you can only have two and one of
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: them you has to be your home because it had
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: gotten so outrageous. And I know a couple of the
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: companies that I didn't realize was a company until like
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: I would look through and they would have six listings
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: under one person. This is their business. And you start
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: thinking about the fact that, yeah, there's a huge housing
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: crisis right now with the inflation happening, So therefore the
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: mortgage rates going up. Of course, we're not talking about
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: corporations who have also bought giant companies, and and we're
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: not talking about individuals who are trying to make extra money.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Like there's a variation of like, okay, this this is
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: one way the freedom to do what you want with
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: your own space. But when you have corporations that literally
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: just profit off of short term um rentals and as
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: in opposing to actually having people who live there need
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: need to be there and have space there because that's
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: where they live UM and they're not available, is turns
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: really ugly really quick. Yeah. Yeah, And I think that's
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: one of the things I took away from this is
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: that I am think Airbnb needs to be more regulated.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think it the intense was that companies would
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: buy up things and people would buy all these properties
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: in rentom. I think the original intent was, yeah, it's
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: it's your place, and you're renting out of space in
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: it may year they're not. I think it was early
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: on with when couch surfing, like there was a site
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: that you could just crash on people's couches. It was
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: kind of along that line of just being able to
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: afford to travel uh, individually and and and with the
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: idea that people are on as good people and you
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: can meet new people this way. Um, but that has
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: gone so far away from that to being such a
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: profit machine billions of dollars worth, right then that's not
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: including and I'm sure we're gonna talk about this, the
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: cost of fees alone that come out of your pockets.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Usually it's several hundred dollars on top of the fees
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: you're already paying, often at the same time that you're
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: told you have to partially clean before you leave. Yes, yep,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: it's quite hilarious. Yeah, yeah, And I do think there's
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: you know, being a responsible traveler is a bigger conversation
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: too that we've talked about on here. But like you know,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: if we're all kind of getting priced out, like we
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: can't afford the hotels, we get the air and b right,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: and then we're coming in we either general royally coming
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: in and not supporting the neighborhood that we're staying in, right,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: and then it gentrifies it. It's it's a real problem.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Often times, like that you had said earlier, people will
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: see this as like a kind of a rental card thing.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Do what you want and leave and try to get
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: away with like doing the most absurd things, like the
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: parties that have her. Like there was this one tweet
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: that I just read apparently he had a sex party.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: There was substances everywhere and oh in the and the
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Airbnb O it was really nice about it, be like, hey,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: we agree to this. You got this much day, which
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: I will settle for three hundred which apparently like probably
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: thousands of dollars worth. But like so he did a
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: go fund me to raise money for that, but like
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: to do that, it seems so disrespectful as well, so
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: you kind of wonder and then the forn neighbors to
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: have to deal with parties. There was one dude that
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: was a scammer apparently who wanted to pretend like he
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: was a restaurant tour and all he did was go
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: around airbnbs and host events but make money off of
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: that Airbnb posting events. Yeah, so that some shady stuff. Yeah,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: I've definitely gotten a host, which I was not offended by,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: but they're like what are you? What do? I just
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: want to make sure you're like, hey, I got you.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: And yeah there have been as you were mentioning a
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: lot of recent headlines about fines about basically, you know,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: if you stay at place they you pretty much have
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: to clean the whole thing. And then the fines and
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: fees are so large people are not I'm not happy
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: with it, understandably. I do think there's perhaps a more
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: nuanced conversation to be had there because I'm not entirely
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: sure with them. I don't know. I'd be curious to
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: learn more more about that and the expectations. Airbnb has
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: redone those fees, so it's not supposed to be that
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: significantly higher. Like at one point I remember looking that
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I would look at something and it'd be like, it's
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty dollars a night. I'm like, okay, cool,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: and then I'll be like, wait, there's four hundred dollars
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: on top of that. What's happening That changed the price
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: completely to being um And so apparently there has been
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: a conversation that they are changing those policies and changing
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: that amount, but I haven't heard how significantly different it is.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and they they have had a lot of
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: bad blubbs to be lately, like no joke, the horror
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: movies and then all the headlines have been going on
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: and on just having said nodding, but they are trying
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: to fix it. They are the things are moving. I
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: bet we'll revisit this in the future. Um And as
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: mentioned there, like with your sex party superglue host, which
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I am still struggling to figure out, is it really
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: is hard from what I understand to get refunds from
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Airbnb as a host, as a guest, so that it's very,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: very hard. That was when we were talking about earlier.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: The original complaints were from a host where like they
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: had a huge razor. This calls all this damage and
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Airbnb is not gonna do anything, but I have to
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: pay for it. It does have some benefits, as I said,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: I do. I've liked it. I know it has huge problems,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: and I really do try to be responsible, but I
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: do like it. Marissa, as I said, she has had
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: really great experiences as the travelers where she's in an
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: area for a little bit longer, wants it to be
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: more personalized than just a hotel. Perhaps she's somebody we
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: clearly are not necessarily these people, but she's somebody who
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: like talks to the host and becomes friends with them.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. Any I think
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: we're pretty obvious about it. Ex generally we were talking
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: about New Orleans, like I had the best trip. They
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: were great as in fact, like they were right next
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: to us. So the way they had it, um it
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: was like their parents home or something, and so they
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: left that as an airbnb. They lived right next to it.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: They're accessible, they're very kind. They left us gumbo. It
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: was amazing and the location was perfect because they went
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: to what was my favorite Vigne plays, the Last Call,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: which was in the park right outside of uh the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: French Quarters. I was like, wonderful and they were very
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: lovely and they gave me a positive review. I gave
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: them a positive review. I didn't realize until much later
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: that we get reviews as people who stayed there. That
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: shocked me uberto apparently. But yeah, like we've had great
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: reviews and I still look at it now because like
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: you said, there's something to that home field, Like I
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: do love a good hotel, but having a kitchen accessible
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: so in the mornings, to actually have your own coffee,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: to bring your own supplies and have a nice refrigerator
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: and if you want to save money, try and cook
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: especially for an extended day, it's better. Like I have
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: a friend right now who was staying at a hotel
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: because her condo is being redone because of mold issues.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: It's taking months, So for her to stay in a
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: hotel for a month would be miserable to work from home,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: so she moved to an Airbnb lovely condo. She's like,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: I have open space and I have it feels like
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: a home as opposed to just you know, so there's
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: there's definitely a lot of benefit. Yeah, yeah, And I
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: think also when you're going with like not just your
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: significant other, for instance, like it's nice to not like
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: you don't have two hotel rooms you have to come
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: and I don't. I don't know. It's nice to have
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: like like shared living space where can hang out. Right.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: I think, just as with all these other tech episodes
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: we've done, I think it's fills the needs, and I
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: think when in good faith is wonderful, but it needs
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: more regulation. And there's a lot of bad actors in
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: the appeals. Right, And just like many things in tech
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: and many things when it's a startup, they don't consider
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: the martialized community. They just come from it with a
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: like heteronormative, assist male, white male point of view and
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: move on with it. Because we know we've had incidents
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: where black renters or airbnb renters have been accused of
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: breaking in and doing all these things and not being
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: racially profiled many a time when it's supposed to be
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: an airbnb. So there's so many things that needs to
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: be done. These are good ideas that went completely awry.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Capitalism happened, and it was done in a perspective that
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: they are like, oh, we're all white people, were all
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: white men who feel safe? Yeah, less right, No, many
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: discriminates against me, So I guess no one would. It
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: doesn't happen anymore resaying it yeah, um, and I will
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: say Airbnb does have they have anti discrimination policies, they've
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: updated them several times, but clearly there's still a lot
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: of work to be done. That's another thing is like
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: people will report, you know, bad host or whatever and
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: maybe nothing comes of it. Like so that's also an issue.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Uh too, So I we'll see. It's one of those
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: things where you can't remove the like sexism, racism, homophobia
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: from our society, so it's embedded to this whole thing.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: But I do think it can be improved. Um and
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: I hope so so. I'm sure we'll we'll check up
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: on that. We do have some tips, but they're mostly
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: common sense. We've kind of said a lot of them.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: Look up hosts on multiple sites on the web, read
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: the reviews, research the area, familiarize yourself with the platform
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: and its tools for reporting anything. Um and yeah, just
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, research the area, and be sure
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: you're take pictures. Pictures, yea paranoid. Don't record everything, all right,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: I did so many pictures like I didn't do this.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: I didn't do that, stamped you absolutely did. You're right, Yeah,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: do that if you don't want to be worried about
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: being charged about anything. Uh but yeah, yeah, we would
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: love to hear from listeners any of your experiences with
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Airbnb are just traveling in general. You can email that
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: stuff in your mom stuff at iHeart media dot com.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom st podcast
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: or Instagram and stuff I never told you. Thanks as
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: always to our super producer Christina, you're there, and thanks
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: to all of you for listening. Spone are told you
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: the production of by Heart Radio. For more podcast for
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, you can check out the Hour Radio
• 54:45
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