Re: [projectvrm] Tim Friedman's column

[Brian Behlendorf < >]

On Sun, 20 Jul 2014, Dan Miller wrote:
> http://nyti.ms/1yI1ake
>
> If I'm mistaken, many of us have been pretty dismissive of Tom in the past, 
> myself included. But I think this column gets to the heart of how mainstream 
> columnists can and do
> connect the dots between all of the headline grabbing surrounding the sharing 
> economy and Big Data and the notion that each individual's personal info 
> counts. 
>
> The irony of course is that many of us won't use AirBnB thanks to heavy 
> lifting they require in terms of validating our own IDs. Like uploading fotos 
> etc. 

I think someone inclined to rent a room out wouldn't let that stop them, 
and as much as I care about my privacy I certainly understand the 
value/purpose to a validated identity in situations like this.  What 
worries me a bit more is:

  Chesky answered. “I think now, for the younger generation, ownership is
  viewed as a burden. Young people will only want to own what they want
  responsibility for. And a lot of people my age don’t want responsibility
  for a car and a house and to have a lot of stuff everywhere. What I want
  to own is my reputation, because in this hyperconnected world,
  reputation will give you access to all kinds of things now. ... Your
  reputation now is like having a giant key that will allow you to open
  more and more doors. [Young people] today don’t want to own those
  doors, but they will want the key that unlocks them” — in order to rent
  a spare room, teach a skill, drive people or be driven.

Are we truly at the point in society where no one ever loses their public 
reputation unfairly, where building a positive reputation is universally 
accessible and yet hard to game?  Are we no longer at risk of confidence 
games (short or long), where referrals can be minted from thin air, or 
achievements claimed without any risk of fraud?

These same "young people" also presumably don't want the burden of 
pensions, insurance, wills... but when cornered will fight for rent 
control, Medicare, Social Security, and regulations.

I'm reminded of the discussion here about the Uber drivers working 10 hour 
days at a net wage that only barely covers the gas and wear/tear on the 
car.  Or this, echoed by a comment on the NYT article by "SJ" of Wash DC:

  I find the phenomenon of things like AirBnB to be more of a sign of
  economic desperation than any kind of growing interconnectedness. It
  also represents a disconnected population willing to give up their
  residences to complete strangers for purely financial reasons. In other
  words, as the world becomes more and more cutthroat people are becoming
  more and more willing to sell every aspect of their lives. What's next.

I do think there is an optimal state where the AirBNB hosts who truly do 
this for "more than financial reasons", and yet are able to do so 
profitably, are the vast majority; but as it expands in popularity if the 
focus is too much on inventory and scale, eventually it will go south, a 
la Ebay, and have difficulty recovering.  Maybe that's the great cycle of 
these kinds of things, from niche to novelty to winning to scale to decay. 
Hope AirBnB doesn't speed through that too quickly, or burn too many 
people along the way.

Brian