As U.S. fertility rates collapse, finger-pointing and blame follow - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2018/10/19/us-fertility-rates-collapse-finger-pointing-blame-follow <comment><USER2> >The University of Pennsylvania's Hans-Peter Kohler, who studies fertility and birthrates, said the data indicated that many shifts affecting fertility are occurring "in the transition to adulthood." The biggest recent drops in birthrate have been among teenagers as well as people in their 20s. In 2016, the teen birthrate hit at an all-time low after peaking in 1991.

This... doesn't sound like bad news to me?

It seems like the #1 "issue" is that teenagers have stopped having kids. That's a good thing, is it not?

Young 20-year-olds not having kids could be easily explained with the higher amount of people going to college, and starting life later.

If the 25+ age group has stopped having kids, that'd be a bad thing for sure. I guess its important to keep the overall fertility rate in mind for future economic reasons, but a severe decrease in teenage pregnancy seems like a good thing overall... even if it may cause an economic issue in the future.

<comment><USER3> Is a shrinking population actually bad in the long term? I'm taking on the order of centuries here. While it does introduce the dilemma of reducing spending on the elderly or increasibg taxes to care for the latter aging population, a shrinking population seems like it'd reduce environmental impact and global resource consumption in the long run.

<comment><USER4> The sole problem from population contraction, is replacement tax dollars for existing entitlement-type programs that are built on a ponzi scheme approach to ever larger inflows of tax revenue to support them over time.

Most of the developed world has the same problem on that front. The desperation by these countries when it comes to figuring out how to patch up the finances of those programs will increase by the year.

Robot (productivity) taxes will be one small answer. Another will be ever higher income taxes, also eventually including heavy wealth taxes (that comes last). Most of the developed or semi-developed world is starting to get hit on demographics at the same time. The weaker economic nations are being forced to respond first, as in Russia having to raise their pension ages so high it starts to cut people off at the life expectancy line (plunging Putin's popularity numbers in a rather startling fashion, which tells you how important the pension promises were). France is being forced to confront similar problems, with Macron trying to dress that up as market reforms. The US is temporarily avoiding it thanks to its ability to run absurdly high budget deficits for now.

<comment><USER3> I agree with the economic implications. Countries that experience an ageing population need to face the fact that they either have to raise taxes considerably, or reduce the care and benefits they extend to the elderly.

I also disagree heavily with the last paragraph. Creating disincentives for automation is the last thing a country needs when its workforce is shrinking. Automating jobs is a way of expanding the amount of labor available without actually needing more people in the work force. If anything, countries that are experiencing a population decline need to invest in more automation to maintain their economic output.

<comment><USER5> The US doesn't work that way. Taxes and spending have only the loosest correlation. As long as the US Dollar is the worlds reserve currency, it appears there doesn't have to be anything connecting the two.

Someday, though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel the answer might be simple actually.

As contraceptives becomes well understood and taught kids are opting to have a better quality of life and not reproduce. They put it off so they can build a career.

When they build a career they get used to a certain quality of life. And so by mid thirties they don't want to have 3 kids. Of course they delay having kids till they are financially stable enough to have kids and not worry about money and hardship. Because who wants to voluntarily go through extreme hardship.

And so as cost goes up and pay goes down with available contraceptives people are just not having kids until they have the financial stability which many might not have.

</comment><comment><USER7> I found this article written oddly, as if it were a phenomena that is only affecting the US. Fertility rates have been collapsing world-wide, ever since the 90s if not longer. Yet this article doesn't mention that Europe has had below replacement rates since the 90s, and the rest of the world is having significantly less children per woman than it did back then too.

For each of the specific things it suggests it might be, it would have to be something that is affecting the whole world, maybe at different rates around the world but the whole world nonetheless.

Hans Rosling in one of his videos said we see the birth rate drop when women are educated and have economic opportunities outside the house.

</comment><comment><USER8> Children are becoming a luxury good in a lot of cities.

<comment><USER9> I think that this is a false argument. Just look at the poorer nations or even poorer populations. They tend to have plenty of children. Kids are expensive, that is true, but I think that most people arguing that it is too expensive to have children actually mean that they are not willing to change their lifestyle or standard of living to have kids.

<comment><USER10> I agree. Everyone wants to live a certain kind of lifestyle, and kids aren't worth the sacrifice for many.

Without fail, the people I see having kids are all people who grew up with an economic head start, and further distanced themselves with extremely high paying jobs (private equity, hedge fund, commercial real estate, VC, big tech).

I don't know anyone with kids where the husband is not killing it financially, and they all still complain about having limited money.

This is true in the Bay Area, where I live now, and back in Texas (Dallas, Austin, San Antonio), where I'm from.

<comment><USER11> Your story is so anecdotal and influenced by the people you know that it is practically irrelevant. Not trying to jump down your throat, but "people I see" and "I don't know anyone" renders your statement useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I found one of the comments very thought provoking: "The declining total fertility rates are children not born in the moment, but the hope is that they are delayed, not forgone".

I hadn't considered it before, but a gradual change in what age people choose to have children would show up as a temporary drop in fertility (for an easy example, think about everyone delaying their next child for five years). A quick google search show's a strong correlation between steeply increasing age of first child and low apparent birth rates. In particular, US fertility rates were even lower in the 1970's, another time when age of first child was increasing rapidly.

Back of the napkin math shows that we'd see (very roughly) 80% of true fertility if not adjusted for, making the true fertility rate slightly above replacement levels (about 2.2)

<comment><USER13> Yeah, but women can't delay forever and previous generations have already pushed age of first child back way past where it once was.

Anecdotally, I look at my Facebook and there are a lot of women on there who will really have to kick things into high gear ASAP to hit two children (since they're all in their mid 30s and childless).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I met super conservative friends of my parents the other day. They blamed the falling fertility rates on narcissism and social media.

I'm like uh.... what about cost of living outpacing salaries? Cost of medical care? Education debt?

All the young people I know aren't avoiding pregnancy because of their social media engagement, they are however wondering out loud in conversations with me if they can afford children.

<comment><USER15> And yet poor households have more kids than wealthy ones.

<comment><USER14> I bet the poor households are using Facebook just as much as the richer households. Whatever the root causes are, I seriously doubt social media the single most important cause.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The 'large metro area' drop is completely unsurprising to me as someone living in London.

Working young people are looking at the "will I ever be able to afford to live in a house" problem.

It is not at all uncommon for a 30 year old to be living with random individuals.

Child rearing? You may as well ask a starving man his opinion on gluten free bread.

</comment><comment><USER17> More people are renting. Rents are going up. When rents go up, fertility goes down. This is not a mystery. [https://www.nber.org/papers/w17485](https://www.nber.org/papers/w17485)

</comment><comment><USER18> People are getting dogs instead.

</comment><comment><USER19> If Congress wants people to have more kids, can't the government just pay people for each child they have, via a tax credit or direct payment?

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing, given that more and more people are working non-physical jobs and can continue to do so as they get older. Personally, I have no problem with anyone that worked physical labor their whole life retiring earlier with benefits while I continue to work. I like my work, and it's been a pretty easy life, comparatively.

</comment><comment><USER21> Daycare is 300 dollars a week, everybody's got a massive mortgage payment, not to mention the college loans.. why would you expect a lot of babies being born? _Of course_ the fertility rate is falling. Society puts all its greatest costs squarely on young people of child rearing age. I mean, duh.

Edit: originally said 160 not 300, was incorrect

<comment><USER22> $160 a week?! ROFL. Try $450/wk for full time day care. This is in a non- coastal, non-major city for standard licensed day care, not Montessori or high end. Standard rate in the town I live in, could maybe save $50/month if I doubled my commute. Waitlist for daycare? 8months+. We enrolled shortly after we conceived.

<comment><USER23> That's like 20k a year. So you'd need something like a 30k salary (before tax) just to break even. How much income would you be foregoing if one parent just stayed at home?

<comment><USER22> Ya I think thats a calculation many families have to make. I strongly agree with the other comment in terms of opportunity cost years down the road. I really see this with a lot of our friends. The wife often quits her job and stays home because our society really makes it hard to work as the mom of an infant and biologically that is typically easier (don't even get me started on the cost of formula vs breastmilk). But they do miss out on those critical career years. Luckily we are both software engineers at well paying jobs and so the daycare isn't as much as an issue for us. But it is hard to see others have to make these really hard decisions, so I guess I am outraged on their behalf. It is especially brutal because of most of the women leaving their careers haven't finished paying off student loans. In this era of gender equality we have constructed a financial system where it doesn't make fiscal sense for many women to get a college degree if they want kids. Anecdotally, teachers can't afford to work and have a kid and nurses just barely can. These are by no means bad careers and its really just a very tough situation, not all of of us can be software engineers making Facebook/Twitter apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The idea that you can have a kid in college in your mid 30s is pretty fascinating. Maybe sociologically it is not easy or ideal to have kids very young but being relatively young while your kids are grown is better than being old.

<comment><USER25> "...being relatively young while your kids are grown is better than being old."

How so, whizkid?

<comment><USER24> Because you have more time to spend with them before you die as a parent?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I would have had more children if childcare was more heavily subsidized. Make it a tax deduction up to a fraction of the amount you pay in taxes to keep it from incentivizing those without financial means to have children.

<comment><USER27> If there was a tax credit for day care wouldn't the day care companies just increase prices to make more profit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Looks like the vaccine for Human Population Virus is working.

<comment><USER29> We've banned this account for posting unsubstantive comments and ignoring our requests to stop.</comment></comment>


Narratives over Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/04/narratives-over-numbers.html

<comment><USER2> Here's one slide we've been using in Cloudomatic presentations (investor pitches or just normal event talks) to tell help tell the narrative of where the market is going: <http://imgur.com/XyHoC>

<comment><USER3> I'd disagree with "desktop software is dead", but I'd sound more credible disagreeing if "A/B test: remove desktop software -> sales increase??" wasn't on my list of things to do this week.</comment></comment>


Senate Considers Banning Dial Phones (1930) - <AUTHOR> https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senate_Considers_Banning_Dial_Phones.htm <comment><USER2> The last paragraph makes it sound like old people struggling with the UX of new technology.

> the dial phone "could not be more awkward than it is. One has to use both > hands to dial; he must be in a position where there is good light, day or > night, in order to see the number; and if he happens to turn the dial not > quite far enough, then he gets a wrong connection."

I'm guessing with the previous version you just picked it up and had an operator to route the calls?

<comment><USER3> You could, in fact, dial them one-handed. A rotary phone uses pulse dialing; as the rotor turns it opens the circuit briefly, if you dial 5 it sends 5 pulses. So you can do the same by pushing the switch repeatedly and pausing in between each number as though the rotor was spinning back.

Same trick works on touch tone phones since the networks still support pulse dialing.

<comment><USER4> Once as a kid I managed to misdial the emergency number (112) by just randomly pressing the switch, unaware of the trick and with no intention of calling anywhere.

I wonder if the emergency worker believed me when I apologized for accidentally calling him.

<comment><USER5> I had a similar experience doing some wiring on the phone jack and probably shorted the wires just the right number of times. At some point I heard a voice telling me I'd dialed the wrong emergency number (999 or 000 or something) and to hang up and dial the correct one (111 in my country). Lucky it was wrong because if I hadn't been able to receive their call back since I was working on the wiring, a cop would probably have turned up.

It sounds like you were in a country where the number 112 was just 4 pulses in total, which is easy to accidentally dial. Some other countries require 3 sequences of 9 or 10 pulses (000, 111, or 999). 111 in New Zealand where the digit to pulse count mapping is reversed.

<comment><USER6> Wind blowing on overhead telephone wires could cause this with is why 999 and 911 where used for Police in The UK and US

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's another fascinating anachronism in there:

> The Congressional Record would not be mailable, he said, "if it contained in > print what Senators think of the dial telephone system."

"Not being mailable" is probably a reference to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws)

The idea of being unable to send "obscene" mail, even private correspondence, is hard to imagine compared to our modern understanding of free speech.

<comment><USER8> Is it? Obscenity is still not protected by the first amendment in the United States.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was born in 84, My city had the manual phone mixed with the dial phone until early 90s, so I remember as a kid my grandmother picking the phone and asking the operator -whom I knew since it was a small city- to connect her to someone ...

</comment><comment><USER10> They still have elevator operators for the elevators at the US Capitol building.

If you watch old movies, you can see the pre-dial telephones in operation as the operators set up calls. It would take a while. One convenience is that you could have the operators call you back when they had reached the other party.

<comment><USER11> "They still have elevator operators for the elevators at the US Capitol building."

Some years ago, I was shown how to operate a (enclosed) freight elevator by someone who apparently thought I was kind of dumb not to know how they worked. I don't know how common the setup was, nor how old or typical it was, but among the features it lacked that modern passenger elevators have - it didn't travel to and stop at a floor automatically; you had to start and stop it with a control at the right spot; it didn't open and close the doors automatically; you had to pull on a strap, and close guards separately, and I'm not sure I even recall any locking mechanism.

<comment><USER12> I used to work in an old mill (NW UK) converted to industrial units and we got to the top floor using an old lever operated lift. The lever had three positions, up, down, and stop. The door was a couple of sets of sliding gratings.

I seem to recall that there _was_ a locking system but I can't quite recall what it was. It was either that here was some sort of piece of metal that stuck out from the lift shaft and only allowed the doors to be opened at certain positions in the shaft, or that the lift wouldn't operate without the doors being closed, or some combination of both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm intrigued by the distinction between manual and dial. I am assuming manual in this context means: pick up phone, ask the operator to connect you—which doesn't sound manual at all.

<comment><USER14> When you dial a connection is made automatically. When you use an operator they're having to manually make that connection (literally manually using a wire in their hand back then.)

<comment><USER13> Yes. I've seen the pictures. Still, I wouldn't call that manual. "Operator assisted" seems like a better name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Amusingly, there are modern analogues. Word processors were harder for many people to use than typewriters, at first, and those were harder to use than secretaries. Operating a personal computer was harder than assigning a task to the computing department.

We got over those things because those technologies eventually made most of us more efficient. I do my own programming and typing.

But there are still people who have other people do those things. The thing that probably got the Senators to use dial phones was the realization that they didn't want the operator listening to their conversations. Today they probably all have burner phones. But I doubt that Senators do their own typing, and they probably still use a secretary to make official phone calls for them.

</comment><comment><USER16> It reads like they went ahead with a compromise where they got phones that worked in both "manual" and "dial" mode. When were those replaced with dial- only?

<comment><USER3> Wikipedia has an interesting history of manual switchboards[1]; they broadly died out in about the '60s with some still used in rural areas into the '90s.

And while the switchboards were automated, I don't think even today our phone systems are "dial only." Certainly through the '90s I recall dialing an operator for international and reverse charge calls and I think operators still serve customers with disabilities. That's not even counting all the customer support positions that are mostly redirecting calls.

The funny thing is you'd think the web would have ended it, but more sites are adding chat boxes, or they want your phone number to set up an account...

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchboard_operator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchboard_operator)

<comment><USER17> Yeah but sites wanting a phone # is more to do with its utility as an identifier than anything. And for the sales guys to talk with you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Resulting alternative reality: "Hoy hoy, Watson, come here at once. I wish to dictate a text message."</comment>


Mars water surprise in Curiosity rover soil samples - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24287207 <comment><USER2> "If you think about a cubic foot of this dirt and you just heat it a little bit - a few hundred degrees - you'll actually get off about two pints of water - like two water bottles you'd take to the gym," Dr Leshin explained.

This is huge for Mars exploration by humans.

1\. We can send unmanned expeditions to stockpile large tanks of water.

2\. This would allow us to literally 3D print structures on the surface and allow us to significantly decrease the amount of materials we need to transport to the surface in order to build a habitat.

Edit: 3\. And ALICE rocket fuel could be created using this water and the aluminum found in the Martian soil.

<comment><USER3> They also suggest that one of the main components is perchlorate -- which, if turned into lithium perchlorate can be used for oxygen generation, and if turned into ammonium perchlorate can be used for solid rocket fuel.

<comment><USER4> The perchlorate hypothesis seems to be getting a lot of confirming evidence:

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130926143246.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130926143246.htm)

While the science dailies are pitching the perchlorate finding as a "setback" (because it complicates the search for organic molecules), it's indeed promising for fuel usage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The primary reference behind this is the new Special Issue of the journal Science with several research papers on Curiosity data:

Curiosity at Gale Crater [http://www.sciencemag.org/site/extra/curiosity/index.xhtml](http://www.sciencemag.org/site/extra/curiosity/index.xhtml)

INTRODUCTION: Analysis of Surface Materials by the Curiosity Mars Rover [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6153/1475](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6153/1475)

</comment><comment><USER6> For a comparison, typical values for water content on Earth are in the 15 to 50% range for the inhabited world.

This is kind of an awkward way to present this data. They are talking about water content (which is by weight) and then translating to volumes which is not straight-forward in all cases.

I don't know how revolutionary this is. A cubic foot of soil is, in my experience, quite a bit larger than most laymen think and heating something a "couple hundred degrees" on a world with no established infrastructure (e.g. - there are no large scale solar panels or nuclear reactors set up on Mars) seems like quite a problem.

<comment><USER7> > A cubic foot of soil is, in my experience, quite a bit larger than most > laymen think

Larger than a cubic foot?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have questions about this. Can anyone help?

How do they know the water is everywhere? How do they know it's not just in the one place they dug and nowhere else?

Why hasn't the water evaporated? Isn't Mars almost a vacuum?

Why didn't the water evaporate from the soil after being dug up but before being put in the oven?

Could there be large underground frozen aquifers?

<comment><USER9> There is no water per say. It's just that the soil chemical composition is so that if you heat it a "few hundred degrees" a chemical reaction will produce water.

<comment><USER8> Are you sure? If that's true I totally misread the article. I'll go back band check

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Where do you get the energy to heat the soil?

<comment><USER11> It's nuclear. You can read about it here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_(rover)#Specification...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_\(rover\)#Specifications)

SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) then uses this energy to heat the soil and analyze it. I recommend everyone to read about the SAM, it's a fascinating instrument. Arguably the most complicated instrument we've (humans) ever built.

(If you're curious about the SAM, read this article: [http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily- lakdawalla/2012/curiosi...](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily- lakdawalla/2012/curiosity-instrument-sam.html))

<comment><USER12> [https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/spacecraft/...](https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/spacecraft/2012/20121130_sam_from- side_PIA16100_fig1.jpg)

Nuts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The irony - water everywhere yet the inhalation (or ingestion?) of space dust proves detrimental to the thyroid system. Wonder what else is in that crazy dust?

</comment><comment><USER14> > . This striking block was dubbed Jake Matijevic, in honour of a recently > deceased Nasa engineer.

They are naming rocks. They haven't even stepped foot on Mars yet and they are already going space mad.

And what's so special about getting a rock named after you? I'm sure there are enough rocks out there that everyone can have their own rock. Why not name a canyon or mountain after him?

<comment><USER15> There is a bureaucracy involved. To name a feature, you need approval from International Astronomical Union Working Gruop for Planetary System Nomenclature. No, I am not kidding.

[http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/](http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/)

<comment><USER16> Ah yes, the IAUWGFPSN. You don't mess with those guys. I think they have Gary Coleman on staff. He's a real hard case. Ironically, he killed a man for using the word "ironic" incorrectly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Every time I read Curiosity stories, David Bowie starts playing in my head.

<comment><USER18> ♫ Bowie's in Spaaace ♫</comment></comment>


Instagram's War on Bullying - <AUTHOR> https://time.com/5619999/instagram-mosseri-bullying-artificial-intelligence/ <comment><USER2> While I understand the desire to have Instagram, and others, police their sites to prevent bullying, I also think it's pointless to a large extend.

The head of Instagrams public policy is very correct when she states: Teens are exceptionally creative. Assholes and bullies have always existed, 25 years ago at least you had a respite at home after school, but now social media makes victims available 24-7.

Not to sound defeatist, but I don't think social media can exist while preventing bullying. For the victims it's binary, either they're being bullied or they're not, so social media needs to prevent 100% for bullying and that is not going to happen, people will always find a way to be assholes.

In my mind the effort is misplaced, at least for teenagers who often know the bully. It's the schools and parents that need to take action, not some random faceless US corporation.

For 100% online bullying... I don't think there's away around that. You can try to reduce the amount, but you won't be able to eliminate it.

<comment><USER3> I do not agree with your assertion. Bullying is similar to spam and other unwanted messages. You can never get 100% protection, but you can get pretty far.

Things like Whatsapp not giving you a way to prevent you from being added to a group (until very recently) are fixable. Victims could not even prevent themselves from being constantly added to the "Jimmy go kill yourself" group.

If I translate your post to spam filtering all efforts there are useless and everyone should disable their spam filters, because either you receive spam or you don't.

<comment><USER4> Bullies then figure out how to make new unblocked accounts, stalk you around the internet on other services and spam you there.

I think we need to address bullies directly, figure out their reasoning and help to resolve those issues. Problem is few actually do get addressed long before it's too late.

<comment><USER5> > _stalk you around the internet on other services and spam you there_

That's not a good reason for (e.g., Whatsapp) to not put in some frankly minimal effort to prevent this on _their_ platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not sure why people are suggesting shadow-banning doesn't work. Shadow bans have existed for a long time, already. Message forums and MMOs have used this method to deal with toxic community members and it has already shown to be successful.

The way they measure the decrease in toxicity is based on support tickets. When organizations implement this feature, a reduction in complaints means they don't require as much support staff to deal with it. It saves them money.

The logic behind it is simple: Toxic community members want a voice to be heard. This method sends players the message that if you post something offensive or unwelcomed, it'll be voted down and no one will see it.

</comment><comment><USER7> >Go after bullying too aggressively and risk alienating users with stricter rules and moderation that feels intrusive at a time when the company is a bright spot of growth for Facebook. Don't do enough, especially after promising to set new standards for the industry, and risk accusations of placing profits over the protection of kids

Seems these days the second option is always the preferred one. It's easier to ask forgiveness (and make money while you do) than it is to get permission.

<comment><USER8> >Seems these days the second option is always the preferred one.

Not on the internet, no. The 2/4/8/whatever-chans are alive and kicking. Ditto the good old IRC. There's plenty of other services that are more rough-and- tumble than milktoasty. Any of the new social media like Mastodon, Minds, BitChute have rather hands-off moderation - any lawfull content has rather good chances of staying there undisturbed.

The difference is one of perception - namely, which ones get favorable opinions in the media as family safe, and which ones get condemned as the seedy, scary underbelly.

<comment><USER9> > The 2/4/8/whatever-chans are alive and kicking

I feel it's only a matter of time before they get blocked at the router or at least DNS level in a western European country. They were blocked in New Zealand for a while after the chan-radicalized mass murder there.

<comment><USER10> That's so stupid, though. A whole service gets blocked for 1 person?

I assume this person could have gotten radicalized by talking to other radicals on the phone, so you ban phones?

<comment><USER11> > could have

But they didn't, that's a detail you can't just conveniently drop to argue in the abstract.

<comment><USER12> The point remains that crime/radicalization can occur over any site/medium. Banning a site or medium seems heavy-handed unless it exists expressly to facilitate crime/radicalization, in my opinion. TOR, for example, has been a known avenue for the spread of child pornography, yet we don't shut it down.

<comment><USER13> there's more CP on twitter than TOR but nice meme

edit: nice meme bc who actually uses TOR? theres so much more cp on surface web liek chans, tumblr used to be a pedos dream, twitter etc.

no one uses tor zzz

<comment><USER12> Got any proof to back up that statement? There have been numerous FBI busts of Onion sites. For example: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/fbi- operated-23-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/fbi- operated-23-tor-hidden-child-porn-sites-deployed-malware-from-them/)

<comment><USER13> [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/13/twitte...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/13/twitter- failure-child-pornography)

[https://sputniknews.com/science/201905091074866833-Twitter-3...](https://sputniknews.com/science/201905091074866833-Twitter-370K-Accounts- Suspended-Promoting-Terrorism-2018/)

you can literally google twitter child porn

theres hundreds of threads exposing how these people start group dms baiting kids

[https://twitter.com/xcutesannex/status/1147456947727282177](https://twitter.com/xcutesannex/status/1147456947727282177) shit in a similar format to this

<comment><USER12> This is a weird quibble. Is your argument simply to let me know I could've used an example with more child porn? Unless you're arguing there's no CP on TOR, my point in the context of the original comment stands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> the case described had nothing to do with the victims account on any specific platform, it was people misusing his picture for lulz. If banned on instagram they could have continued anywhere else.

<comment><USER15> >If banned on instagram they could have continued anywhere else.

They could, but it wouldn't be instagrams problem then.

<comment><USER2> But that's a really weird way of looking at the problem, unless you're Instagram.

Continuously closing accounts, blocking content and reporting bullying isn't fixing anything. In some cases I get the feeling that it will make the problem worse.

We want to stop the bullying, not simply remove the evidence of it. Instagram can't prevent bullying, they can only hide parts of it.

<comment><USER5> > _Instagram can 't prevent bullying, they can only hide parts of it._

But they can take steps to mitigate it on their platform. If you're doing your best and genuinely helping solve the problem on your platform, then you can say to kids, "hey - come hang out on this platform. It's a safer place. This is a place where you can socialize with less risk than other places."

That's good for the kids, and for the platform.

Arguing against is like saying, "My kid gets bullied, but why should I only solve the problem for him?"

<comment><USER2> I'm not saying this shouldn't try, but you're making my point: with less risk than other places

It's not "no risk", it's not a safe space, it's just safer than it could have been with no policing. And which other spaces is it safer than? School, the kids room, or 4Chan? Because I would argue that 4Chan is safer than Facebook or Instagram.

You need to address bullying on an individual level, because there's nothing you can do on a large scale that will eliminate all bullying.

<comment><USER5> > _eliminate all bullying_

Why is everyone treating this as the only acceptable condition?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you do not want anybody to have the possibility to make fun of your picture, don't upload it to the internet.

I wonder if Instagram would pay me for this ingenious solution.

<comment><USER17> The second sentence of TFA says someone else was taking and uploading pictures of him. Keep brainstorming!

<comment><USER18> The solution is to fix the school system so that people are not forced to stay with a bunch of classmates they didn't choose and not prevented to do what they would really like to do in life, resulting in activities like this as a replacement.

<comment><USER19> In the US, the doctrine of "separate but equal" was resoundingly rejected in Brown vs. Board of Education.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal)

The persecuted should not have to live life on the run, fleeing from one ever- shrinking, insecure refuge to another. Instead, we hold victimizers responsible for the problems they cause, and insist on fixing those problems at the source.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, in normal adult social circles if you behave like an asshole you get ignored and if you force others to put up with you you get kicked out and police is called if you refuse.

If the social circle you are in doesn't kick assholes you find another one.

But in school someone can just terrorize everyone else with impunity because people are usually not expelled, you can't easily choose a school that expels people and the abusers don't care about being ostracized or potentially expelled because they don't care about being in school in the first place.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


JQuery Performance Tips And Tricks  - <AUTHOR> http://ontwik.com/javascript/jquery-performance-tips-and-tricks-with-addy-osmani/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone else hate when development information is presented as a video? I find it incredibly annoying because I can't scan through it quickly and pull what I want out.

Video producers, please ensure you provide a written version too!

<comment><USER3> It was a pretty useful video for some basics on jQuery performance

Here are my notes for those that don't want to watch. Apologies for typos/inaccuracies/weird formatting:

 _Why performance?_

1\. you want apps to be snappy(duh)

2\. more work = more memory = slower apps

 _Tip 1 Stay up to date of jQuery core._

Each update usually brings performance updates

ex: 1.5 bringing a complete rewrite of the ajax module

 _Tip 2 Know your selectors. All selectors not created equal_

Fastest to slowest: ID selectors -> Element selectors -> Class Selectors -> Pseudo selectors

Why? ID and element selectors are backed by native DOM operations.

Pseudo has no browser based call. So if you're using :hidden, you are running the "find :hidden function" on every element in your select space.

Parents & children - Sizzle matches selectors right to left.

Slower example:

      $("#parent > .child").show();

This code will find all .child elements before looking to see if it's a child of #parent

Faster example:

      $parent.children(".child").show();

This code would be faster but keep in mind it only finds direct children of $parent

 _Tip 3 Caching = Win_

Example:

      var parents = $('.parents'); //cache parents

Bad:

      var children = $('.parents').find('.child'); //this one does a find over the entire dom again

Good:

      parents.find('.child');  //this one just searches through the parents obj

_Tip 3.5 Bonus_

Avoid global variables (they're slow, cause conflicts, etc)

 _Tip 4 Use Chaining_

Why? Less code, easier to write, runs fast

Almost all jQuery methods return a jQuery object, which allow chaining

Do this:

      var parents = $('.parents').doSomething().doSomethingElse();

Don't do:

      var parents = $(.parents').doSomething();
      var parents = $('.parents').doSomethingElse();

Another example:

      //Without chaining (finds #notification 3 times)
      $('#notification').fadeIn('slow');
      $('#notification').addClass('.activeNotification');
      $('#notification').css('margin-left', '50px');

      //with chaining (finds #notification once)
      $('#notification').fadeIn('slow')
                        .addClass('.activeNotification')
                        .css('margin-left', '50px');

_Tip 4.5 Bonus_

Use indentation to make it more readable

 _Tip 5 Event Delegation_

Know the difference between 3 Types of event handling: .bind(), .live(), .delegate()

      .bind()

simplest form of attaching function to some event (click, etc)

works best with small sets of data. can take time to bind() to lots of elements

does not handle dynamic data (e.g. newly created elements, etc)

.bind() to table rows might not be that great

browser needs to keep track of them

instead, use event delgation (.live() or .delegate())on the table and let the event bubble up

      .live()

simplest way to do event delegation

best used for simple scenarios

functions best with supplied selector

not chainable

works with dynamic data

      .delegate()

subtle diff between live and delegate

more focused way of doing event delegates (?)

 _Tip 6 The DOM isn't a database_

Every DOM insertion (e.g. appending an image to the document) is costly

Minimize by building Htmlstrings and using a single append() as late as possible

Use detach() if doing heavy iteration with a node then re-insert when done

 _Tip 6.5 Attaching data_

Common way:

      //convenience method that incurs overhead
      $('#item').data(key, value)

Faster way:

      //significantly faster bc it's a low level method
      $.data('#item', key, value);

_Tip 7: Avoid Loops. Nested DOM selectors can perform better_

If it's possible avoid loops and use selector engine instead.

Slow way:

      $('#menu a.submenu').each(
    	function(index){
    		$(this).doSomething().doSomethingElse();
      });

Better way (if possible):

      $('#menu a.submenu').doSomething().doSomethingElse();

There are places when loops can't be avoided. That's OK. Selector is faster if you can use it, however.

 _Tip 8: Keep your code DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself)_

 _Tip 9: When in doubt, perf test_

jsPerf.com - Easy way to compare perf on js snippets

uses benchmark.js - a neat benchmarking utility that works cross-platform

easy to share code or modify other tests

also useful as a js knowledge base

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Original article: <http://addyosmani.com/blog/jquery-performance-tips-2011/>

</comment><comment><USER5> We're flattered, Addy. <http://eng.wealthfront.com/2010/10/jquery-right- way.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> I just started using jQuery on something I've been developing and I've been dying because I can get things to work, but I don't know if what I'm doing is best practice. This definitely helps a ton!

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder whether I'm allergic to 'Eehhh...' and 'Ahm...' interjections? When a speaker uses them multiple times in every sentence, I only hear the Uhms and Ehms and Ahms after a while.

</comment><comment><USER8> kinda basic for people with a good amount of jquery experience, with many commonly known jquery usage patterns.. but some good stuff for newer devs</comment>


Ask HN: Am I being paid enough in Europe? - <AUTHOR> I'm a software developer in Europe, (more precisely south of France).
After 3 years I'm making around 44K€ before tax (~33K after tax).
I'm one of the better paid in my peers, however seeing salaries talk online, I feel a bit "cheated". People are talking about making 100Ks and vesting.
Should I be asking for more? Should I move elsewhere (possible VISA requirements) ?
Whats your take on this gap? <comment><USER2> A few things to consider;

\- No, you're not being paid enough. No one is.

\- You don't say what level you're at. 44k for a junior is good. For a senior it's not great.

\- Salaries posted online only tell part of the story. For example, if you compare your wages to the USA they're low, but you don't need to pay for things like health insurance.

\- Very few _developers_ are paid a lot. There's usually other responsibilities that account for the higher salary (eg leading a team, architecture design, being more client-facing, etc). That takes the role some way out of being a developer and into something else. If you love the challenges coding that could be a problem.

\- Re "vesting" \- Ignore equity in salary negotiation unless you're taking on a role that could _genuinely_ influence the success of the company and won't be diluted to zero before any exit.

\- Always ask for more, but don't expect to actually get it unless there's a good reason. "I could earn more elsewhere" is a reason for you to leave; it's not a reason for the business to pay you more.

<comment><AUTHOR> > \- You don't say what level you're at. 44k for a junior is good. For a > senior it's not great.

I'm somewhere in between, not old enough to be considered a senior, but I don't need any babysitting.

> \- Always ask for more

How do i know how much i can ask for without turning potential contracts off?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 44k€ gross ? (before social security?)

That seems about right to me. In Paris I know several people getting about 42/46 at the same level of experience. So 44 outside of Paris is not bad at all.

Although, there is a huge disparity. There are some opportunity at 70k in Paris for 5Y of experience..

<comment><AUTHOR> 44k€ Brut (if you know the french system)

I mean where i'm is not as expensive as Paris, but still, after rent I'm left with ~1800€

And I don't see any big breaks coming when i look at the salaries of more senior people around.

<comment><USER3> Most people don't get crazy big salary. That's it.

Also, French company are not very good at giving what you're worth. They are kind of strict on the salary range given some amount of experience.

But if you are good, you can either get the top 10% of salary, or create your own company.

The top 10% don't advertise much about what they have, but it exists. You can reach 100k level in France. (Not with only 3y of experience of course)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Place you live matters a lot for salaries. Come on Silicon Valley to win 100k$ and discover home prices. You won't be rich.

<comment><USER5> Curious about "minimal homes" there. Do they exist?</comment></comment>


A Bitcoin battle is brewing - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/06/a-bitcoin-battle-is-brewing/ <comment><USER2> Previously, on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8712261](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8712261)

</comment><comment><USER3> When you read this sort of document, keep a few things in mind that don't normally come across well from non technical authors. There is no such thing as "blockchain technology", that is, you can't separate the block chain from Bitcoin without making it hopelessly vulnerable to attack. The functionality and security of the system relies on the premise that miners are only mining due to the financial reward. If you don't a reward you don't have miners, you have a highly inefficient way of storing transactional data. As such, concepts that claim to take Bitcoin and turn it into Uber, Craigslist, eBay, messaging, twitter, video distribution, file storage are all complete nonsense spewed out by an author with little or no concept of the functioning of the network.

If anybody is claiming to take "block chain technology" and cram it into another system to make it decentralised, you ought to be showing them the door.

> _Ripple disputes that they are affected, stating "All is fine and well with > the Ripple protocol._

What Ripple/Stellar (same thing, different name) is a system which absolutely can not come to consensus under normal operational conditions. To solve this they have made the system entirely centralised, which isn't a problem for them but is for anybody who believes it to be decentralised. When you read things about Ripple know that there's two flavours: "Ripple", which is the original concept, and OpenCoin's "Ripple", which has a different technical underpinning. A lot of the early praise you'll see for Ripple was for the pre- OpenCoin version, which wasn't so heavily flawed as the one known today is.

I don't quite get why it's even mentioned in the parent article, it doesn't even have a block chain to begin with.

<comment><USER3> > _the potentially extraordinary Ethereum project, built to "decentralize the > web" with its blockchain, which recently raised $15 million (in bitcoin, of > course) by pre-selling its cryptocurrency prior to next year's launch_

I've still not met anybody who can tell me what Ethereum is without using the words "turing complete" (which it's not due the halting problem, just like Bitcoin). Most of the information you can get from secondary sources seems to just mirror Bitcoin (you can do _this_ awesome thing, but you'll need an oracle to do it..).

<comment><USER4> Your point is fair.

The idea with ethereum is that oracles will be able to have a much finer granularity; whether this allows for more useful apps still remains to be proven by us in the ethereum community.

(Also, there are plenty of folks like myself working on oracle-free apps, but since these are based on unproven economic models at this point, it would be negligent for us to promote them widely before we have evidence that such designs work in practice, on the live ethereum blockchain)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bitcoin in it current form will (most likely) never replace traditional currencies because it is either to easy to attack or prohibitively expensive. Right now the Bitcoin network consists of mining hardware worth 100 million Dollars and consumes electricity worth 219 million Dollars per year [1]. While 100 million Dollars is not nothing it would still be affordable by most states and even large companies or rich individuals to effectively shut down the Bitcoin network by gaining a large share or even the majority of the network hash rate.

If Bitcoin would gain widespread adoption and see transaction worth billions of Dollars every day, it could easily become a worthwhile attack target even at the mentioned attack costs. The only protection would be to use a lot more mining hardware worth billions of Dollars to make an attack to expensive but this in turn would also raise the energy consumption proportionally and in the end the costs per transaction. I think that in this regard Bitcoin is fundamentally flawed because - up to some limit - you want the transaction volume protected by a proportional amount of mining hardware causing proportional energy and transaction costs which then imposes a lower bound on the costs per transaction.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8782877](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8782877)

<comment><USER6> _but this in turn would also raise the energy consumption proportionally_

I'm curious about this point. Is this true? Does the energy cost increase in proportion to the hardware cost? It seems like bitcoin mining hardware becomes much more energy efficient with each new generation.

Could you link to a source?

There's some background data in here: [https://medium.com/@interdome/how-much- electricity-does-bitc...](https://medium.com/@interdome/how-much-electricity- does-bitcoin-use-c350bd84c64e)

<comment><USER7> If bitcoin mining hardware gets more energy efficient, it is more efficient for the attackers too. The symmetrical costs are the problem here.

<comment><USER6> Thanks, but I wasn't commenting on that really, just the point I asked about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The "Bitcoin battle" exists mostly in the minds of people promoting some get- rich-quick scheme of their own. There were about 175 altcoins the last time I looked. Only a few have any significant liquidity.

"Blockchain technology" runs into one of the biggest problems on the Internet - identities are too easy to create, so anything based on voting has spam problems. Distributed identity is an unsolved problem. There's a long track record of failures, from Web of Trust to Facebook's "real names" policy. Bitcoin deals with this using "mining". The effect is to require operations the size of Google data centers to maintain a database and transaction rate one desktop machine could handle easily. Bitcoin isn't very distributed any more; there are about half a dozen big players. That wasn't the plan.

None of the alternatives look good. There's centralization (Ripple, Paycoin 2), proof-of-stake (the rich get richer), using algorithms unsuitable for ASIC or GPU implementation (big floating point matrix calculations, maybe), and various tweaks to make the block chain a tree so not everybody has to store the whole chain. So far, those are mostly talk, except for the centralized altcoins.

<comment><USER3> There's many more times that, my estimates put it between two and three thousand.

> _using algorithms unsuitable for ASIC or GPU implementation_

You don't want that. Give this a read.

[https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/asic- faq.pdf](https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/asic-faq.pdf)

<comment><USER8> Two or three thousand altcoins? The biggest list I can find has 601 today:

[http://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/](http://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/)

8 have a daily volume over $100,000: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple, Dogecoin, Stellar, NewBits, Paycoin (XPY; there are two Paycoins), and Bitshares. Those, you might be able to sell without crashing the market. (Maybe not Paycoin, which looks like a pump and dump in the "dump" phase. See Reddit or any Paycoin message board for details.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A clickbait battle is needed for TechCrunch while the bitcoin/blockchain users and developers experiment with new fields of use. And because it didn't really work for TC when they posted it a few weeks ago, let's try again! :-(

</comment><comment><USER10> _But after that soft fork, most subsequent blockchain innovation and experimentation will probably happen on sidechains_

It's far from clear that will in fact happen - mined sidechains that aren't widely adopted by miners are insecure, just like small altcoins are vulnerable to 51% attacks. Even worse the 2-way-peg mechanism Blockstream proposes trusts hashing power to determine where coins go so an attacker not only destroys the sidechain, but has a direct financial incentive to do so because destroying the sidechain lets them steal all the money that has been moved to it. Equally even if a majority of miners support a given sidechain, they can always change their minds later and take the funds. (quite possibly due to a temporary problem, like a hack or a a court order)

To solve this problem Blockstream explicitly proposes that smaller or experimental sidechains without majority support use a "federated" model where one or more trusted authorities controls the sidechain. Of course, needless to say needing a trusted third party to keep the sidechain secure isn't a good solution in many cases - they're essentially acting as a bank and it's extremely difficult to design systems where that bank can't profitably steal all the funds.

<comment><USER11> I would hope that any sidechains to bitcoin that use proof of work would have a shared mining model, so that miners could mine both simultaneously.

<comment><USER10> That's the problem: merge-mining means there's zero cost to attacking a sidechain. Of course, people like to invoke economic incentives here and say there's opportunity cost with the idea that the sidechain will pay ongoing fees or something. But this is a very untested idea to put it charitably - keeping Bitcoin itself secure with only fees is widely considered to be an unsolved problem, and that problem doesn't have a reward in the form of a bunch of 2-way-pegged Bitcoins waiting to be stolen.

Ultimately I think media coverage of this is really misunderstanding how sidechains are _very_ far from a proven idea, except in the centralized model where you trust someone to maintain the sidechain. Equally it's pretty clear that they have a high risk of making the incentives behind Bitcoin mining even further tilted towards centralization of hashing power.

<comment><USER11> I feel that the other side: zero cost to protect a sidechain, is a much bigger benefit. Presumably, the sidechain has mining rewards as well, which devalue the amount of BTC you get when going back to the main chain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Most of the time when an author uses an analogy to help explain something to do with computers, the analogy wastes more time and causes more confusion IMHO than it is worth.

</comment><comment><USER13> Bitcoin is a nice tech, but all I see is libertarians and other fed haters using its hype to bolster a political agenda, like the internet could change the economy or something like that.

The blockchain could be used for many other things though that could be game changing, like a publicly distributed database with trusted data. but I don't think many really are able to understand how it really works, and I don't users would really trust it.

<comment><USER14> Look deeper into it and make your own conclusions

<comment><USER15> Perhaps they have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands _" Bitcoin true believers think it will ultimately do to Wall Street what the Internet did to fax machines"_

Uhhhhhh yeah, because the internet totally killed fax machines right? The last three fortune 500 companies I've worked for still actively used fax machines which were integrated into their copy machines. They're very much far from being extinct.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure where you came to the conclusion that it meant complete and utter annihilation vs something much less dramatic like moving from the primary way to send and share important documents to a marginalized secondary player kept alive mostly due to legacy/dated procedures. Trust me no one who is 10 years or under today is ever going to send a fax in their professional life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think sidechains will replace the need for altcoins

<comment><USER17> What's the progress on sidechains? At present they don't exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think Ripple still has the better concept with consensus to verify transactions instead of proof of work.

</comment><comment><USER19> Bitcoins are worthless. They have no value. The whole thing is a scam. The ASIC manufacturers have been raided by the government, the major exchanges have been shut down for fraud. I mean, even their inventor keeps himself anonymous.

Bitcoins entered 2013 worth $14, a historic high at the time. By November 2013 it hit $1160 on the hype cycle. It has only fallen since then - it is <$320 currently, a historic post-high low.

It is going to keep sinking. It is worthless. It has no value. It is going to $0. All those who talk about bubbles and the dot-com bubble can see how the $5 billion Bitcoin market cap was created out of nothing. I mean, this is the central demonstration of a bubble, a scam, a Ponzi scheme in our time. Look at all the VC's and angels etc. shilling for this scam. Why not? They will make money, only the suckers who believe them and shell out $320 for these worthless hashes will lose money.

It's pointless to dwell on this too much, but the Bitcoin scammers are rampant on HN. They are trying every means to hype their worthless, valueless product, so this post will surely get downvoted to oblivion. Anyone who listened to me when Bitcoins were worth $460 and I said the same thing ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6753545](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6753545) ) would have saved themselves a 30% loss. But the scammers here don't want suckers warned, this post will be downvoted to oblivion so people don't see it and the next round of suckers will get robbed by the scammers.</comment>


NYC Renters Paid Extra $616M Thanks to Airbnb, Study Says - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-03/nyc-renters-paid-extra-616-million-thanks-to-airbnb-study-says <comment><USER2> Maybe, but the regression they use to argue this is pretty bonkers...they need to assume that once they control for income, population, education, and employment, the coefficient on the Airbnb share captures the causal effect of Airbnb on prices. But obviously AirBnB share will be correlated with many other things that make a neighborhood nice, which will also be correlated with prices. So this just says that desirable neighborhoods are desirable.

<comment><USER3> Note that the regression is on the differences, y_t - y_t-1 not the levels, just y_t.

So the argument is more subtle, that the "change" in AirBnB share is correlated with changes in rents. So level effects such as being a nice neighborhood are accounted for.

Having said that, a large change in AirBnB share is probably still related to unobservables related to factors that would increase rent. E.g changes in hipness of a neighborhood unaccounted for by changes in demographics. Therefore the $616M figure is biased upwards, though I bet in reality still a large number.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For anyone interested, here is the full text of the study: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/u4s1fcync2gseyl/AirBnB_Report%20FI...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/u4s1fcync2gseyl/AirBnB_Report%20FINAL.docx?dl=0)

A brief description of how they attempted to control for other factors:

> We also control for demographic and economic changes in neighborhood level > by including average household income (in log form), population (in log > form), and the shares of college-educated and employed residents in the > neighborhood. We also included year and neighborhood-level fixed effects > (dummy) variables to control for otherwise uncontrolled-for trends and > neighborhood characteristics.

<comment><USER5> I can't dl the report, but based on your quote, I'd say there's nothing about this 'study' supports their conclusion. It's fine that they control for some stuff, but it's absurd attribute the remaining price effects to AirBnB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 'Airbnb Inc. disputed the study's findings, calling them "wrong on the facts" and containing "substantive issues with the methodology."'

Did Airbnb publish what these wrong facts and substantive issues are?

<comment><USER7> The odd thing is that AirBnB's entire value proposition to hosts is that it increases realizable income from the property they control and make available through AirBnB; if true, especially in the presence of supply constraints, this has to increase market clearing prices.

They are in a position where what they need _hosts_ to believe is directly at odds with what they want _policymakers_ (including people voting directly on policy or for politicians) to believe.

<comment><USER8> The spin is preposterous. They should just say that that's a natural outcome of better real estate utilization and that the city needs to figure out how to build more affordable housing.

<comment><USER9> Easy there with terms like "better real estate utilization", which could be conflated with "more efficient rent seeking at the expense of housing consumers".

The end goal is not always maximum profit extraction. NYC is served best by balancing the needs of both long term and short term renters, while ensuring investors reasonable compensation/rates of return on capital invested for services provided.

<comment><USER10> This is not what people traditionally think of as "rent-seeking." Rent-seeking behavior is doing something to get more money without providing any corresponding value. AirBnb hosts do provide value -- just not to the people who live in the neighborhood. But it is fine to argue that, based on their willingness to pay more, out of town visitors provide better utilization of the housing resource.

TL;DR: Extracting rents from things you own by providing economic value to a customer is not "rent-seeking."

<comment><USER11> Short-term, <90 day accomodations are not "housing", and never have been considered as such. That's why they're in a completely different regulatory category and always have been.

In a democracy it makes sense that a city would prioritize the needs of the citizens who live and vote there over short-termers and people looking to make a quick buck.

<comment><USER10> I'm not commenting on the validity of the policy, only one whether rent- seeking is the correct term to describe lending one's property out on AirBnb.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The exact same true is for hotels, only worse. ANYTHING that uses up space that is not used for housing is by definition increasing rent for everyone. Hotels have a much bigger effect than Airnb because you'll find hotels in all of the most expensive and densely populated cities. If you replaced all hotels with regular rental units, think about how much rents would go down.

To be more accurate, the report should say: NYC Renters paid extra thanks to ANYTHING that takes up space that is not a rental unit, especially hotels.

<comment><USER13> Exactly. I wonder too if they are accounting for increased tax revenue due to more travelers visiting the city thanks to AirBnb. Honestly I've been able to travel a lot more because of AirBnb, and how affordable it is compared to a hotel.

At this point, prices are starting to stabilize with hotels in some of the bigger cities like NYC and SF, but still. I prefer the idea of freeing up under-utilized space for dynamic purposes as opposed to a fixed number of hotel location.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If a few thousand airbnb units cost renters that much money, imagine how much renters would save if more and taller buildings were allowed to be built!

<comment><USER15> Does NYC impose heavy restrictions on the height of buildings? I've never been there, but they seem tall to me.

<comment><USER14> Yes, much of the city is limited to four or five stories or otherwise restricted [1]. Keep in mind also that much of NYC is not just the financial district of Manhattan.

In addition to actual height restrictions, neighborhood associations also fight tooth and nail to prevent new development and to limit the height of new development when they can't.

[1] [https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/zoning/districts- tools/re...](https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/zoning/districts- tools/residence-districts-r1-r10.page)

<comment><USER16> Yeah, my neighborhood in Brooklyn is mostly 2 to 3 story building. Many of them were multi-family homes until the 1980's, and are now single family homes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am curious, doesn't the legality of roommates also drive up rents? It seems like if roommates weren't a thing, it would drive rents down simply because people wouldn't be able to afford apartments in many cases without a roommate.

I am not suggesting a ban on roommates of course, but it does seem like there are a large number of variables that affect rent prices. We could argue that AirBnB constricts long term housing supply while roommates constrict long term housing supply for single or family renters as well.

If a one bedroom goes for $4000 and there are two roommates, that means the price the market would support for a single person is $2000. So without roommates, the market would have to adjust to the price people were able to pay: $2000. But then again, that could also restrict supply since there are more people competing for a finite supply.

My point is that while it's convenient to blame AirBnB — the truth is far more complex. We also have to consider the effects of the extra income earned by owners — that income goes to buying things or investing, which, it could be argued, benefits the economy. There is also the question of how many visitors to New York actually can now afford to visit New York because of wider housing availability — if we drive up lodging rates, that's less money coming into the city. If I have to spend $250 for a hotel vs. $150 for an AirBnB, that means I can buy more pizza, thus putting more money into pizza shops and supporting those workers. Additionally, if a hotel is $250, maybe I don't visit at all, which would result in 0 economic benefit to the city.

The economics of this aren't as sound-byte friendly as many might think.

If we want to be fair, we should also address how much additional rent New Yorkers pay due to rent-control and the housing illiquidity that promotes.

If the hotel industry is so concerned, then perhaps they ought to reevaluate their efficiency and pricing and reconsider their years and years of charging $10 for a bottle of water. Perhaps the city could also reconsider the occupancy taxes, sales taxes and all the other fees cities love to stick tourists with.

Tourists already pay sales taxes when they buy a meal. They buy products and experiences which generate significant economic activity, jobs and all the tax revenue that creates. But for some reason, cities see tourists as a piggy bank rather than the engine of economic activity they are.

<comment><USER18> Prohibiting roommates would drive the rent per person up and the rent per unit down. That would make the city less affordable to both renters and landlords.

The problem with AirBnB is that it benefits landlords and _tourists_ at the expense of renters by driving the rent per unit up, the short term rent per person down and the long-term rent per unit up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is there really much evidence that the majority of Airbnb properties would otherwise be traditional "12 month lease" rental apartments if it were not for Airbnb.

I mean, I'm sure there are a few, but if I'm a landlord, why would I give up having a stable tenant paying market rate rent for 12 months at a time for essentially managing a hotel room?

Sure, the 'rent per day' is going to be a lot better with the hotel room model, but it seems like an entirely different business to manage say 30-100 property rentals per year rather than 1.

People have always subletted their apartments when they are out of town -- I'm guessing a lot of the Airbnb rentals are just those traditional sublets showing up in an easy to quantify form.

I'm open minded to the possibility I'm wrong -- I don't have the data on the history of the properties showing up on Airbnb -- but it seems like the profile for the landlord/apartment that ends up on Airbnb is a bit different from the ones that show up on StreetEasy with 12 month leases.

<comment><USER20> I think in general, it's very difficult if not impossible to realistically explore the counterfactual of "what would this property be if not for Airbnb".

However, in my neighborhood long term 12 month lease rentals most definitely seem to be being turned into Airbnb rentals. I live in Tahoe, so this isn't necessarily going to generalize to non-tourist areas. In the last five years there has been a steady conversion -- I personally know of four in my immediate neighborhood. (As in, they were long term rentals converted to Airbnb. I know the people that were kicked out of the long term rentals) When we'd recruit new people to Tahoe there used to be numerous options for local housing, things have gotten so bad that the company I work for opted to buy a condo to provide temporary housing for new recruits while they look for more permanent accommodations.

An additional (also anecdotal) data point: our realtor told us that investors looking to convert homes into Airbnb are very active right now.

On the plus side (potentially, not everybody agrees) Airbnb also seems to have converted a number of second homes that were previously unoccupied most of the year.

<comment><USER21> Have the anti-rental things Tahoe done anything to curtail the local movement or is that not in your neighborhood?

[https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/Study-Tahoe-s- Airbnb-l...](https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/Study-Tahoe-s-Airbnb-law- raking-in-cash-from-12832110.php)

<comment><USER20> Tahoe has a surprising number of jurisdictions! I'm on the Nevada side, so I don't have personal experience with the SLT enforcement.

Here there seems to be a fair amount of teeth gnashing about airbnb -- there are clearly more people in the neighborhoods and rentals for locals are now hard to find. But the homeowners think it's raising property values and are kind of happy that if they ever leave Tahoe there is now a pretty straitforward way to hold on to their property. The end result is not much happening.

The SLT ordinance is addressing the what I think is the major fear for many -- that a nearby house will become an unbearable party house. I think pretty much all of the Tahoe jurisdictions have moved quickly to ensure that doesn't happen. In our neighborhood, I've been told the sheriff responds in minutes to a noise complaint, and that the visit results in fairly draconian fines to the property owner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How much extra do NYC renters pay from not building enough new supply?

Or from rent control stifling the development of new supply?

<comment><USER23> Yes, the 0.7% of "rent controlled" units of NYC's available inventory that's shrinking by 2.5%/yr is totally stifling new supply.

Feel free to tell us about how the rent stabilized units, which do compromise 1/3 of the inventory but in 3/4 of cases are within spitting distance (10%, and see 4% rent increases every 2 years) of market rate are keeping down supply though. Tell us about about how luxury condos in places like East New York, Edenwald, Brownsville, Morrisania & Crotona, and Hunts Point are going to increase affordable housing in NYC. I am very interested in learning about this.

<comment><USER23> Or instead, how about I tell you about my time working for a real estate tax certiorari firm in NYC and how landlords with multiple properties will deliberately underutilize their buildings for tax advantages.

Occupancy maximums of 90% and one or multiple buildings deliberately at 0% occupancy (usually the primary residence of the landlords' extended family members for undeclared income) is the norm.

<comment><USER24> >"Or instead, how about I tell you about my time working for a real estate tax certiorari firm in NYC and how landlords with multiple properties will deliberately underutilize their buildings for tax advantages."

When in the 1980s? Was Ed Koch the mayor?

Market rate on a modest(500 sq foot plus) apartment is worth close to $3K a month or 36K a year. Please provide a citation this tax break which is worth more than 36K a year in 2018 for leaving a unit unoccupied?

<comment><USER23> 2000 and 2001.

<comment><USER24> So during the dot com boom when the city's economy was doing gang busters and the vacancy rate was less than 2%? I don't think so.

<comment><USER23> [https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/pdf/NYC- comp-16....](https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/pdf/NYC-comp-16.pdf)

Also, this data does not agree with you. Lowest vacancy rate of any borough was 2.3% in Queens in 2000 and between 3.1 and 4.2 in every other borough.

The economy is doing even better in NYC right now and the vacancy rate is over 11% right now. [https://www.6sqft.com/nearly-250000-nyc-rental-apartments- si...](https://www.6sqft.com/nearly-250000-nyc-rental-apartments-sit-vacant/) Hrmmm....

<comment><USER24> Nice cherry picked data. That's a HUD report. Try checking the NYC Rent Guidelines Report for accurate data:

Manhattan 2.57 and Queens 2.11 [1]

That's from page 2. It also shows a -25% and -35% change for vacancy rates from 3 years prior for those two boroughs.

And you can't seem to produce any citation for your assertion about a piece of the tax code that allows landlords to make more money from empty apartments than renting them at market rate.

[1] [https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/rentguidelinesboard/pdf/hsr00.pd...](https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/rentguidelinesboard/pdf/hsr00.pdf)

<comment><USER23> As a lifelong NYC resident, I trust HUD a lot more than I trust the Rent Guidelines Board, appointed by the mayor and a total staff of like 9 people.

The Rent Guidelines Board has been an advocate for landlords for as long as I've lived here. Even now: [https://ny.curbed.com/2018/4/13/17234694/nyc-rent- stabilizat...](https://ny.curbed.com/2018/4/13/17234694/nyc-rent- stabilization-wars-2018)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Anyone have access to the report? I don't have readily available access to a terminal but I'd love to read the study. Any kind of analysis such as this one relies heavily on _ceteris_ _paribus_ --assume everything else is the same. Of course that's a poor assumption to make, so most studies fiddle with the assumption and try to tease out the effects of one market (short-term rentals, a la AirBnB) on another (resident friendly long-term rentals).

<comment><USER26> [https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-impact-of-airbnb- on-...](https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-impact-of-airbnb-on-nyc- rents/)

 _> Any kind of analysis such as this one relies heavily on _ceteris_ _paribus_ --assume everything else is the same_

That's not the assumption made by this report.

Of course, predicting alternate futures when humans are in play is always a non-trivial task, but they did put some effort toward controlling for the obvious stuff:

"A summary of the regression results is presented in Table 1. We find that as the share of units listed on Airbnb goes up by one percentage point, rental rates in the neighborhood go up by 1.58 percent, after controlling for neighborhood level demographic and economic changes. The result is statistically significant at the 1-percent level. Coefficients of other control variables including household income, population and share of college graduates are positive and statistically significant at 1-percent level. Employment rate is not statistically different from zero."

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is such propaganda. Not even worth discussing. I mourn the loss of factual journalism and critical thought.

<comment><USER28> Honestly, your comment sounds like propaganda more than the article...

<comment><USER27> Honestly? Did literally and unfortunately have a baby, or are you in the habit of dishonesty and needed to clarify your intent to tell the truth?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The finding is somewhat interesting on its own but I don't really see why it matters all that much. No one likes paying higher rent and I can see rent increases as being particularly hard on the poor, so that's bad. But I'm not sure interfering with these micro-leases is the best solution. It makes more sense to me to focus on how we can expedite construction of safe, quality, affordable housing. That would help address the AirBnB inflation problem as well as the basic housing crisis. What's more, we'd retain the benefits of micro-leasing.

<comment><USER29> We can totally crush people turning rental properties into unsanctioned hotels while allowing people to occasionally rent out a bedroom and work on other solutions to affordable housing.

Just fine renter and airbnb 100x what they are liable to earn in the former case and shockingly such a case will trivially go away.

Those caught with their pants down because they invested a bunch of money in illegal hotels can sell and roll that money into another illegal enterprise of their choosing that is less trivial to regulate out of existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > For each 1 percent of all residential units in a neighborhood listed on > Airbnb, rents in that neighborhood went up 1.58 percent, Stringer said. The > estimated $616 million impact is for 2016 alone.

<comment><USER31> I doubt these factors are statistically independent -- the most popular neighborhoods for tourists and yuppies have always seen prices grow faster relative to the overall metro, and more popular/high-growth/expensive neighborhoods will naturally attract more Airbnb hosts to take advantage of their location.

In any case, assuming people travel the same amount, it is zero-sum (Airbnb saved NYC visitors 616 million dollars and also transferred some percentage of tourism income from hotels to a broader collection of residents). However, I think Airbnb enables people to travel more (I certainly travel more with the incentives of cheap, reliable Airbnb lodging), so we need more data to determine whether the lower prices actually incentivize a sufficiently high increase in tourism to be a net positive for tourist-mecca economies.

Even if it comes out to a net negative to tourism-based economies and it increases costs for local residents, I'm curious what the Airbnb witch-hunt crowd is proposing. Limit tourism / make it harder and more expensive to travel? Reinstate the hotel cartels?

<comment><USER32> Don't 'limit' tourism but yes, don't allow tourists to get price breaks at the expense of residents that rent in a city.

As it stands property owners and tourists are coming out on top. Property owners can now easily make more money renting short term than long term, this raises property prices (because, hey, i can buy that house and make a bunch of money renting it on AirBnB) while also reducing the rental housing stock (because houses that would have been rented to long term renters are now on AirBnB). So now, as a renter, I pay more for rent because I'm competing for fewer houses AND it's going to cost me more money to get into my first house. So I save less money per month because more goes to rent and I have to save up more money to put a down payment down on a house.

Now, sure, how big this effect is is up for debate but I think it's naive to assume it doesn't exist. I expect cities with housing crises that also don't rely too heavily on tourist revenue to start regulating short term rentals aggressively to combat this effect (this has already happened in many places).

Sure, if you're a tourist town and most properties are second/vacation homes then this is less of an issue but in growing cities where renters are already barely getting by this is going to continue coming to a head. Alas, homeowners are more likely to get out and vote and have more directly measurable skin in the game vs a renter who might be more transient and less aware of the effects that are conspiring to squeeze them out.

<comment><USER33> Where would those tourists stay if they didn't use AirBnB? I can see where the residents may get priced out of a certain area because short term rental drives up the price, but the increase demand and higher prices should stimulate new construction. Now, if height restrictions are causing no new construction to be built, then perhaps the city should ease those so more housing can be built, driving the prices down. The 'character' of Manhattan isn't going to be ruined by higher building heights.

<comment><USER32> In hotels? Further away? It'd be more expensive or more inconvenient so fewer would come, but residents wouldn't be bearing the negative externalities as much as they are today.

I live in SF so while I wholeheartedly agree that more building should help solve the problem the reality (here at least) is that existing homeowners have strong incentives to oppose rezoning and new development as it might hurt their home's values. Many people have overextended to be able to buy here that anything that could cause dips in prices is vehemently opposed. I'll admit SF has a broader set of issues at play here but AirBnB just further strains an already strained situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm sure that number is dwarfed by how much extra renters paid due to actions of the city (e.g. height restrictions).

<comment><USER35> Which would be true regardless of AirBnB's presence, right? So the "AirBnB inflation" is still a thing.

<comment><USER36> But what about the things that aren't true because of AirBnB's presence? Maybe prices for short term stays went down, tourism went up, and there is more tax revenue that can be used to improve the city for the renters.

If we only look at one part of the picture we may miss that an overall trend is different. Is it really beneficial to talk about how many died because they were wearing a seat belt without also considering how many who lived for the same reason?

<comment><USER7> > Maybe prices for short term stays went down

Sure, allowing residential property to be used for short-term rental drives regular residential rents up and short-term rents down (forcing, over time, more residential proerties to be used for short-term rental to the extent possible), narrowing the gap between short-term and long-term rentals. It makes things less expensive for travellers and more expensive for non- travellers.

<comment><USER37> Perhaps the problem then, is that the city slaps a huge tax burden on travelers who choose to stay in hotels? Last time I stayed in a hotel in NYC, taxes were about 25% of the total cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> $616M / (⅔ * 8.5M) (Edit: was 8M) residents = about $109 (was: $77) per resident renter in 2016.

<comment><USER39> Residents are not renters. The number of renters in NYC was evidently around 5.4 million in 2016.

Even so, not every renter is a separate rental unit; dividing the figure by the number of rental units would be more useful since it would indicate the impact on the price of rent.

<comment><USER38> Do you think there are a substantial number of property owners?

[https://www.citylab.com/equity/2015/06/new-york-is-a-city- of...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2015/06/new-york-is-a-city-of-renters- at-every-age-level/396509/)

[https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/data-maps/nyc- population/...](https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/data-maps/nyc- population/population-facts.page)

> Approximately two-thirds of dwelling units in New York are renter-occupied, > over twice the national average.

Ok, not insignificant, but the order of magnitude is roughly correct. I'll update the computed figure.

<comment><USER39> The problem is still that your $109 is per renting person. A family of five in one dwelling is five renters: but they are not paying 5 x $109 more on their rent because of AirBNB!

The denominator has to be the number of rental dwellings; then we have a better idea what the impact is on rental prices, on average. Still, it must be dependent on area, and the size of the place and rent amount. Not everyone pays some sort of "flat AirBNB tax" across the board.

<comment><USER38> The more specific we try and make the $616M figure, the less accurate a predictor it becomes :-). I didn't want to go too far in that direction.

<comment><USER39> And anyway, AirBNB allows more people to visit NYC, so it's good for tourism. That has to be counted as money coming in. It's just not going into the pockets of some traditional hoteliers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Strange, I'm getting a 404. If anyone else is having the same problem, here's Google's cached version: [https://goo.gl/BmbnJ2](https://goo.gl/BmbnJ2)

</comment><comment><USER41> Now do it for San Diego.

The last 2 years, the prices have gone absolutely bonkers and landlords have ridiculous demands based on inflated airbnb prices they can charge to out of towners.

I really like Airbnb, but these effects are real and they suck.

<comment><USER42> Not to be difficult, but what do you like about AirBnB? There are benefits to it, but you also seem to understand the problems specific to it. Why do you feel the benefits outweigh the problems created?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's important to look under the surface of what this is saying. This boils down to an extra 77 dollars per person per year, so basically this amounts to an extra 10 dollars per month for any given unit.

<comment> murph-almighty Just curious but what's your math here?

If you divide by number of people in Manhattan (8.538 million) you get roughly $72.14 per person, but this isn't really accurate since not everyone in Manhattan rents- maybe you're a kid, or you own a co-op, or you're homeless.

You'd really need to divide the value by the number of rented units in NYC to figure out the average raise in rents per apartment, and even then that won't draw a perfect picture because many people live with roommates who contribute to rent.

I started picking out values from here: [https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/rentguidelinesboard/pdf/17HSR.pd...](https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/rentguidelinesboard/pdf/17HSR.pdf)

I don't know the nature of rent control that well in NYC so I'm just going to take a few approaches:

If we assume only unregulated apartments picked up the burden, the cost per unit is 725.80.

If we toss in the "other regulated" apartments, 546.42.

If we toss in all rent-stabilized (pre and post 46), it's 368.96.

All rented units together? $363.

<comment><USER18> There are under 2 million residents of Manhattan. 8.5 million people living in NYC, tho. NYC is all 5 boroughs, not just Manhattan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Unfortunately, Airbnb is probably the only way a middle-class family can earn money on investment properties. No one in their right mind would rent a $1,000,000 condo for (1% rule) $10,000.

<comment><USER45> What is the 1% rule? As a landlord I usually assume 0.5% per year.

So a million dollar condo would be 50K a year, or about $4200/mo, which is exactly in line with current nyc rents.

<comment><USER46> The rule is a residential rental is only worth the risk or has a good return if the property can be rented at about 1% of the value per month or more (e.g. a $100k home should rent for $1k/mo). I generally try to get an annual cap rate of 9% or more (1%/mo less expenses).

<comment><USER45> Wow. That rule must only apply in smaller cities. I can't think of a single residential property in the Bay Area that would even come close to that.

On the other hand, all the properties I manage do 0.5% per year and have all been profitable, not even including the appreciation on the property.

<comment><USER46> Not smaller, just different areas. It's fairly easy to achieve that in the Midwest and larger urban areas in the southeast. I typically got ~0.8%/mo or more.

I'd go so far as to say that if single family residential is your strategy it's better to take the multi-million dollar investment in a single home in the Bay and make one in 5-7 (or more) homes elsewhere. The appreciation is drastically lower but the cap rates are amazing (much higher cash flow) and the risk is spread out. Of course, with that kind of investment it's better to go multi-family or commercial anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Sounds like the PR firm for the hotel industry has been busy!

</comment><comment><USER48> So, I'm paying an extra $68/month because of Airbnb.

Alright.

<comment><USER49> $68 a month is easily 5% of income afters taxes for many people. In a country where we already spend an absurdly high percentage of our income on rent, this doesn't seem trivial.

<comment><USER48> Numerically you're right, but you're showing a distinction without a difference. In the kinds of neighborhoods where Airbnb has a foothold (gentrified, desirable, centrally located) rents are already so high that an extra $68 doesn't make a damn bit of difference. I live in one of these neighborhoods, and I speak for absolutely everyone who can afford to pay the rent I'm paying: we don't care about the additional $68.

Those for whom $68 really is 5% of net monthly income don't live in Airbnb- infested neighborhoods, and thus are even less affected by the impact Airbnb has on rental prices.

I don't mean to sound insensitive to the plight of those for whom NYC is too expensive. I think such people need to be helped, but spending even an iota of thought on Airbnb is a waste of time: its impact is concentrated in neighborhoods that are already too far out of the reach of rent-challenged New Yorkers. And this isn't the case because of Airbnb.

<comment><USER29> You are insisting on the $68 a month figure based on dividing the total prchange in prices over all rentals then insisting the effect is actually almost entirely concentrated in a small segment of neighborhoods which means that we ought not logically to divide it between all parties but insisting on using the smaller figure derived from doing so.

This is bad math based on already uncertain math.

In a pathological case where we have a rich neighborhood consisting of 3 owners and 7 renters transformed into 3 owners 3 renters and 4 airbnbs not only would the price increase presumably by much more than 68 for the remaining renters the other renters would seek rent elsewhere increasing demand and therefore price. Given more buyers than sellers they would push someone out presumably to a still less desirable neighborhood where they would displace someone else.

Your neighborhood isn't a market unto itself and you can't pretend changes their don't have pervasive effects on the rest of the market and decreasing supply MUST increase price throughout the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This just a PR-driven article that states an obvious fact (demand influences the market) in order to advance an agenda.

</comment><comment><USER51> This article is totally worthless without some way to gauge what $616M actually is... I have a VERY hard time believing in NYC that's anything but "piss in the wind" compared to total amount spent on rent.

Too many articles come out with a "shocking number" that doesn't mean anything except to those who don't know the scale.

This is mostly a click-bait article and study.

<comment><USER52> According to [1], there are 2,146,892 occupied rental apartments in NYC. So this works out to an average of $287 per rental per year. Hardly "piss in the wind".

[1] - [https://www.nakedapartments.com/guides/nyc/renting-in-new- yo...](https://www.nakedapartments.com/guides/nyc/renting-in-new-york- city/high-demand-low-supply)

<comment><USER51> Absolutely piss in the wind. Are you kidding me? Again numbers and scale throw people off...

The average rent for an NYC apartment per month is $3375 ([https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-new-york-rent- tre...](https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-new-york-rent-trends/)) totaling: $40,500 per year.

So that $287 increase is less than 0.7% per year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> 1.58% doesn't get as many clicks as $616M

</comment><comment><USER54> Are AirBnb competitors contributing to this as well? Companies such as Tripping.com, FlipKey, HomeAway, etc.

</comment><comment><USER55> "For each 1 percent of all residential units in a neighborhood listed on Airbnb, rents in that neighborhood went up 1.58 percent, Stringer said."

Correlation does not imply causation[1]. Looks to me this is one of the studies that I would label as "shallow" or "problematic".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation)

<comment><USER56> Yes, they calculate using a simple regression with some controls (fixed- effects model): [https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-impact-of-airbnb- on-...](https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-impact-of-airbnb-on-nyc- rents/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> People wanted disruption ... well that's what you get. Economics of capitalism at work.

<comment><USER58> Be careful what you wish for, especially if wishing for profit over anyone's well being or if wishing for disruption over sustainability.

I hypothesize an antidote to capitalism could be collaboratively learning how to sustainably contribute to all life's needs together through science, art, and love.

I'm very interested in picking apart this hypothesis. If you (the person reading this) disagree, would you be willing to specify the words you disagree with and/or specific examples explaining why you disagree? Same for if you agree <3

<comment><USER17> Profit creates well-being. Without profit, the economy stops.

<comment><USER58> I'm fairly certain well-being comes from needs being met. Life has no need for profit or money. Those are constructs that require believing what you said in order to be true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Wait a second. The entire population of New York state is 20 million. How could they possibly have paid an extra $616 million? Each person in New York paid an extra $30 million?

<comment><USER15> 616M/20M is not 30 million - you have to take out the million :)</comment></comment>