He paints full Josephine in great color, but that's exactly what Airbnb is - connecting visitors with people want to host people in their homes. Airbnb doesn't dictate the experience beyond some guidelines, they don't hire hosts, etc.
But
We see Airbnb enabling bad actors on its platform, refusing to take action against them, posting ads all over san Francisco to sink prop f - acting like a mega Corp.
Josephine is not mega Corp, yet. But imagine if it became huge. I bet it'd look more like sprig, and all the other mega corps, than the author would like.
Pretty much the only wildly successful company I can think of that has not ended up acting like a mega Corp is craigslist.
You got a reference for that?, because since Craiglist is private, there doesn't seem to be much chance of a traditional "maximizing profit" in-the-shareholds-best-interst lawsuit going anywhere.
But it was not about profit maximization, Ebay argued that actions they took were harmful to the stake Ebay owned in the company. So it was just a more typical shareholder lawsuit.
(It's unlikely that Craigslist has overtly stated that the purpose of the company is to maximize profit, so as long as Newmark controls a huge chunk of the company a lawsuit along those lines is going to be a tough hill to climb)
I don't have any citations, I just remember reading about Newmark getting sued for something related to profits and him going on record as saying profits weren't the main motivating factor for craigslist.
I could be misremembering some of the details, however.
He could also cook entirely by himself and feel worse yet knowing he's hoarding his money and not parting with some of it for food knowing some of it would end up employing otherwise people who'd have a hard time finding skilled employment.
I seem to recall mostly parasites who wanted to bootstrap their businesses off craigslist's audience and data who where shocked, shocked! when craigslist didn't agree to let them do so.
Craigslist is virtually unique in that they don't charge most users anything and don't have any plans to do so, and I'm happy to see them defend their platform despite its warts. They've hooked me up with 5 apartments, a SO, and at least 3 jobs.
What's tricky there is that they provided a wonderful user interface, but used Craigslist data. Since CL refuses to update their UI (and for potentially good reason), I find it hard to justify a monopoly on displaying their data. The links still go back to the CL listings, unless I'm misunderstanding the dispute. I fail to see what is unethical about that.
Let's not pretend padmapper was just making a nice interface; the clear goal was to use postings from CL, get people to use padmapper, then migrate them to padlister. Where they charge fees, with more fees on the way the second they get any business leverage, given they are/where a VC funded company.
But
We see Airbnb enabling bad actors on its platform, refusing to take action against them, posting ads all over san Francisco to sink prop f - acting like a mega Corp.
Josephine is not mega Corp, yet. But imagine if it became huge. I bet it'd look more like sprig, and all the other mega corps, than the author would like.
Pretty much the only wildly successful company I can think of that has not ended up acting like a mega Corp is craigslist.