>(By the way, if significant portions of your userbase are capable of becoming addicted to your product, consider that it may not be fully ethical to produce it.)
There is a reason that long stretches of unemployment, accidents, and tragedies lead to divorce. It isn't because compassion is the default reaction to stress in most families.
Our experience with Wimdu: we found out about the site well before we found out who the Samwer brothers are and what they do (namely, rip off big sites). We accordingly signed up because hey, more exposure can't be a bad thing, right?
Wimdu failed to cross-check our presence when they gave their telemarketing list to what sounded like kids in dorm rooms robocalling us - day after day after day and sometimes three times per day - until they finally gave up (more likely) or finally got the message that we had already listed ourselves on their site. Whatever Airbnb did where they emailed people via Craigslist has absolutely nothing on the obnoxiousness of Wimdu, they're just lesser news.
I've considered this issue a lot. Having lost many friends and family members to cancers of various types, and counting cancer survivors among my friends and acquaintances, I am very keenly interested in curing cancer.
Right now, being so deeply invested in my own business, I would wish there were things I could do to simply fund cancer research. But nothing is simple, and there are a lot of problems with cancer research funding: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/health/research/28cancer.h...
The comment on that piece that most struck me was from the breast cancer survivor who eagerly participated in a research study, given that she knew which carcinogens she'd been exposed to in her lifetime, but found that she was asked useless questions using research money that could've been well-used elsewhere. #28 on this page: http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/0...
You will quickly find when you research cancer that acquiring a decade's worth of specialized knowledge isn't going to get you to your goal. It's much better to have a working knowledge of statistics and the ability to read medical papers, something you can do with far less than a MD or PhD.
This being the top comment, I'm assuming it got upvoted the most, but nobody chimed in verbal agreement.
I'm posting from a 2007 Compaq 8510p with Windows XP, and having the browser bog down as if I've been hacked has been the sharpest reminder of late I need to upgrade.
By far the biggest movement in porn since the internet is 'amateur'.
That's because the internet has stripped profits away. It's like reality shows being the trend in television because expensive productions don't have as much profit margin as they used to.
The only thing I'd add is that as we become more saturated in stimulation, it takes more extremes to get the dopamine hit. This goes for porn or anything else he mentions in his article.
It's simple, but there are a lot of people who do not understand this. They don't realize the taxes from the system that funded childhood educations and college tuitions to result in an employable, knowledgeable, creative mass of first-world dwellers should be paid back into through taxes on the profits of the companies in their sphere.
There is a singular lack of realization about the societies in which we live, possibly because it does feel like every man for himself most days. The societal web that makes us interdependent and upon which we rely without knowing it isn't as apparent.
Addendum: there's a lot of confusion about the differences between something being legal and something being moral/ethical in the responses to this post. Legal too often simply means exploiting loopholes.
What in the world was this downvoted for. Seriously. I was explaining a misunderstanding.
For those who don't know, Airbnb has a posting-to-Craigslist option. It is not an auto-poster; rather, it formats a post into the html that'll be accepted by Craigslist, then you have to log into your Craigslist account to post to Craigslist what Airbnb's given you. We haven't used this option since we started. It does invite you to go to Airbnb's site so the transaction is not being conducted via Craigslist's email system. It chooses "no email - see below" as the default option and does not include a phone number. You can, of course, since you are the poster and it's not being auto-posted, change anything and everything about the format and the options.
Then you have our situation, the situation that has developed. We indicate our reviews on Airbnb and other services. The other services remain fine and untouched. But we can no longer show potential customers our Airbnb reviews.
To whomever is downvoting everything I am posting, tell me why.
I think this is REALLY important. I didn't want it to pass without notice as when I posted the "Airbnb killer" link 10 days ago; that was worth noting too, but this is vital.
Ability to link to Airbnb on Craigslist may not be important in the large markets where people will see your Airbnb ad anyway, as in SeoxyS's case, but for the just-getting-going places where Airbnb wishes to grow, it's vital.
It's an inaccurate representation of what happened as well as a year-old story, and I don't think it has much relevance to why they chose to block airbnb.com today.
I operate vacation rentals and my family makes part of our living through Airbnb, and thus have an interest in their continued growth and success as a company.
1. You have a prime SF location and your fantastic reviews will always get you a high place in Airbnb's listings. SF and NY have enormous exposure. Enough people coming to town a) need an alternative to high hotel prices and b) are aware of the existence of a site called Airbnb that you will never run short of guests.
2. We don't use the Craigslist posting feature through Airbnb's site. It would make some sense for Craigslist to limit the use of that tool, since they have limited the use of other automated tools (limiting their own utility as a service, but that's beyond the scope of what I'm talking about). This is not being able to type "airbnb.com" into the posting form at all, something quite different. Potential guests ask for reviews, as they should, and we direct them upfront in our Craigslist ads to Airbnb, Homeaway, and other places we have excellent reviews.
I hope this submission gets noticed. Craigslist is the absolute best way to advertise Airbnb listings. Without it, we're kinda sunk, and it could have a big impact on Airbnb's bottom line.
Well, there goes the gaming industry.