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🌆 The End of Airbnb in New York

🌆 The End of Airbnb in New York

Plus: 🚘 The Smartphone Playbook, 📺 Behind Disney's Spectrum blackout

September 07, 2023

Photo by Emiliano Bar on Unsplash

🌆 Thousands of Airbnb Listings Disappear in 24 Hours

New York City has a new law that basically kicked Airbnb out of the city.

The new system is pretty harsh.

If you want to rent out your place for less than 30 days, you have to register with the city. You also have to stay in the home with your guests and let them use the whole place.

This means that most of the short-term listings on Airbnb are gone. Like, 15,000 of them. That’s a 70% drop in just a day.

The motivation behind this law stems from concerns over the negative effects of short-term rentals, including noise, trash, safety issues, and the potential for pricing local residents out of their neighborhoods.

Airbnb calls the law a “de facto ban” and says it contrasts with the approach in places like San Diego and Seattle.

🚘 The End of BMW's $18 Monthly Heated Seat Subscription

Do you remember that time when BMW thought they could get away with charging $18 a month for heated seats in 2022?

Yeah, that was a terrible idea.

A subscription for a hardware feature only makes sense if the upfront cost is small or nonexistent — not when someone has already spent around $50,000 on a luxury car.

Well, BMW has finally seen the light. According to Pieter Nota, a big shot at BMW, they’re ditching the hardware subscription model.

But don’t get too excited — they’re still going to push for on-demand software services. So, you might not have to fork out for your heated seats, but that fancy parking assistance might set you back a few bucks.

It seems like the car industry is trying to take a leaf out of the smartphone playbook to make more money.

Tesla, for example, charges a whopping $12,000 for its “Full Self-Driving” driver assistance system. General Motors wants to have a Netflix-sized subscription business by 2030 by selling services like its OnStar in-vehicle concierge.

📺 The Chess Match of Media

Disney and Charter Communications are in a heated dispute, leading to a blackout of Disney’s channels for Charter Spectrum’s 14.8 million customers.

The issue? Disney wants to offer its sports network, ESPN, directly to customers through streaming services.

Charter Communications, as a cable provider, is not happy about that. They don’t mind paying Disney more money, but they want more freedom in how they offer Disney’s channels and streaming apps.

Both sides have high stakes, with billions of dollars in programming fees on the line.

And to make things even more complicated, this is all happening at a crucial time for Disney as they’re trying to negotiate with Comcast over acquiring full control of Hulu.