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est31today at 3:51 AM2 repliesview on HN

It's fine to make mistakes, that's how you learn. The problem here was that they didn't announce to the host that they are doing a test of their in-development equipment.

So the host wasn't able to add the additional risk and hassle to the price, which in this instance would have been a quite legitimate ask as the robot damaged their revenue generating property.

It's very ironic that Airbnb itself has done similar practices in the past where it ignored hospitality regulations to establish their business model, i.e. not asking for permission but for forgiveness.

The Airbnb style response would be to gig-ify this model where you ask an independent contractor to buy the test robot, rent the Airbnb, and test it out instead of you doing it yourself. Then the contractor bears the risk of damages to the property.


Replies

mrandishtoday at 4:14 AM

> The problem here was that they didn't announce to the host that they are doing a test of their in-development equipment.

I might be okay forgiving skirting the disclosure rules BUT only if they tried to be model tenants and, if there was any damage, took steps to proactively make things right. If you're breaking the rules, even if there was no damage, you should definitely be cleaning up and putting things back in place.

DonHopkinstoday at 2:44 PM

Should have signed up for Old Glory Robot Insurance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Gh_IcK8UM