Airbnb Mobilizes Users to Help Fight Its Battles in New York
- Cities seek to regulate growing ‘shared-economy’ businesses
- Company opposes law on Cuomo’s desk that would fine some users
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Rhett Johnson, 34, has earned as much as $1,000 a month renting out the living room and its sofa bed in his one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan.
Airbnb, the San Francisco-based lodging-by-web platform he uses, is trying to enlist him and 46,000 other New York hosts in a political movement. Its most immediate goal: to stop Governor Andrew Cuomo from signing a law that would fine Airbnb users as much as $7,500 if they advertise short-term stays in unoccupied apartments.