Airbnb: Goodbye, My Sweet

Derelict motel, Vaughn, New Mexico. July 2013.

From South Louisiana to Arkansas, on the way to Missouri. October 2017.


I can love someone but still break up.


Airbnb, I loved you, but we're finished.

You had my email address. You had my phone number. At our multiple rendezous, you had my credit card number. You had my photo.

But all of a sudden these weren't enough. You wanted government photo ID. You wanted a new photo. And then another. It didn't matter that I had a sterling track record of good references from past hosts.

Think about it, Airbnb. Do you take my security any more "seriously" than Wells Fargo? Than the IRS? Yahoo? Equifax? The National Fucking Security Agency?

Yet you want me to put all this juicy data in one convenient spot for hackers: photo, government photo ID (!), credit card, phone number, email?!

You haven't been hacked yet? Sweetie, it's only a matter of time. Or it's already happened, only you don't know it yet. Or haven't told us yet.

And it's not as if the sick man who shot and killed so many people in Las Vegas would have been stopped by your new requirements. Remember him? The guy who booked lodging through Airbnb?

What you're doing is, in fact, irresponsible, because in the name of security theater (like TSA confiscating my new tube of toothpaste), you're exposing all of your Airbnb hosts and renters to inevitable hacking.


I grieve for the loss of our years-long relationship, but you're just too risky for me.