The “home safety” section on Airbnb’s website is sparse, offering one carbon monoxide/smoke detector per host and some friendly “home safety preparedness tips” they apparently “partnered with experts at the American Red Cross” to develop.

This is intentional, as Airbnb insulates itself from liability by claiming it’s a “home sharing platform,” not a property rental company that might be subject to any form of safety, health, or labor requirements. There’s a reason the website says “your safety is our priority,” not “your safety is our responsibility.”

Airbnb is not an original concept — it’s essentially branded as a bed and breakfast (it’s in the name after all) app. Airbnb’s business model boils down to pretending it doesn’t have the same liabilities as a hotel or traditional bed & breakfast and bribing policy makers.

After all, if Airbnb were suddenly liable for the safety of every one of the properties they rent out, they likely wouldn’t be able to pull in $2.6 billion in revenue while employing 3,1000 people and shaving off a net profit of $93 million.

Similarly, Uber and Lyft’s business models boil down to pretending they don’t have the same liabilities as other transportation companies, and stifling any attempts at labor organizing among their drivers. In February, 2017 a video of then CEO Travis Kalanick arguing with an Uber driver went viral.

In the video, driver Fawzi Kamel tells Kalanick that by lowering prices of the cheapest Ubers he is reducing demand, and therefore wages for drivers of the higher priced option, Uber Black, that Kalanick is currently using.

Kalanick clearly doesn’t understand, repeatedly insisting that he hasn’t changed the price on Black, while the driver grows increasingly exasperated and repeatedly attempts to explain his predicament. Eventually Kalanick snaps, telling the driver “some people don’t like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame every single thing in their life on somebody else. Good luck,” as he exited the car.

Kalanick’s complete obliviousness to the conditions Uber drivers are experiencing is not surprising, considering that even under its new leadership Uber is happy to accept help from the Trump administration to prevent its drivers from unionizing.

Though Uber unceremoniously dumped Kalanick not long after the video was released, his attitude exemplified the Zuckerberg-esque, move fast, break things, and fuck anyone who gets in your way philosophy of the “sharing economy” and tech companies in general.

Uber and Lyft aren’t transportation companies, they’re ride sharing, or transportation network companies. Airbnb isn’t a rental service, it’s a home sharing platform. After all, they learned from the master, Mark Zuckerberg, who has repeatedly refused to admit that Facebook is a media company.

All euphemisms aside, the reality is these companies have used the profits they’ve hoarded by aggressively undermining existing markets, bypassing labor unions, and violating various laws to carry out a massive lobbying campaign that would leave organizations like the NRA in awe.

Though they have their own niches — transportation, property rental, etc. the defining traits of their businesses are the same. They copied key features of existing industries that were highly regulated and ossified, made the experience easier and cheaper for consumers, while telling organized labor and government officials to fuck off. Now their lobbying campaigns share similar defining traits as well.

Data from Open Secrets

Data from Open Secrets

As evidenced by the charts above, Airbnb and Uber have both significantly stepped up their lobbying in recent years. Lyft has also stepped up it’s lobbying lately, donating to elected officials including Kamala Harris, Katie Porter, Barbara Lee, Tim Kaine, Beto O’Rourke, Krysten Sinema, and countless others.

And all of this data only covers federal lobbying efforts — Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, and other tech companies are also midway through a lobbying tour of state legislatures across the country.

As more mid-size players like Uber and Airbnb work their way up the influence ladder, they hope to one day rival giants such as Google and Facebook, whose lobbying efforts dwarf theirs.

Airbnb and Uber have both employed the classic NRA tactic of mobilizing their massive user bases to lobby elected officials on their behalf, offering a hint of the fault lines that will be drawn as confrontations between “sharing economy” stakeholders and various governments increase.