I grew up in upstate NY and everytime I make it home I hear about this story. It's pretty amazing to read about growth like this from a non-tech company. It's also interesting to think about how big of an impact they have had on the dairy industry in NY(and I'm sure other places as well). Their success has revitalized the industry and helped a TON of farmers get back on their feet.
They had originally pledged to only source their milk from New York state, but they've grown so big so quickly that they've literally bought every last drop of available NY milk. The farmers can't keep up. As a result, they're going to have to cross state lines soon.
i think people would have a much different view if this wasn't airbnb and was a less reputable company. The things described in the post definitely constitute as spam and violate CAN-SPAM...but these types of tactics do work (if they didn't we wouldn't have spammers) and there wasn't anything malicious about it.
