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Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

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Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#81

Post by suresk »

Tloewald wrote: post #33
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless, they fix this and get more people to review honestly. I think they're going to run into a lot of problems. I don't airBnB, but a friend who does was recently berated by a host after leaving a 4-star review; that host claimed (don't know how true this is) that many hosts will refuse to rent to you again if you leave anything but a 5-star review. That and other things I've seen and heard about airBnB reviews…

The whole system of review curation that infests online markets is a problem waiting to be solved. Right now we basically have to parse reviews on the 4.4-5.0 scale because anything outside that is meaningless. It's amazing to go read a novel rated 3 stars (because it operates outside this loop) and find it transcendently good.

Is anyone trying to solve this right now? It seems like a really interesting problem that would be really useful to solve.

It isn't just online, and it isn't just a technology problem. I recently bought a car and the manufacturer sent me a survey about the process. The salesman made sure, numerous times, to let me know that I'd be getting said survey and that anything less than a 10 meant he failed and that there would be negative consequences for him. Since I was mostly happy with the process, I gave him all 10s, even though one or two areas I would have rated a little lower. He got his good review and it didn't really bother me, but the car company lost out on some potentially useful feedback.

Some of the problems - like different people having a tendency to rate on different scales, ratings coming from different factors, etc - seem pretty amenable to a ML approach to make reviews a lot more useful, though. I wonder if anyone outside of a handful of companies (Amazon, Yelp, AirBnB, Google, etc) has enough data to make it useful, though?

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#82

Post by ryen »

baus wrote: post #79
kilroy123 wrote: post #15

I'm not surprised to see Airbnb became profitable. They've expanded everywhere. I nomad around and always use Airbnb, I've booked places on several continents. However, I'm definitely feeling the effects of their growing pains. For example, many people have bought places to only rent on Airbnb full-time. Most of these people suck at being an hotelier. It's clear people get lazy and are just trying to make money. Thin…

It goes both ways. I'm an Airbnb host and renter(1). Mostly I have had good experiences, but I have had more problems on the hosting side lately. I take pride in my property and lived there myself for years. But I've gotten guests who nit pick everything and then ask for a refund. I had one guest ask for a refund because there was snow in Tahoe, and they stayed for the full time anyway. Another guest wanted a refund…

Clearly those are lame asks from the renter. Does Airbnb assist you in those situations? If you forward those requests to Airbnb support will they prevent a bad review from showing?

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#83

Post by fiatjaf »

Tloewald wrote: post #33
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless, they fix this and get more people to review honestly. I think they're going to run into a lot of problems. I don't airBnB, but a friend who does was recently berated by a host after leaving a 4-star review; that host claimed (don't know how true this is) that many hosts will refuse to rent to you again if you leave anything but a 5-star review. That and other things I've seen and heard about airBnB reviews…

The whole system of review curation that infests online markets is a problem waiting to be solved. Right now we basically have to parse reviews on the 4.4-5.0 scale because anything outside that is meaningless. It's amazing to go read a novel rated 3 stars (because it operates outside this loop) and find it transcendently good.

Has anyone ever tried

1. normalize reviews to make a 4 star from someone who always gives 5 stars worth less than a 3 star from someone who always gives 2 stars; and

2. make reviews secret?

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#84

Post by fiatjaf »

beefman wrote: post #31

We haven't had a recession in 8 years, and the postwar average time between recessions is 6 years.[1] The stock market's overall PE ratio is well above average.[2] With Box and Snap, the market demonstrated it is starving for tech IPOs -- even if a company is losing money and entirely based on a millennial fad. So why in the name of sweet baby Jesus would investors, founders, or anyone else delay an IPO at this point…

Because statistics are not laws of the universe? Because you may be misinterpreting the statistics? Because they're waiting their price to get higher in maybe 1 year, or maybe 7 years?

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#85

Post by AndrewKemendo »

kilroy123 wrote: post #15

I'm not surprised to see Airbnb became profitable. They've expanded everywhere. I nomad around and always use Airbnb, I've booked places on several continents. However, I'm definitely feeling the effects of their growing pains. For example, many people have bought places to only rent on Airbnb full-time. Most of these people suck at being an hotelier. It's clear people get lazy and are just trying to make money. Thin…

All of my bad AirBnB experiences were ones where there were no actual tenants. The ones where it was an actual non-professional bed and breakfast, as the name implies, were fantastic.

I travel so much that consistency is important and that is what hotels offer. I see AirBnB as an inferior option for hotels, not a way to meet new friends.

I think the idea that AirBnB is going to kill the hotel industry is way overblown - professional travelers (not the startup crowd largely) like consistency above all else.

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#86

Post by baus »

mdc2161 wrote: post #44
kilroy123 wrote: post #15

I'm not surprised to see Airbnb became profitable. They've expanded everywhere. I nomad around and always use Airbnb, I've booked places on several continents. However, I'm definitely feeling the effects of their growing pains. For example, many people have bought places to only rent on Airbnb full-time. Most of these people suck at being an hotelier. It's clear people get lazy and are just trying to make money. Thin…

Dealt with similar issues as both a host and a guest. The biggest problem to me is poor expectation setting. There are hosts that run BnB quality services, ones that run a mock-hotel like you described, and ones that just rent out a spare room in their apartment. As a guest, it'd be great to know what I'm walking into. As a host, having guests that understand they are staying in my home and NOT a hotel would be great…

You can filter on entire space vs just a room

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#87

Post by aanm1988 »

elastic_church wrote: post #22
muninn_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Becoming a public company has it's own set of issues, though.

Yeah weird how people hold up IPO as a holy grail. Its the worst thing to do if you are actually passionate about the company, if it is your labor of love. Its the best thing to do if you want to make a lot of money from your money machine and are largely apathetic about the outcome of the business itself. Easy enough to find the next MBA graduate to feign passion for you while they are just trying to sell the compan…

> Yeah weird how people hold up IPO as a holy grail

Because employees actually gain out of it. That's also a benefit as it gives more people financial freedom and they can go off and do their own companies. Instead these people get locked in to AirBnB for years.

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#88

Post by lordnacho »

Tloewald wrote: post #33
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless, they fix this and get more people to review honestly. I think they're going to run into a lot of problems. I don't airBnB, but a friend who does was recently berated by a host after leaving a 4-star review; that host claimed (don't know how true this is) that many hosts will refuse to rent to you again if you leave anything but a 5-star review. That and other things I've seen and heard about airBnB reviews…

The whole system of review curation that infests online markets is a problem waiting to be solved. Right now we basically have to parse reviews on the 4.4-5.0 scale because anything outside that is meaningless. It's amazing to go read a novel rated 3 stars (because it operates outside this loop) and find it transcendently good.

How about making you rank the places you've stayed at? You could do it by subset if there's a lot.

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#89

Post by SerpentJoe »

suresk wrote: post #81
Tloewald wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole system of review curation that infests online markets is a problem waiting to be solved. Right now we basically have to parse reviews on the 4.4-5.0 scale because anything outside that is meaningless. It's amazing to go read a novel rated 3 stars (because it operates outside this loop) and find it transcendently good.

Is anyone trying to solve this right now? It seems like a really interesting problem that would be really useful to solve. It isn't just online, and it isn't just a technology problem. I recently bought a car and the manufacturer sent me a survey about the process. The salesman made sure, numerous times, to let me know that I'd be getting said survey and that anything less than a 10 meant he failed and that there wou…

Many services have this issue, that perfection is the minimum requirement. I don't understand why, given this, we don't just go to a thumbs up / thumbs down rating system. We have one option that means "fine" and four (or nine) that mean "terrible, and a risk to your business".

I know I personally gave plenty of three star reviews on Lyft before I learned better, meaning them as "no complaints". Who knows what happened to those drivers as a result. Why even invite the misunderstanding?

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#90

Post by Tiktaalik »

I wonder if they’ll still be profitable as more and more cities become aware of the negative side effects of Airbnb use and implement various sorts of bans on types of commercial Airbnb activity.

A researcher at UBC estimated that commercial operators were responsible for generating 77% of Airbnb revenue in Vancouver. The City of Vancouver is planning on legalizing Airbnb, but will ban commercial operators that rent out entire residences. This will likely significantly reduce the amount of commercially operated Airbnbs in the city and this could result in significantly less revenue that Airbnb generates from Vancouver.

If this researchers’ numbers are at all reasonably accurate, and other cities have similar levels of commercial activity, and the trend of cities banning commercial operators catches on, that would be a major impact on Airbnb revenue.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouv...

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