Every AirBnB I've been at in the last two years has had internal cameras...
Airbnb and security camera disclosure
261–270 of 406 posts
Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure
#262When I interviewed at Airbnb, they asked me about one thing I learned in the past that could be useful for Airbnb. I suggested that people who are developing the product should once in a while spend a few hours handling user tickets themselves (perhaps shadowing an actual customer representative), so that developers get to sense (at the gut level) the pain points. The interviewer did not seemed pleased with that sugg…
What role were you interviewing for? Also, did they offer you the job?
Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure
#263[deleted]
Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure
#264When I interviewed at Airbnb, they asked me about one thing I learned in the past that could be useful for Airbnb. I suggested that people who are developing the product should once in a while spend a few hours handling user tickets themselves (perhaps shadowing an actual customer representative), so that developers get to sense (at the gut level) the pain points. The interviewer did not seemed pleased with that sugg…
What role were you interviewing for? Also, did they offer you the job?
It was a software engineer role. I did get an offer but in the end I didn’t take it.
Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure
#265I never understood appeal of AirBnB. We used to travel a lot and thought AirBnB would be cheaper to equivalent hotels but it usually is about same or more expensive but with less amenities. For example: * There is no room service. You can order delivery but room service has certain charms especially at 2AM. * In hotels, you come back to a clean room at the day's end. * There is cleaning fee for many AirBnB. With hote…
The appeal of AirBnB is that there is a much lower barrier to entry. I rarely spend more than $50-100/night on airbnb. (With the $100 being in expensive areas and usually a whole apartment) I can rarely, if ever, find hotels that are below $80/night (short of them being extremely sketchy or in the middle of nowhere). Meanwhile those hotels don't always have kitchens, sizable refrigerators, etc. It's allowed me to tra…
Most hotel we stayed at, cost about $120-150 a night. And these were in Manhattan, SF, Austin, Vegas etc. I would def. stay in AirBnB to save $80-100 a night.
Not sure how I missed such options, perhaps we have bias towards hotels that made us ignore these.
Trying out our first AirBnB with a few friends in Austin next month. It will cost each couple $175 per night for one room in 4Bed/4Bath house . In the same general area, we could have gotten hotel for $150 but thought house would be more fun.
Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure
#266I never understood appeal of AirBnB. We used to travel a lot and thought AirBnB would be cheaper to equivalent hotels but it usually is about same or more expensive but with less amenities. For example: * There is no room service. You can order delivery but room service has certain charms especially at 2AM. * In hotels, you come back to a clean room at the day's end. * There is cleaning fee for many AirBnB. With hote…
[deleted]
Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure
#267I've lived in Airbnbs full-time for about 18 months while traveling, and Airbnb has lost my trust repeatedly in terms of reliability, safety, and user-friendliness. - Host listing quality has gone consistently downhill. Now, it's many slumlords just trying to make a quick buck rather than support the original community idea or provide a great stay. - Airbnb support response times are horribly slow. They hide their ph…
I've had nearly identical experiences, the worst being an apartment infested with bedbugs. Despite having video proof [0] of our mattress literally crawling with bedbugs, Airbnb support took the landlord's side and bounced us between case managers until it was finally resolved almost 24 hours later. At least at a hotel they have to acknowledge and fix the issue on the spot. 0. https://youtu.be/RJHScbdp15s
Same, bedbugs in India, had to go to a proper hotel costing me more than $1000 between room and cleaning all my belongings, I take bedbugs seriously and didn’t want to bring any bug back home. I had pictures of the bugs and the hotel and cleaning invoices. They asked for a medical (!!!) report. Airbnb refunded me 1 of the 2 nights out of 7 I didn’t spend there. So Airbnb costed me more money than going directly to a hotel. Not to mention how distressful and time consuming all this was. I didn’t ever use Airnb before and I’m not going to miss them at all...
Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's almost as if AirBnB's hosts and guests are bearing the externalities that should be priced into the transaction on both sides... For hosts, property damage, etc. is a matter of when, not if, and for those things you get insurance. But as far as I know that's not a standard thing for hosts. Pricing in hidden hosting costs would make hosting look less profitable up front, then AirBnB's market would shrink. For gue…
I feel like what you described is the main reason for the profitability of most "sharing economy" services. Uber is also advertised as a little side gig you can do when your car is not being used while the real goal is to have a taxi service that isn't subject to the same legislation and unloads more cost on the driver.
When the parasite consumes the host.
Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure
#269Any implementation of sharing living quarters with other people has too many problems. People nowadays don’t understand what it means to be clean. Back wen cleanliness was up to you and of great practical importance, people were aware of beg bugs, Scabies, fleas, dust mites and the such like. Bed bugs are disgusting and when you stay in a hotel of any kind you risk picking them up. Their eggs stick to you, your luggage, everything and you trail them everywhere you go, including your own house. I just don’t understand why people want to sleep in bug infested cum stained shit hole shared rooms. I sleep in my car instead and while it’s not as nice as a room, it’s a lot better than sharing.
Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure
#270When I interviewed at Airbnb, they asked me about one thing I learned in the past that could be useful for Airbnb. I suggested that people who are developing the product should once in a while spend a few hours handling user tickets themselves (perhaps shadowing an actual customer representative), so that developers get to sense (at the gut level) the pain points. The interviewer did not seemed pleased with that sugg…
dunno if they still do it, but this was normal practice at Etsy when I was an engineer there (2013-2015). Every so often (once a quarter maybe?) I had to spend a day answering support tickets. We discovered (and fixed) a lot of bugs that way.