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Airbnb Announces Intention to Become a Publicly-Traded Company During 2020

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Re: Airbnb Announces Intention to Become a Publicly-Traded Company During 2020

#61

Post by asveikau »

Tushon wrote: post #22
enos_feedler wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recession?

There are a non-trivial number of signs of a recession coming up this winter/2020. E.g. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/02/heres-a-list-of-recession-si...

Predicting the exact timing of a recession is very hard to do. You can say there are troubling signs but I would be extremely skeptical of somebody telling me "Winter/2020" with a high degree of confidence. Meanwhile, there have been people pointing out troubling signs for several years now, and if you acted on their advice you'd have lost money, but nobody could have told you that for sure at the time, either.

Re: Airbnb Announces Intention to Become a Publicly-Traded Company During 2020

#62

Post by random42 »

alephnan wrote: post #60
random42 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Airbnb has the benefit of a much better UI and UX compared to several over hotel aggregators like booking.com While AirBnB might be pleasing on the eyes, Booking's UI is optimised for conversion. The benefit of "better UI and UX" is arguable here if it does not result in more $ for the business. Specially if they want to compete in the public market. Disclaimer - Ex-Booking.com employee

I don’t discredit Booking’s priority on conversion, but Airbnb is also known for prolific A/B experimentation, atleast in the first booking funnel

My point about how do we define "benefit of UI and UX"? If the criteria is conversion/revenue/profit - as arguably it should be for a publicly trading business - Booking and Expedia are no slouches.

Re: Airbnb Announces Intention to Become a Publicly-Traded Company During 2020

#63

Post by puranjay »

michalu wrote: post #28

As Airbnb is getting banned across cities in Europe and locals are beginning to hate on it + staled growth it's about the time to hand the equity over to public investors and cash out. I'm not very bullish on Airbnb, I used to practically live in Airbnb for over 3 years, but for the last 2 years I haven't even logged in and been only using booking.com. I remember years back in London an Airbnb host that wasn't even t…

> "tell everyone you're a friend, it's not allowed in this building but everyone's doing it"

Maybe because I'm getting older, but going through something like that would ruin my vacation.

Re: Airbnb Announces Intention to Become a Publicly-Traded Company During 2020

#64

Post by puranjay »

random42 wrote: post #58
SenHeng wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb has the benefit of a much better UI and UX compared to several over hotel aggregators like booking.com or expedia, or even domestic ones here in Japan like rakuten or jalan. The only thing that annoys me the Airbnb booking experience, is that it's not really a booking, it's putting in a booking request and then waiting for the owners to approve. Compared to regular hotels.

> Airbnb has the benefit of a much better UI and UX compared to several over hotel aggregators like booking.com While AirBnB might be pleasing on the eyes, Booking's UI is optimised for conversion. The benefit of "better UI and UX" is arguable here if it does not result in more $ for the business. Specially if they want to compete in the public market. Disclaimer - Ex-Booking.com employee

I genuinely like Booking.com's interface. I've learned to read the dark patterns so I don't get forced into a bad deal. But once you go past that, they offer all the information you actually need to make a decision

Re: Airbnb Announces Intention to Become a Publicly-Traded Company During 2020

#65

Post by quaquaqua1 »

puranjay wrote: post #63
michalu wrote: post #28

As Airbnb is getting banned across cities in Europe and locals are beginning to hate on it + staled growth it's about the time to hand the equity over to public investors and cash out. I'm not very bullish on Airbnb, I used to practically live in Airbnb for over 3 years, but for the last 2 years I haven't even logged in and been only using booking.com. I remember years back in London an Airbnb host that wasn't even t…

> "tell everyone you're a friend, it's not allowed in this building but everyone's doing it" Maybe because I'm getting older, but going through something like that would ruin my vacation.

Wouldnt ruin mine, because if everyone is just a decent human being to each other then there's no problems.

I've lived in countless apartments where the residents were the loud ones, not the vacationers.

Re: Airbnb Announces Intention to Become a Publicly-Traded Company During 2020

#66

Post by Kluny »

puranjay wrote: post #63
michalu wrote: post #28

As Airbnb is getting banned across cities in Europe and locals are beginning to hate on it + staled growth it's about the time to hand the equity over to public investors and cash out. I'm not very bullish on Airbnb, I used to practically live in Airbnb for over 3 years, but for the last 2 years I haven't even logged in and been only using booking.com. I remember years back in London an Airbnb host that wasn't even t…

> "tell everyone you're a friend, it's not allowed in this building but everyone's doing it" Maybe because I'm getting older, but going through something like that would ruin my vacation.

Same. Older I get, the less sketchy crap I'm willing to put up with.

Re: Airbnb Announces Intention to Become a Publicly-Traded Company During 2020

#67

Post by quaquaqua1 »

michalu wrote: post #49
travisjungroth wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm probably missing something, but I think the company is going down and they're pulling an exit scam. Your concerns about the future of the company are reasonable, but to call a profitable company going public an “exit scam” is ridiculous.

I don't think it's ridiculous statement considering their profits are rather fragile as that's before regulation and the size of the last years earnings equals about half the current valuation by NASDAQ's median P/E.

It is proper to call it an exit scam. Blue Apron has lost 90% of its value since IPOing 2 years ago.

Day one investors transfered virtually all of their value to company insiders.

Re: Airbnb Announces Intention to Become a Publicly-Traded Company During 2020

#69

Post by pmart123 »

fbonetti wrote: post #33
michalu wrote: post #28

As Airbnb is getting banned across cities in Europe and locals are beginning to hate on it + staled growth it's about the time to hand the equity over to public investors and cash out. I'm not very bullish on Airbnb, I used to practically live in Airbnb for over 3 years, but for the last 2 years I haven't even logged in and been only using booking.com. I remember years back in London an Airbnb host that wasn't even t…

> I'm probably missing something, but I think the company is going down and they're pulling an exit scam. AirBnB is doing fine. They've posted healthy profits for the past few years, which is more than can be said of nearly every other tech/startup company that has announced an IPO recently (Uber, Lyft, Pelaton, WeWork, Cloudflare, Slack, Postmates, and Pinterest are all unprofitable).

The successful travel portals typically all do well because there is so much value in filling demand so the room doesn’t go empty for the night.

Re: Airbnb Announces Intention to Become a Publicly-Traded Company During 2020

#70

Post by FreeHugs »

I am a big time traveler. When AirBnB appeared on the scene, it was a life changing event for me. So much better then hotels.

Since then, AirBnB have not added anything that benefits me. But booking.com have catched up massively. To the point that I prefer booking.com again these days. I would have never expected that to happen.

Some of my pet peeves with AirBnB:

AirBnB's reviews are not chronological. So you have to read them all to make sure you do not miss recent complaints.

AirBnB does not show the exact location of the apartments.

AirBnB sometimes removes negative reviews for no good reason.

AirBnB lets hosts get away with removing their listing (due to negative reviews) and relist them with a clean slate.

I really hope AirBnB will stay strong. A healthy competition between them and booking.com is probably best for travelers.

By the way, anybody here using something other then AirBnB or booking.com? Would love to hear if there are other good options to consider.

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