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Airbnb S-1

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Re: Airbnb S-1

#251

Post by notananthem »

Reason077 wrote: post #249
elamje wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fun anecdote about AirBnB in China: 2 years ago I travelled to Beijing and Shanghai and intended to stay in an AirBnB. AirBnB had tons and tons of listings in both places, all of which had specific instructions to tell the neighbors you were “a friend” and not staying there with AirBnB. At the time, and possibly still so, AirBnB was not operating legally in those particular places, and I presume most of the country…

Curious, what makes these things so hard for westerners? The Didi app (for example) is translated into English, isn’t it? Is it just a matter of incompatible payment systems?

I've used Didi extensively as an American in China, among other apps, both in local dialects and in English. I don't speak any dialects but rely on coworkers and in region partners to be all "just push this button and enter what mall/hotel/restaurant you're going to." Works with my personal/corporate cards.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#252

Post by sk5t »

smitty1110 wrote: post #199
afterwalk wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can an unprofitable companies rack up $1.3b in taxes?

Well, you spend money as part of doing business, but then, in theory, you make some money. This is revenue. Revenue is taxed at 21% in the US as of the 2019 tax year. Now, if you screw up, and the IRS catches you, you owe penalties. And you owe interest on the money you didn’t pay. And these can add up, especially, like the S-1 filing says, if you have irregularities dating back 7 years. I’m sure they will have to ma…

> Revenue is taxed at 21% in the US

I hope you're not an accountant.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#253

Post by fakedang »

FDSGSG wrote: post #198
nickjj wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of the items you mentioned cost much The average private driver salary's in NYC is about 60k a year according to Google btw[0]. The average yearly -household- income in the US is 68k. It's a massive luxury to be able to afford such a thing. [0]: https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-full-time-driver-cost-...

>The average private driver salary's is about 60k a year according to Google btw Wow, that's crazy. I pay 28000USD/yr in London, most of my friends pay about the same.

Wow, you're lowballing your chauffeur... Explains why mine loves working with me.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#254

Post by busterarm »

Reason077 wrote: post #250
busterarm wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems incredibly dangerous as visitors on a tourist visa are required to register themselves with the local police within 24 hours of arriving at their destination. Trying to stay under the radar seems like it courts risk of deportation, as I've known _lots_ of folks who got a visit from police at their place of stay who were not aware of this. Virtually all of them settled things fine but it was more headache t…

> ”your hotel registers you online so that you don't have to deal with this” If a hotel can do it, surely there’s no reason why Airbnb can’t figure it out?

How are they going to do that at the place where you're not legally allowed to be staying?

This was reckless and stupid of them and demonstrates what AirBnB often does -- that they put their business above the safety of their guests and hosts.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#255

Post by kenneth »

busterarm wrote: post #239
elamje wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fun anecdote about AirBnB in China: 2 years ago I travelled to Beijing and Shanghai and intended to stay in an AirBnB. AirBnB had tons and tons of listings in both places, all of which had specific instructions to tell the neighbors you were “a friend” and not staying there with AirBnB. At the time, and possibly still so, AirBnB was not operating legally in those particular places, and I presume most of the country…

This seems incredibly dangerous as visitors on a tourist visa are required to register themselves with the local police within 24 hours of arriving at their destination. Trying to stay under the radar seems like it courts risk of deportation, as I've known _lots_ of folks who got a visit from police at their place of stay who were not aware of this. Virtually all of them settled things fine but it was more headache t…

This is why I always stay in a hotel and not with friends or Airbnbs whenever I visit China. I'm not bothered to deal with registration and the hotel takes care of it.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#256

Post by easyKL »

busterarm wrote: post #239
elamje wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fun anecdote about AirBnB in China: 2 years ago I travelled to Beijing and Shanghai and intended to stay in an AirBnB. AirBnB had tons and tons of listings in both places, all of which had specific instructions to tell the neighbors you were “a friend” and not staying there with AirBnB. At the time, and possibly still so, AirBnB was not operating legally in those particular places, and I presume most of the country…

This seems incredibly dangerous as visitors on a tourist visa are required to register themselves with the local police within 24 hours of arriving at their destination. Trying to stay under the radar seems like it courts risk of deportation, as I've known _lots_ of folks who got a visit from police at their place of stay who were not aware of this. Virtually all of them settled things fine but it was more headache t…

I can say that while staying with locals I never registered or being asked to. And it went like this for a couple of months. Not only with Chinese, but also expats. I mainly got my accomodation though CouchSurfing (I wasn't aware of BeWelcome nor TrustRoots back then) The hosts seemed to have guests very often and we were never asked to pretend to be friends from home or anything. This happened not only in the main cities, also in some prefecture-level cities. It happened on a tourist visa, back in 2015

Re: Airbnb S-1

#257

Post by Guest19023892 »

Reason077 wrote: post #250
busterarm wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems incredibly dangerous as visitors on a tourist visa are required to register themselves with the local police within 24 hours of arriving at their destination. Trying to stay under the radar seems like it courts risk of deportation, as I've known _lots_ of folks who got a visit from police at their place of stay who were not aware of this. Virtually all of them settled things fine but it was more headache t…

> ”your hotel registers you online so that you don't have to deal with this” If a hotel can do it, surely there’s no reason why Airbnb can’t figure it out?

I rented a number of Airbnb apartments in different countries, many of which required guests to be registered with the police. Typically the owner would meet me when checking-in, and they'd take a copy of my passport or drivers license, and occasionally I'd have to fill out a form with a few basic pieces of information (name, date of birth, etc) for them to submit. It was usually 2 minutes of work.

The downside was it was all incredibly insecure. They'd be snapping passport photos on their personal phone, and one apartment had a book in the living room with passport numbers and personal information of every previous guest.

So, technically it works now in different countries, but Airbnb really needs to assist these owners and get some proper procedures in place.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#258

Post by Reason077 »

busterarm wrote: post #254
Reason077 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”your hotel registers you online so that you don't have to deal with this” If a hotel can do it, surely there’s no reason why Airbnb can’t figure it out?

How are they going to do that at the place where you're not legally allowed to be staying? This was reckless and stupid of them and demonstrates what AirBnB often does -- that they put their business above the safety of their guests and hosts.

What do you mean? Airbnb is perfectly legal in China, subject to the guest registration requirements mentioned here.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#259

Post by milesskorpen »

jodrellblank wrote: post #222
milesskorpen wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon doesn't make anything. Increasingly it doesn't even own what it's selling. Same with AirBNB. They're selling a marketing platform to businesses.

> Amazon doesn't make anything. Kindle. Firestick. Echo / Echo glasses/earbuds/wearables. Delivery drone (prototypes). Luna controller. The new AZ1 chip inside Echos. They own Ring (doorbells) and Eero Wi-Fi routers. They custom design[1] their own internal routers, chips, storage and compute servers and network cards, they own Annapurna. [1] https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-web-services-secret-wea...

Sure. Their biggest production line is probably the robots that are at work in their warehouses. But it's all still a rounding error for the core Ecommerce & data center businesses.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#260

Post by fakedang »

x87678r wrote: post #29

I wonder about their long term business model. Sure they have opened up the industry, but I'd think its quite easy to copy them. Sure there are a bunch of people that will keep AirBnB their favorite but when I'm looking at places I'll religiously check every site I can. There will be nothing unique about them.

When I travel as a business user, I don't check any of the hotels apart from the top most brands. Sometimes, even if there is a 5 star hotel from a brand I don't know of, I wouldn't choose it over a 4 star hotel of a brand I do know of. The vast majority of business travelers behave (or book via their companies) the same way more or less.

When I'm choosing a place for a vacation, again, I'm looking at the top brands I know of, including AirBnB. Since the major hotels all resemble my business hotels, I'm more or less stuck looking at AirBnB rentals, simply because it's a more casual brand that I know of. I assume the vast majority of casual travelers are just like me.

I've had very good experiences using AirBnB in smaller towns, even in otherwise poorer places in Asia and Europe. On the contrary, I've had shitty AirBnB experiences, mostly in large cities in developed markets.

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