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Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

bloomberg.com

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Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#41

Post by himinlomax »

dannyw wrote: post #19
okprod wrote: post #16

If Airbnb actually cared they would have invested in their operations already; Chesky giving "a promise to verify the photographs, amenities, cleanliness, and safety of all the listings on Airbnb", which the article notes is underway, is ridiculous -- Shouldn't this be a bare minimum of this type of business before they start operating? Basically what the "safety team" does is how Logan Roy from the show Succession w…

There's bigger issues IMO, based on the article: * Accepting hosts with prior criminal charges for battery, who then proceeded to sexually assault a guest. * Under-resourcing trust and safety teams until it became such as big problem, the CEO had to step in. * Choosing to lay-off the entire Portland trust and safety team during COVID, telling them to relocate to another country (Canada) during a pandemic (!!) at lowe…

> * Accepting hosts with prior criminal charges for battery, who then proceeded to sexually assault a guest.

The article says the offender had been charged but not convicted; what are they supposed to do? Know better than the justice system? And then they'd have complaints that people who have been wrongly accused at some point and found innocent, many of whom are likely to be minorities, are denied business by AirBNB.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#42

Post by noobermin »

miked85 wrote: post #3

I guess I am in the minority, but I have never understood this business. You would have to pay me to stay in someone else's house vs a hotel.

After doing airbnbs I since have usually decided to stay in hotels when I travel because I just like the reliability in having things provided as well as other things like location, services, etc. Airbnb is always a hit or miss honestly, despite the cheaper price.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#43

Post by noobermin »

dcolkitt wrote: post #10
miked85 wrote: post #3

I guess I am in the minority, but I have never understood this business. You would have to pay me to stay in someone else's house vs a hotel.

It’s really a nice option when traveling with a large family. If you’re spread across four or five hotel rooms, you really spend much less time together than in a large house with a big common space. Plus most AirBnBs are just dedicated rental properties. It’s pretty rare that you’re actually in anyone’s house anymore.

For some reason it isn't common in the US but elsewhere you can rent a flat specifically for this purpose usually with less ammenities like you'd expect from a hotel and hence not as expensive.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#44

Post by chanmad29 »

dannyw wrote: post #19
okprod wrote: post #16

If Airbnb actually cared they would have invested in their operations already; Chesky giving "a promise to verify the photographs, amenities, cleanliness, and safety of all the listings on Airbnb", which the article notes is underway, is ridiculous -- Shouldn't this be a bare minimum of this type of business before they start operating? Basically what the "safety team" does is how Logan Roy from the show Succession w…

There's bigger issues IMO, based on the article: * Accepting hosts with prior criminal charges for battery, who then proceeded to sexually assault a guest. * Under-resourcing trust and safety teams until it became such as big problem, the CEO had to step in. * Choosing to lay-off the entire Portland trust and safety team during COVID, telling them to relocate to another country (Canada) during a pandemic (!!) at lowe…

sounds a lot like how HR works- both as a front and on the inside.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#45

Post by lifeformed »

miked85 wrote: post #3

I guess I am in the minority, but I have never understood this business. You would have to pay me to stay in someone else's house vs a hotel.

There are some extremely nice places available on AirBnb, far nicer than most hotels I've been to.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#46

Post by gquiniou »

miked85 wrote: post #3

I guess I am in the minority, but I have never understood this business. You would have to pay me to stay in someone else's house vs a hotel.

Very often is not someone's house but a property that has been bought, renovated and furnished specifically to be rented on Airbnb.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#47

Post by LeifCarrotson »

okprod wrote: post #16

If Airbnb actually cared they would have invested in their operations already; Chesky giving "a promise to verify the photographs, amenities, cleanliness, and safety of all the listings on Airbnb", which the article notes is underway, is ridiculous -- Shouldn't this be a bare minimum of this type of business before they start operating? Basically what the "safety team" does is how Logan Roy from the show Succession w…

The problem is that Airbnb and a ton of other modern high-scale companies is that they only work when they don't require humans on site. It's simply not economically possible to send a human being to an off-site location for 14% of $200. Similarly, if each person on your social network generates $5 in ad revenue per person per year, automatic bans and community moderators are the only way to go, because you can't afford to pay someone to read all of the posts. Or if you have an 800 number, you'd better hope that the robot answering machine can solve almost every problem, because any time even a minimum-wage call center employee has to spend 15 minutes on the phone with a customer one-on-one that customer's account is no longer profitable for the company.

As a consumer, I appreciate the low prices and high purchasing power that I currently enjoy - I can get trinkets from distant lands on a whim and have many things done on my behalf without my lifting a finger, hedonistic luxuries that would have been only accessible to a king in centuries past. And obviously, the powerful AI-like corporations that optimize for profit above all else are profiting from the situation. But as a human being it kind of sucks.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#49

Post by catern »

One minor point:

>[...] difficult to draw useful conclusions about the correlation between the short-term rental industry and crime. Academic researchers say [...] limitations have frustrated their efforts to study the link. Only about a half-dozen scholarly studies have been carried out on the subject, and their findings are contradictory.

Contradictory findings are a positive and useful result: They're evidence that there isn't in fact a link, that the two are uncorrelated. This is some tragic ignorance of statistics on the part of the journalist...

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#50

Post by abfan1127 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #47
okprod wrote: post #16

If Airbnb actually cared they would have invested in their operations already; Chesky giving "a promise to verify the photographs, amenities, cleanliness, and safety of all the listings on Airbnb", which the article notes is underway, is ridiculous -- Shouldn't this be a bare minimum of this type of business before they start operating? Basically what the "safety team" does is how Logan Roy from the show Succession w…

The problem is that Airbnb and a ton of other modern high-scale companies is that they only work when they don't require humans on site. It's simply not economically possible to send a human being to an off-site location for 14% of $200. Similarly, if each person on your social network generates $5 in ad revenue per person per year, automatic bans and community moderators are the only way to go, because you can't aff…

low prices are a certain optimization. Others can optimize for experiences. I personally haven't used AirBNB because I don't like the risks associated with the use of their product. Some people love it.
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