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On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

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Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#71

Post by [deleted] »

Vivtek wrote: post #57
spolsky wrote: post #38

I can't stop thinking that this was a top-secret hit job by some shady character working for the hotel industry looking to derail AirBnB's next fund-raising round. Heck, if Nixon could do it, why couldn't The American Hotel & Lodging Association? So my question to you is: am I quite paranoid or merely rather paranoid?

Whatever you are, I'm the same, because it's the second thing I thought of. But the first thing was that there are a lot of privileged young people out there whose friends might very well have thought a week of utter abandonment and breaking every possible rule would be the height of fun. And yeah, I can easily see that privileged young asshole finding it the height of humor to email the owner every now and then sayi…

[deleted]

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#72

Post by Vivtek »

spolsky wrote: post #38

I can't stop thinking that this was a top-secret hit job by some shady character working for the hotel industry looking to derail AirBnB's next fund-raising round. Heck, if Nixon could do it, why couldn't The American Hotel & Lodging Association? So my question to you is: am I quite paranoid or merely rather paranoid?

Second answer to the same question: while it's almost certainly not a conspiracy, it's equally certain there are champagne corks flying in certain quarters.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#73

Post by Vivtek »

kevinpet wrote: post #60

AirBNB has a huge asymmetric trust problem. The hosts have real physical addresses and need to be able to take a payment. Hosts can easily be held accountable. The guests on the other hand could be anyone. The company's attitude seems to be that allowing the host to interview the guest over email is sufficient to vet the guest. That's absurd. I don't have any special ability to identify a con artist vs. an honest per…

I was with you until your final paragraph, which seems to me only to address payment problems by making payment and planning more difficult, without actually addressing the asymmetric trust or renter-vetting problems.

The renter-vetting problem is a real one. A past history of good experiences at AirBNB would probably be a good mechanism - a new member of the community would then be scrutinized a little more closely. (Maybe they already do this, I don't know - I haven't used them and won't, because I travel with a wife, two kids, and a dog, and there's no freaking way I'd leave somebody in my home without supervision if it was Jesus Christ Himself.)

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#74

Post by X-Istence »

Vivtek wrote: post #57
spolsky wrote: post #38

I can't stop thinking that this was a top-secret hit job by some shady character working for the hotel industry looking to derail AirBnB's next fund-raising round. Heck, if Nixon could do it, why couldn't The American Hotel & Lodging Association? So my question to you is: am I quite paranoid or merely rather paranoid?

Whatever you are, I'm the same, because it's the second thing I thought of. But the first thing was that there are a lot of privileged young people out there whose friends might very well have thought a week of utter abandonment and breaking every possible rule would be the height of fun. And yeah, I can easily see that privileged young asshole finding it the height of humor to email the owner every now and then sayi…

I was recently talking to the home owner for the property I am renting and they told me that out of everyone they are renting to I along with my room mates are the most patient and most caring and following up than any of their other tenants. I actually care about the property, I talk to them when something happens, I follow up and make sure work gets done that is supposed to be done.

The homeowner was telling me about one of their tenants who they are currently attempting to evict, would call up and leave a voicemail and just about 5 minutes later would send an angry email and not even 20 minutes later have a lawyer call them regarding a simple issue (screen door broke, house has AC and perfectly good functioning windows). When they last went by the place it was packed full of all kinds of crap (à la hoarders).

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#75

Post by walkon »

Generally, people are not "fundamentally good". Generally, most people are only good when they believe the reward for being so is >= the required effort or discomfort (rewards aren't always monetary and could be as simple as feeling good about yourself for helping the crippled-orphaned-widow-beggar across the street). An example of this is airbnb's own policy of not disclosing renter contact information. Despite what they say, airbnb believes that people are not fundamentally good as their concern of users circumventing their payment system is greater than their concern for the safety of said users (at least to the extent that stories such as this don't hurt their business more than payment bypassing would).

If airbnb believed what they espouse, they'd quit trying to outsource their trust in humanity to their customers whom they aren't liable for and instead actually trust that people in general won't sidestep the payment process.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#76

Post by Vivtek »

X-Istence wrote: post #74
Vivtek wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever you are, I'm the same, because it's the second thing I thought of. But the first thing was that there are a lot of privileged young people out there whose friends might very well have thought a week of utter abandonment and breaking every possible rule would be the height of fun. And yeah, I can easily see that privileged young asshole finding it the height of humor to email the owner every now and then sayi…

I was recently talking to the home owner for the property I am renting and they told me that out of everyone they are renting to I along with my room mates are the most patient and most caring and following up than any of their other tenants. I actually care about the property, I talk to them when something happens, I follow up and make sure work gets done that is supposed to be done. The homeowner was telling me abo…

Oh, yeah, my experience as a landlord makes me a fantastic tenant. Last place I rented before buying the current house, I was working on fixing the roof in my spare time - mostly because I really like to be fixing houses in my spare time anyway and, as we were in Puerto Rico, the roof was concrete and thus a really new and fun experience.

All it takes is just a teeny bit of responsibility. Landlording somehow filters out some of the people who really have none and drags them through your life.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#77

Post by Lucadg »

spolsky wrote: post #38

I can't stop thinking that this was a top-secret hit job by some shady character working for the hotel industry looking to derail AirBnB's next fund-raising round. Heck, if Nixon could do it, why couldn't The American Hotel & Lodging Association? So my question to you is: am I quite paranoid or merely rather paranoid?

I thought the same but it does not matter wether this is a setup or not. What matters is that it could happen. airbnb can't do the same: sending somebody in a Hotel and destroy the room? That would prove nothing.

Hotels/dedicated accommodations are run by professionals and the business model is sound. Airbnb is maybe too ahead of its time and will work greatly when our online identities are more "stable" if you see what I mean.

Right now it's like finding a good developer by asking my friends in Facebook because it seems cheaper and cooler. It's not. Hosting somebody is not as easy as pointing the bed and the bathroom. It's way more complicated than that. Safety is just one aspect that non professional hosts have troubles dealing with.

Disclaimer: I run an accommodation reservation system in many ways similar to airbnb and I love their idea.

But we are going in the opposite direction: only professional hosts renting places dedicated to tourists (they don't live there), local Managers meeting and selecting the owners, visiting the accommodations (I often even test them sleeping there) and supporting the guests locally. It does not allow for fast growth but it's much safer for all the parties involved.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#78

Post by walkon »

walkon wrote: post #75

Generally, people are not "fundamentally good". Generally, most people are only good when they believe the reward for being so is >= the required effort or discomfort (rewards aren't always monetary and could be as simple as feeling good about yourself for helping the crippled-orphaned-widow-beggar across the street). An example of this is airbnb's own policy of not disclosing renter contact information. Despite what…

When down voting, please explain (seriously).

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#79

Post by bambax »

> ...a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good

> Private messaging that lets users learn about each other prior to booking, without revealing private information

The reason why Airbnb doesn't let people "reveal private information" prior to booking / paying is so they won't circumvent their system and exchange money without paying Airbnb's fees.

So in fact Airbnb isn't so trusting of people's "fundamental" goodness and honesty; the matter of fact is that Airbnb assumes every single one of its users is a potential cheater.

Instead of the marketspeak / ass-protecting / legalese response we've witnessed so far from Airbnb about this incident, an interesting experiment would be to lift this restriction and let people exchange personal information from the very beginning: how many would actually try to game the system?

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#80

Post by vl »

axiom wrote: post #13

Can we agree that the host here is at least partially responsible for what happened? First, let me say that what happened was horrible, and the person who did the damage should go to jail for a long long time. AirBnB should cover the cost of all damages as a gesture of goodwill. It's really a shame that this kind of stuff can happen, but the reality (that I'd hope most people understand) is that not 100% of the popul…

>but it rubs me the wrong way that AirBnB is getting this massive amount of bad press

Press is not that bad, they probably got substantial increase of awareness about their still niche service in the general public segment of the population. It's in the same category as iPhone 4 antenna issue - Apple would have to pay billions of dollars to get the same exposure on all TV channels, while this allowed general public to see new iPhone for free, to learn that all cool people have it and are worried about antenna, and to forget about antenna next day and buy it.

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