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Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

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Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#211

Post by bigstrat2003 »

digianarchist wrote: post #111
spinarrets wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mechanism is calling the cops, and letting the cops know it's an Airbnb. Then contacting Airbnb letting them know you've filed a police report. Airbnb doesn't give a shit about you (and frankly, neither do the cops), but the cops and Airbnb don't want to tussle with one another.

TPD don't respond to noise complaints.

It sounds like that is the true issue here (which the unit being an Airbnb is exacerbating to be sure). If it was a normal home, and it happened to have owners who were assholes and didn't care about the neighborhood disturbance, you would be in just as bad of a situation (probably worse tbh). The fact that it is being turned over for lots of short term rentals makes it more likely that you'll get asshole tenants there at some point, but ultimately to fix this the people of Toronto would have to pass noise ordinances and make the police enforce them.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#212

Post by OccamsMirror »

makeavish wrote: post #181
jen729w wrote: post #159

> Chesky figured that Airbnb’s experience in attractively displaying homes, vetting hosts, and responding to crises could make it more trustworthy than competitors and therefore the go-to option for virtually anything. Online reviews are totally broken. I recently spent a week at an Airbnb in the Gold Coast, Australia. The property was rated 5* but was tired and worn. The photos must have been 5 years old before a so…

I too had similar experience. I booked a 4.9 rated property with 30 reviews. But experience was really poor and I rated 1 stars post checkout. The propery owner reachout to me asking for explanation but I wasn’t in any mood to discuss. Hours later they filed fake complaint to Airbnb that I rated poorly as I wanted late checkout and asked money to remove review. Airbnb removed my review post that. I had a flight to ca…

Had a similar experience where a Sydney AirBnB listed their property as air-conditioned. Had a misting fan. That doesn't quite cut it as "air conditioning" in 45C weather. Had the same outcome as you. Ended up doing a chargeback on my card and got banned from the platform.

Wouldn't go back anyway.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#213

Post by bigstrat2003 »

spicyusername wrote: post #3

reinvention of Airbnb I cannot for the life of me figure out why these companies don't just stick to their core. AirBnB provides an amazing service, the ability to painlessly book hotels that feel like houses. I guarantee you they are not going to be the next Apple or Microsoft, they're instead just going to dilute the value of their core business chasing things that aren't going to work, instead of focusing on their…

Yeah, I spent the whole time reading this article wondering "has this man lost his mind?". Airbnb works great for what it is. But nobody wants it to be an "everything" platform, and all that the CEO is accomplishing is wasting money chasing ventures that have no real chance of success. And that's if those ventures don't cause their actual business to suffer because resources are being spent elsewhere.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#214

Post by seydor »

They should have launched services for hosts instead. Airbnbers interface with cleaning / repairpeople, not masseuses. They could even expand to construction and interior design as so many people are building and converting airbnbs. They could take advantage of their synergies there.

They are bringing more "amateur professionals" along with the hosts by adding all those services. this is a big, unruly crowd of half-assed servicepeople

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#215

Post by bigstrat2003 »

enos_feedler wrote: post #7
elteto wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the writing is sort of on the wall for airbnb's current business model. Local regulations are finally catching up to them, limiting new listings or applying the same taxes and fees applied to regular hotels. And airbnb's are not cheaper anymore, and many times not any more convenient than a hotel, due crappy hosts and their excessive fees and regulations. Airbnb is still a great option if the location is unde…

For travel it’s just an option and always will be. Thats okay because the travel use case only hits most people once or twice a year. The future of Airbnb was and always will be using that option as entry point into your life at home. The app update and launch into these lifestyle categories are the starting point of this. They chose to stick experiences and services as a root choice in the mobile app, not something…

> The future of Airbnb was and always will be using that option as entry point into your life at home.

The future of Airbnb was and always will be a place to book stays in someone's home. These other things they are doing are a bad joke that will at best waste money for no gain, and at worst will cause their actual business to suffer. Trying to be all things to all people is idiocy, stick to what you're good at.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#216

Post by riffraff »

Gigachad wrote: post #122
dreamcompiler wrote: post #93

Airbnb made the same mistake Google did: They screwed up their core service. I used to be a steady ABB customer but now hotels are almost always cheaper, offer better service, and are more predictable. Not to mention that hotel websites are typically easier to navigate and contain a lot less React-sludge that makes every click take forever to respond.

Shouldn’t it expected that a hotel would be able to provide a better service considering they are doing it in bulk and specialise in it. Vs a bunch of individual untrained hosts. Seems more like Airbnb ran out of money to burn and hotels lifted their game.

I think it's mostly the fact that AirBnB stopped being outside the law. Once municipalities started regulating them, hosts started paying taxes etc.. they lost the price edge.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#217

Post by jajko »

lacker wrote: post #149
levocardia wrote: post #139

Maybe I'm in the minority but I've generally had very good -- or at least, "good as I expected" -- experiences at AirBnbs, even recently. Sometimes I've stayed with rich friends who book nice places, and the experience is, as expected, very nice. Many other times I have stayed at bottom-of-the-barrel places, which were, as expected, bottom of the barrel flophouses. But tolerably so, and true to the advertisement (fun…

Yeah, I've had pretty great experiences with Airbnbs. I'm usually traveling with kids, hotel rooms are small, it's really nice to have a kitchen with kids, and a lot of airbnbs have amenities that the kids like.

Hotels try to milk parents with kids and either force you to take basically another booking, or have few 2-bedroom (or 1 bedroom and living room = parental bedroom) ones, often for almost double the price. Most were designed in another era, and it shows - booked rooms are basically just caves for sleeping.

We only use such if there are no other options in given area or if we want food prepared (this quickly becomes another chore with small kids).

I've never seen a well rated airbnb place with many reviews being bad. They may not be stellar in some aspect, ie small maintenance may be lacking but otherwise having a full kitchen with wash machine is pretty amazing for any type of trip, and one has a wide variety of locations and prices. Also it allows you to experience the place a bit more, compared to hyper sterile and uniform hotel experiences.

Lets not forget airbnbs would never become a thing if they werent cheaper than hotels (or at least provided much better experience at similar price).

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#218

Post by bambax »

levocardia wrote: post #139

Maybe I'm in the minority but I've generally had very good -- or at least, "good as I expected" -- experiences at AirBnbs, even recently. Sometimes I've stayed with rich friends who book nice places, and the experience is, as expected, very nice. Many other times I have stayed at bottom-of-the-barrel places, which were, as expected, bottom of the barrel flophouses. But tolerably so, and true to the advertisement (fun…

I used to like Airbnb. It's not better or cheaper than hotels, but when travelling with kids it makes a big difference.

Until I had a bad experience, that turned horrible. I saw a side of the company that made me think "never again".

I rented a place from a "superhost" that looked very nice on paper. It was in fact very bad. Everything in the description was misleading, photos were doctored to look nice, "windows" opened to a wall on the next building two feet away, there was mold everywhere, the shower flowed into the bedroom, etc.

At this point it wasn't the end of the world; I stayed two nights and went home. Then I wrote a bad review. It was simply descriptive and contained no harsh language of any kind.

The review was immediately taken down; I asked why, and received a barrage of emails from Airbnb (some automated, some maybe not) saying that they were very sorry, they understood this wasn't the outcome I expected, but they couldn't publish it.

Turns out, Airbnb will go to extreme lengths to protect their hosts, because they are much more valuable to the company than one random customer.

But if the reviews are fake or filtered, then I can't trust the platform.

I went back to booking.com; they now have properties in addition to hotels, and are much more professional.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#219

Post by benjaminwootton »

levocardia wrote: post #139

Maybe I'm in the minority but I've generally had very good -- or at least, "good as I expected" -- experiences at AirBnbs, even recently. Sometimes I've stayed with rich friends who book nice places, and the experience is, as expected, very nice. Many other times I have stayed at bottom-of-the-barrel places, which were, as expected, bottom of the barrel flophouses. But tolerably so, and true to the advertisement (fun…

I started out loving AirBNB. Then I had quite a few bad experiences and flipped back to hotels as the price equalised. In the last year or two I’ve gone back to AirBNB as the hosts seem to have professionalised and hotel prices have headed north.

Hotels.com also cancelled a brilliant loyalty programme of buy 9 nights get the 10th free which was another motivation to look elsewhere.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#220

Post by riffraff »

jen729w wrote: post #159

> Chesky figured that Airbnb’s experience in attractively displaying homes, vetting hosts, and responding to crises could make it more trustworthy than competitors and therefore the go-to option for virtually anything. Online reviews are totally broken. I recently spent a week at an Airbnb in the Gold Coast, Australia. The property was rated 5* but was tired and worn. The photos must have been 5 years old before a so…

I had a related experience where the host asked me to change my average review, but didn't try to bribe me (Italy, booking.com).

A friend of mine had the same bribe experience (Airbnb, Israel) with a terrible accommodation (moldy, dirty etc).

In hindsight, why wouldn't they? Even if their reviews tank they can just register again with different credentials.

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