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Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

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Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#381

Post by Pikamander2 »

bambax wrote: post #221
makeavish wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, I had a similar experience. Reviews on Airbnb can't be trusted because most hosts are experts at having bad reviews removed. But if reviews can't be trusted then the whole thing is worthless.

I've become a lot more jaded about online reviews over the years.

I had an Amazon review removed because apparently mentioning that a competing product is more effective goes against their TOS.

I had a WordPress plugin review removed because apparently a critical vulnerability that got our site hacked isn't a valid reason to give it one star.

I had a local BBQ chain offer to give me a free bottle of sauce if I let them watch me give them a 5-star rating on Google.

I've seen tons of video game and app websites apply "anti review-bombing" measures to factor out thousands of low ratings for being supposedly off-topic, often for major games that they're financially affiliated with through sales or advertising.

And that's just for third-party websites. If a company's website has customer ratings/reviews for their own products, then the conflict of interest is too great to even pretend that they might be legitimate.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#382

Post by ghaff »

sgarland wrote: post #350
jdminhbg wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t seen one on each floor, either, but that’s still not as convenient as one in the room that’s yours so you can run it while you’re out to dinner or overnight while you sleep. It’s shared so you have to plan around it.

I have stayed at many hotels of varying degrees of quality all over the U.S., and I have never, not once, seen the laundry being used. It’s always been available.

They're not common but the hotel I often stay in London has a laundry room that I use pretty routinely on longer trips.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#383

Post by camgunz »

janosett wrote: post #264
hansmayer wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, how lovely it is so convenient for you, e.g. the "silent majority" while the residents of those cities foot the direct and indirect bill from reduced availability of the real-estate and the ever-increasing costs.

Anywhere you could build a hotel you could also build more housing, so they pose the same issue. There is necessarily some tension between using space for permanent housing and using it for tourism / short term stays. Tourism often keeps a city's economy healthy, and having short term stays is important for those visiting even for non-tourism reasons (e.g. in town to visit family, for work, etc). The housing issue is…

> Anywhere you could build a hotel you could also build more housing

Not really in practice. Ex: there's lots of hotels around airports and highways. Would anyone want to buy a house there? Definitely not. The markets and thus economics are totally different.

> having short term stays is important for those visiting even for non-tourism reasons (e.g. in town to visit family, for work, etc)

I don't know about "important", but "useful" yeah. The thing is like, how ubiquitous is this? I'd naively guess for every 1 person who finds this useful, 1000s more are negatively impacted by Airbnb.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#384

Post by WhyNotHugo »

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…

Prices are pretty close to hotels, but laundry and Kitchen always tilt the scale in favour of AirBnb.

When travelling for a week, I don't want to each out every day. I appreciate having a couple of things in the fridge for lazy moment, or being able to cook breakfast if I want to stay in late.

And I can wash a bunch of clothes instead of paying €8 to wash a single shirt.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#385

Post by bambax »

Pikamander2 wrote: post #381
bambax wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I had a similar experience. Reviews on Airbnb can't be trusted because most hosts are experts at having bad reviews removed. But if reviews can't be trusted then the whole thing is worthless.

I've become a lot more jaded about online reviews over the years. I had an Amazon review removed because apparently mentioning that a competing product is more effective goes against their TOS. I had a WordPress plugin review removed because apparently a critical vulnerability that got our site hacked isn't a valid reason to give it one star. I had a local BBQ chain offer to give me a free bottle of sauce if I let th…

The problems you mention are real; but on average it seems Google Maps review are fair; in my experience they tend to reflect the reality better.

I think it would be interesting to be able to see an Airbnb place directly on Google maps (via a direct link), to compare reviews there; I'm working on a simple Tampermonkey script to do just that, will post it when ready.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#386

Post by SkyPuncher »

sam-cop-vimes wrote: post #300
bambax wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" op…

Almost every Airbnb I've stayed over the past few years has been subpar compared to how it is advertised. The most recent one in Malaysia had cockroaches in the kitchen. Airbnb is now the last resort after I've exhausted staying in hotels. At this point, I stay away from serviced apartments altogether. At least with a hotel you can go to reception and demand they fix your issue.

This has been my experience, as well.

The only exception is actual vacation homes that people rent out when they're not there. If it's not clearly a vacation home, I know that it's going to suck in at least one way.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#387

Post by gwbas1c »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #164
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 think the people who say hotels are better than AirBnb aren't traveling with kids. Having an actual kitchen when you travel with kids is great. Having actual separate bedrooms so we don't have to go to sleep at 8pm when the kids go to sleep is great. Being able to do laundry without tracking down a laundromat or pay exorbitant hotel prices is great. Having a living room or similar area with at least a few square me…

I have three kids. We prefer to stay in hotels with suites where the kids can sleep in a separate room. I prefer the fact that they have on-site staff. All hotels that we've stayed in for the past few years include a breakfast buffet.

The kids generally prefer hotels because they have pools.

We've found plenty of professionally run "resorts" where the space is like a small apartment, with a full kitchen and multiple bedrooms. These tend to be right in ski areas where we could walk to the lift if we were staying during the ski season. We did stay in one that was AirBNB-like because it was privately owned but the ski area handled the reservation and any issues that came up while we were there.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#388

Post by hidingfearful »

fkyoureadthedoc wrote: post #376
xdfgh1112 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Airbnb was much cheaper than hotels when it started because of this.

And better. It was all around a better experience, analogous to Uber vs taxi. But while Uber is still more convenient than taxi, I haven't even considered using AirBnB in years.

agreeing (strongly) that uber is better than taxi, and yet again on price it is because uber skirts the law-- drivers typically do not have commercial insurance etc and also uber subsidized rides for a long time with VC money.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#389

Post by SkyPuncher »

blitzar wrote: post #238
hakfoo wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had always heard what killed Groupon was the bad economics. The "loss leader" concept is Business 101, and Groupon was presented to customers as a gallery of loss leaders they can shop. Actually delivering a good loss leader is hard. Design the offer wrong, and people don't attach properly-- they either don't load up their cart with additional, higher-margin items, or they don't return for future full-price service…

They bringing a large pool of customers who will only ever pay "loss leading" prices. The ultimate problem with Groupon is their customers.

And as customers, I quickly realized that businesses didn't actually want me there either. I was a distraction to their actual profitable customers.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#390

Post by bilsbie »

I wish cancellation policies were more reasonable or they offered some kind of inexpensive cancellation insurance. It’s hard to always know where you’ll be months in advance.

Also do they let your search by final price now or do they still hide a bunch of fees?

Why even allow fees? Make the owners set a price that includes what they need for cleaning, etc.

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