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It's supply and demand, like any other business. Airbnb is still awesome - it's a huge step up from hotels and hostels, and outside of the insular tech world it's still far from established. If you think it's too expensive or whatever just don't use it.
I can't see airbnb being happy about this. What cut do you take?
Why would airbnb not be happy about this? They would really only be gaining money as their income is proportional to the owner's income. (Else this product doesn't help anyone, including the owner of the property)
1. Get sellers used to visiting www.beyondpricing.com instead of www.airbnb.com - you don't have any problems attracting sellers, because you can get their listing in front of as many people as airbnb.
2. Add some sort of multi-site listing search or something, to get buyers also visiting you directly instead of going via airbnb. Advertise your site on your sellers' airbnb listings.
3. Once buyers and sellers are used to using your site instead of airbnb, launch your own listings service and cut airbnb out all together. (Or better yet, launch your own listings and only invite the profitable low maintenance buyers and sellers with established histories, leaving the dregs to airbnb)
This allows you to sidestep the problem of "sellers don't want to use us as there are no buyers, buyers don't want to use us because there are no sellers".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment is much more useful than your grandparent comment. Down voting might be the correct action (if you were able to), but a short meme/snark comment is almost never appreciated.
Thanks for HNplaining to me. The question was rhetorical. I know the answer: this is an echo chamber and AirBnB is precious.
For what it's worth, I actually agree with your point. The parent of your first comment was (at least to some degree) derailing the conversation. I didn't even consider that it was a derailment until your second comment.
I think you did have something valuable to add to the discussion, but I did not initially see it because your first comment was so pointlessly unnecessary.
Based on you pointing out the behaviour, I will now try to recognise and downvote 'concern trolling' that derails conversations. It's unfortunate that you weren't able to communicate that more effectively the first time.
I've been using Beyond Pricing to set the price of my AirBnB for a few weeks now and I'm really happy with it. My increase wasn't anything dramatic -- probably 20% or so -- but it was dead simple to set up and basically free money.
Unless you are hoping to run your listing hands-off and full-time (the "always on" instant book-able listing), however, I think that out-sourcing the pricing removes the control you have over differentiating your offering.
It has been my experience that furniture staging, photography, listing reviews/reputation, and the lister's profile all have dramatic impact on the amount you can charge for what is otherwise a very normal apartment. In this highly differentiated environment, it would be hard to model truly optimal pricing.
I imagine that what Beyond, Smart Host, and the like can do first and foremost is help you maximize occupancy, which certainly has the potential to increase your earnings if you are not a high-demand listing.