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Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

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Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#111

It's not surprising at all. All of these review-driven P2P marketplace businesses end up with the same problem. After the initial phase of early adopters that offer generally high quality products, a flood of fake or low-quality listing tries to squeeze money out of the platform. These people are not listing their homes on Airbnb, they are trying to make a living by extracting as much money from the platform as they…

Hotels are great. They create jobs, they don't distort property markets in the same way as AirBnB, and you get breakfast!

They are sometimes too small if you go with young kids and want to spend a week or so.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#112
Tangential but it's not a good idea to turn a breaker back on until someone has figured out why it flipped and fixed the problem. (The problem is usually that you tried to run the vacuum cleaner, a hair dryer, and an electric kettle all at once on the same circuit, but apparently that wasn't the issue in this case.) Circuir breakers are there to prevent fires, and they flip for a reason.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#113
post #101

I'm not sure how serious to take this article. It's the author's only post and while they complain about the use of a fake profile picture, they literally use another person from the same stock photo they claim the landlord used.

Keep that in mind when you are renting a condo from her. Oh wait, she isn't offering anything to sell/lease on there? She just wants to report on this anonymously? Hmm

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#114
post #65
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But won't you get a room in an apartment shared with other guests then?

Where do you think the savings come from? If you aren't willing to accept some kind of reduction from hotel accommodations, you aren't willing to save money.

It's one thing renting a room in the host's own living apartment (like the old couchsurfing) and another renting a room in a shared rented-out apartment. The latter one might be plagued way more by the mentioned fake reviews.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#115

It's not surprising at all. All of these review-driven P2P marketplace businesses end up with the same problem. After the initial phase of early adopters that offer generally high quality products, a flood of fake or low-quality listing tries to squeeze money out of the platform. These people are not listing their homes on Airbnb, they are trying to make a living by extracting as much money from the platform as they…

Hotels are great. They create jobs, they don't distort property markets in the same way as AirBnB, and you get breakfast!

My sister uses AirBnB quite frequently because her and her partner are both Vegan. Having a kitchen is a big advantage over hotels.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#116
I've used Airbnb ~30 times in multiple countries and have never had issues.

Some places have been dirtier than I expected (nothing horrible though), some were much smaller than the pictures suggested, but the for the vast majority of cases it has been a good experience. When the experience wasn't good, I rated and commented accordingly, so the host got their rating lowered and maybe did something about it. I also met some of the owners, which was a nice experience.

For work I had to travel for 1, 2, 3 weeks at a time and it wouldn't have made sense in economic terms to get a hotel, so I'm glad airbnb existed.

New hosts might be an issue, but hosts with good reputation are, in my experience, not a problem.

I can see the problem where whole neighborhoods get used for airbnb, driving costs up for residents. I imagine that's a tiny minority of cities...where jt makes sense to enforce laws to avoid this. For the rest of the cities? In my opinion airbnb is a net benefit: if creates a product that didn't exist before and allows buyers and sellers to benefit from this transaction. For me at least (and the people I know which is, admittedly, a non random sample) it has been a good experience. I'm sure in most places it's riskier than hotels. Yes, there's a trade-off.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#117
post #40

Quite surprised by the amount of pitchforks here. I certainly don't think of AirBNB as a failure and I doubt most others would. Is there a problem with scams? Totally. But that's hardly exclusive to AirBNB, wherever there's a market, digital or physical, there will be scammers. This was the case for all of human history and it's on you to vet your stuff. I've used AirBNB for long and short term stays, in Europe and i…

You know where I have never gotten scammed? A hotel. I would stay in a cheapish hotel before staying in an AirBnb.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#118

Play with snakes, get bitten. AirBnb started out as a company that basically fostered and encouraged illegal, unregulated short term rentals. Many of the hosts were breaking various ordnances and bylaws to rent you their home. There is also a huge societal cost in terms of increases rents and reduced permanent housing supply because of AirBnb. So if those type of people at that company screw you over, don’t be surpri…

I think that's part of the point of this article: a warning to others who haven't heard yet that AirBnB = scum.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#119
post #43

If only there was some regulation for such services that would require some sort of standard. You know some sort of licensing by the state. /s This is what you get when you skirt laws, artificially lowering prices to kill competition and exploit workers. Stop complaining, it's your own doing for supporting this type of economy. Only because maybe some of those existing laws were cumbersome or outdated doesn't mean yo…

Artificially lowering prices? You mean basic supply and demand? The regulations aren't guests responsibility the hosts and airbnb should be compliant. AirBnB and competitors are very important despite their flaws. Standard rentals are too inflexible for long term (month long) travellers and the hotel industry is either too expensive or not designed for long term stays. As a digital nomad, I've had my share of bad acc…

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Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#120

It's not surprising at all. All of these review-driven P2P marketplace businesses end up with the same problem. After the initial phase of early adopters that offer generally high quality products, a flood of fake or low-quality listing tries to squeeze money out of the platform. These people are not listing their homes on Airbnb, they are trying to make a living by extracting as much money from the platform as they…

Hotels are great. They create jobs, they don't distort property markets in the same way as AirBnB, and you get breakfast!

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