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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

#141

Post by ehnto »

EZ-E wrote: post #18

I see more and more "middleman" apps such as airbnb or food delivery apps piling up more and more fees as they probably feel the pressure from an environment with increasing interest rates - without improving the service more than before. Back when these apps were released they were disruptive and competitive, but I wonder that in front of the increasing fees for a decreasing added value, the pendulum will swing back…

They were running on VC cash until they could go public, now that they actually have to be a solvent company, the reality of the economics come to bare.

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

#142

Post by iandanforth »

roenxi wrote: post #87
mudrockbestgirl wrote: post #16

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…

> They don't care if they're banned or reported. They'll just make a new fake account. Low ratings? No problem, just pay for some fake reviews. Sorry, just a quick check - are you saying that rhetorically or do you mean it? Because as far as I know AirBNB relies on getting a genuine address in the system to work, and that is difficult to fake.

Not hard to fake at all. Here are some of the ways

- Large friends and family network, rotate through other peoples homes

- Own a series of apartment buildings, rotate through addresses

- Unoccupied buildings with accessible mail drops (pick up mail from outside)

Similar tricks exist for non-residential address requirements.

Never underestimate the creativity of scammers.

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

#144

Post by SQueeeeeL »

ethbr0 wrote: post #90
Spooky23 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It changed when it turned into a big VC thing. All of the “Uber for X” models are fundamentally evil at scale. The founders vision is irrelevant to the investors need for return. The business model is to grow until the market is saturated, and then become one of the 3-4 entities that dominate their niche. VRBO chalked out the “vacation home” scope, hotels do their thing, so AirBnb dabbles in everything, but owns the…

Post-Google, I don't think there's any excuse for founders of marketplaces / platforms to ignore the ultimate metastasization of their business models. If you are wildly successful (oh, to be so lucky), what will your company be forced to optimize? Mid-years Amazon's radically generous customer service refunds and Etsy's seller revolt yanked their courses away from volume optimization for a few years... but it's thei…

This sounds like actually healthy productive places to exist and exchange might have to... exist outside of the realm of continuous growth by individuals motivated by ideology over profit.

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

#145

Post by profstasiak »

ethbr0 wrote: post #41
sschueller wrote: post #14

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…

It seems to work better with Lyft et al., probably because there's a larger supply of "normal people who are interested in driving", better economics around renting the asset (vehicle), and the driver (aka host) having to be physically present in the vehicle. The scaled AirBnB model was always questionable... at some point, you've literally signed up everyone normal with a quality rental. But you still need to increa…

a lot of rape cases in Uber and Bolt in Warsaw Poland. Safe for men to drive unsafe for women.

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

#146

Post by nebula8804 »

mudrockbestgirl wrote: post #16

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…

Ever since the worker shortage started, the quality of traditional hotels has gone down the hole. I have traveled far more this year than any other year in my life and my anecdotal experience shows that below 4 star the quality has just nosedives so much so that you don't know what you are getting until you show up and end up feeling lucky or totally screwed. And I am referring to hotels in America(Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Detroit) and Europe/UK(Amsterdam, Dublin, London).

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

#147

Post by noasaservice »

mcculley wrote: post #124
Spooky23 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It changed when it turned into a big VC thing. All of the “Uber for X” models are fundamentally evil at scale. The founders vision is irrelevant to the investors need for return. The business model is to grow until the market is saturated, and then become one of the 3-4 entities that dominate their niche. VRBO chalked out the “vacation home” scope, hotels do their thing, so AirBnb dabbles in everything, but owns the…

It started as being intended for VC, right? I remember YC being an investor and Paul Graham saying great things about the founders. Certainly they must have been counting on growth. Did they plan to just capture every airbed? Or to do to hotels what Uber did to taxis (both good and bad)?

All these (AirBNB, Uber, etc) e-companies do is take what's illegal, add "internet", and somehow is legal until the authorities can see through the shit-show.

And of course, while the grift is going, the execs and shareholders get rich. But everyone knows when the gig is up. Evidence: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/11/uber-doordash-plunge-as-labo...

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

#148

Post by noasaservice »

sofixa wrote: post #134
roenxi wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't care if they're banned or reported. They'll just make a new fake account. Low ratings? No problem, just pay for some fake reviews. Sorry, just a quick check - are you saying that rhetorically or do you mean it? Because as far as I know AirBNB relies on getting a genuine address in the system to work, and that is difficult to fake.

And genuine government-issued ID, which is also difficult to fake.

If you know the right people, no it's not.

And these types of scammers are and know the "right" people.

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

#149

Post by mancerayder »

mudrockbestgirl wrote: post #16

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…

But it's also Airbnb themselves. It's well known that negative reviews are scrubbed and even edited, this is something many people including myself have experienced. Any doubts, spend some time on the Airbnb subreddit, which is run by hosts, and check out both their attitudes and their advice about how to remove bad reviews.

Airbnb needs hosts for its revenue. Clients are the product.

I used to love Airbnb and used it multiple times per year - since Day 1. Now because of fake positive reviews (where negative aspects of a home, like noise, are censored), combined with crazy fees, I'm also like you going back to hotels.

You have to love the fees, which I think are sinking the system. 130 a night for the place, you want to stay there three nights. You're asked to pay 250 in Airbnb fees and 225 in cleaning fees. You should check in after 2 pm and you better check out before 11, and anything out of the ordinary leads to an uncomfortable email exchange sometimes with no reply. It's not cancellable, either.

Many people bought properties around the world to specifically Airbnb out. Will the tide finally turn? Is the business model unsustainable?

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

#150

Post by Timja »

The problem with AirBnB is the rating system.

I have booked many dozens of apartments on AirBnB and my approach these days is:

1: Never book an apartment with less than 50 ratings

2: Never book an apartment with an average rating of less than 4.8 stars

The problem is that AirBnB has set up their system so that even complete garbage apartments have average ratings of over 4.5 stars.

Because of that, people still book those for normal prices.

If AirBnB would normalize the ratings (median rating = 2.5 stars), there would be an upward pressure on the hosts to improve the quality of their services.

But the way it is, there are only few good apartments on AirBnB.

Over the last years, I have only been to two apartments via AirBnB which I would consider "good". And both had over 50 ratings and the average rating was 5 stars.

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