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Airbnb and security camera disclosure

jeffreybigham.com

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Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#161

Post by smacktoward »

rchaud wrote: post #129
thisismyusernam wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same is true for me. In my mid-to-late-twenties, I remember thinking "Damn, why are hotels so expensive? I'll just stay in this Airbnb, which is so much bigger anyway. This is the new way and it's disrupting hotels." Now at the outset of my thirties and a more settled phase of life, I will gladly pay a premium to stay in a hotel. In the same way, it's becoming more likely for me to flag a London black cab than book a…

I wouldn't say they 'just work', but rather that what we see is the steady state they've arrived at, warts and all. The startup industry has this obsessive focus on looking at the steady state and thinking they can fix all the warts, without really looking into why they formed in the first place.

SV has a Chesterton's Fence problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#162

Post by seesaw »

philip1209 wrote: post #120

I've lived in Airbnbs full-time for about 18 months while traveling, and Airbnb has lost my trust repeatedly in terms of reliability, safety, and user-friendliness. - Host listing quality has gone consistently downhill. Now, it's many slumlords just trying to make a quick buck rather than support the original community idea or provide a great stay. - Airbnb support response times are horribly slow. They hide their ph…

I may be naive, but I never got the buzz around Airbnb. I had been a user of vrbo (vacation rentals by owner) for a long time, well before Airbnb. I continue to use vrbo, as I rarely see a better deal with Airbnb. Infact even the booking UIs look very similar.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#163

Post by iooi »

Ok, people suck. Not much we can do about that. For all you know, the host is archiving footage and could use it for whatever nefarious purposes later on.

What really isn't okay here is Airbnb's response. Indoor cameras should be explicitly against their policies and finding one in an apartment should immediately terminate all the listings by that host.

This is where some regulation actually makes sense, and it might not be a bad idea for Airbnbs to be treated as hotels -- especially all the properties that are exclusively used for this purpose. There's tons of those in bigger cities and they're pretty obvious since the "host" will have dozens of apartments available.

I will never use Airbnb again until they implement this policy, and I encourage everyone here to vocalize the same.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#164

Post by munchbunny »

philip1209 wrote: post #120

I've lived in Airbnbs full-time for about 18 months while traveling, and Airbnb has lost my trust repeatedly in terms of reliability, safety, and user-friendliness. - Host listing quality has gone consistently downhill. Now, it's many slumlords just trying to make a quick buck rather than support the original community idea or provide a great stay. - Airbnb support response times are horribly slow. They hide their ph…

It's almost as if AirBnB's hosts and guests are bearing the externalities that should be priced into the transaction on both sides...

For hosts, property damage, etc. is a matter of when, not if, and for those things you get insurance. But as far as I know that's not a standard thing for hosts. Pricing in hidden hosting costs would make hosting look less profitable up front, then AirBnB's market would shrink.

For guests, inconvenient cancellations, bad hosts, bad rentals, etc. AirBnB doesn't give you any real recourse like paying for you to stay elsewhere the way a hotel often does. That would be expensive and you'd have to either pass the cost onto the customers (raise fees/prices), or reduce your margins.

That's not counting societal externalities like permanent AirBnB setups in neighborhoods that are affecting community cohesion.

These days, I use AirBnB to save money by taking on some level of discomfort/risk. If I'm looking for a worry-free night with decent amenities where I want to minimize mental overhead, I just book a hotel.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#165

Post by loceng »

philip1209 wrote: post #123
denzil_correa wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem was that it was peak Summer in Barcelona, we were there for a long period of time, and the only available units were minimum 5x the price. I've never got this at all. Why should you pay 5x price for AirBnb's risk?

Exactly. They take a huge cut, hold cash for months ahead of time (earning considerable float), preach the need to use their in-app messaging and platform for "safety", then just abandon ship when things go wrong. If I showed up to a hotel and they didn't have a room available, they would rebook me at a different hotel. Airbnb just seems to say, "well, that's not our problem". It makes me wish that there was a tenant…

I have had similar experiences with Airbnb, and problems as a host and a guest.

Why they have gotten away with these behaviours for so long is likely due to forced arbitration.

Their business plan is likely to show as much profit as possible, IPO/get on stock market, exit early investors and founders, and leave the mess and risk associated with their unconscionable protocols to the public markets - offloading it to society as what will inevitably be a loss, as they're not going to realize these nuances.

The forced arbitration is going to stop sooner or later, and cities are going to start to crack down heavily - going through the counter appeals of landlords and commercial hosts with many properties.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#166

Post by gnicholas »

philip1209 wrote: post #120

I've lived in Airbnbs full-time for about 18 months while traveling, and Airbnb has lost my trust repeatedly in terms of reliability, safety, and user-friendliness. - Host listing quality has gone consistently downhill. Now, it's many slumlords just trying to make a quick buck rather than support the original community idea or provide a great stay. - Airbnb support response times are horribly slow. They hide their ph…

I laughed out loud the other day when I saw an Airbnb receipt that broke down the total cost and showed their Airbnb fee. It attributed the $100 fee to paying for 24/7 customer support during the trip.

Having experienced their horrendous support in the past (bounced from agent to agent over a 72-hr period, as you describe), I can attest that this fee is worth nowhere near that. The support is a joke, and when dealing with something as critical as housing, this is not acceptable.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#167

Post by dawnerd »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #72
eric_b wrote: post #9

I used to use AirBnB all the time. Lately I've switched back to using hotels almost exclusively. The camera/privacy thing is a big part of it. I empathize with the hosts to a degree - you don't want people doing outrageous things in your home. But the hosts want their cake and to eat it too. Don't rent out your home if you don't want the risk of people damaging it! (As a minor aside, I've also noticed the quality of…

Same here. A few years ago all our AirBnB experiences were good, but over time they have progressively got worse. For example, one host housed us in what felt like a derelict hotel/doshouse with all sorts of weird people staying and no working locks or fire alarm. On another occasion we booked a cottage, but it had a blocked chimney and was spewing fumes and smoke in to the living area. And for our tenth wedding anni…

It's hard to trust reviews when it's engineered the way it is. You're almost forced to leave a good review or else you'll get a bad review in return. People also don't like feeling guilty and transactions have been made personal. People do the same damn thing with ridesharing, really bad drivers somehow get 5 star ratings.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#168

Post by cortesoft »

amerkhalid wrote: post #159

I never understood appeal of AirBnB. We used to travel a lot and thought AirBnB would be cheaper to equivalent hotels but it usually is about same or more expensive but with less amenities. For example: * There is no room service. You can order delivery but room service has certain charms especially at 2AM. * In hotels, you come back to a clean room at the day's end. * There is cleaning fee for many AirBnB. With hote…

I don't get it either. I get even LESS the idea of renting out your home.

I hesitate to let close friends stay at my place when I am out of town. I can't IMAGINE letting strangers stay.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#169

Post by gnicholas »

munchbunny wrote: post #164
philip1209 wrote: post #120

I've lived in Airbnbs full-time for about 18 months while traveling, and Airbnb has lost my trust repeatedly in terms of reliability, safety, and user-friendliness. - Host listing quality has gone consistently downhill. Now, it's many slumlords just trying to make a quick buck rather than support the original community idea or provide a great stay. - Airbnb support response times are horribly slow. They hide their ph…

It's almost as if AirBnB's hosts and guests are bearing the externalities that should be priced into the transaction on both sides... For hosts, property damage, etc. is a matter of when, not if, and for those things you get insurance. But as far as I know that's not a standard thing for hosts. Pricing in hidden hosting costs would make hosting look less profitable up front, then AirBnB's market would shrink. For gue…

I wonder if the Airbnb team has ever thought about their profit and its relationship to the externalities you describe. As a customer, I've felt like I pay for something and then bear lots of risk if it goes wrong, but the discount often isn't sufficient to cover that risk.

At the end of the day, it may still be a good thing for the temporary housing marketplace if people who want certainty (in general or just for the trip) stay in a hotel, and people who are willing to trade certainty for some savings stay in Airbnbs. This would lower demand for hotels, and therefore cost. But this is only an efficient outcome if Airbnb guests understand how the company will leave them high and dry if something goes wrong.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#170

Post by JadeNB »

fyfy18 wrote: post #105
DoubleGlazing wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. A few years ago all our AirBnB experiences were good, but over time they have progressively got worse. For example, one host housed us in what felt like a derelict hotel/doshouse with all sorts of weird people staying and no working locks or fire alarm. On another occasion we booked a cottage, but it had a blocked chimney and was spewing fumes and smoke in to the living area. And for our tenth wedding anni…

I would have called Airbnb as soon as I found there was an issue and made them book me in somewhere else. You are paying a service fee to them for a reason.

> I would have called Airbnb as soon as I found there was an issue and made them book me in somewhere else. You are paying a service fee to them for a reason.

DoubleGlazing said:

> > We did of course raise concerns with AirBnB about the first two and left a negative review for the third. AirBnB did not care and crucially it did not seem to have an effect on the ratings of these properties. That just does not seem right.

Of course you can say that DoubleGlazing should have insisted, but, from my own experience, I agree that, if AirBnb doesn't feel like doing anything, then they won't do anything; and that any remedies to force them into action will, at best, take effect only too late (e.g., it's no good getting a response in a week if the residence is uninhabitable today).

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