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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

#181

Post by candiodari »

mcculley wrote: post #37
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…

This is a useful way to think about how markets/platforms evolve. I have yet to use Airbnb. But it seems that the target customer has changed. I have been aware of them since they first showed up on Hacker News. They were pitched as renting an airbed where hotels are not a useful choice. That target customer is a demographic that I had aged out of before they started. If they were still marketing only to very young p…

What I don't get is ... where is the government in all this? As the article points out: the owners of the property clearly violate a lot of laws. So I hear violating the law gets you into "trouble with the law".

Well, clearly it doesn't.

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

#182

Post by gverrilla »

omgomgomgomg wrote: post #126

Oh my, oh my, how the tune has changed on hn and social media on this and uber. Whereever people sense they can make a buck or save a buck, laws amd regulations be damned. I have never swayed an inch off my view. I knew first hand how this affects housing prices and wear, I live in a severly affected area and pay the price for it, literally. Same for uber. Neither is cheaper than the previous thing, hotel offers bett…

In my own regional experience (southwest brazil) both uber and airbnb's are cheaper than taxis/hotels. As they say "price is king".

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

#183

Post by bombcar »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #89
specproc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To add to that: Hotels are rightly regulated. The consumer is naturally disadvantaged: They can’t assess until they arrive, they must reserve in advance, and packing up and going elsewhere is often not an easy option. Though I’ll add that even regulated hotels can be a hit or miss experience.

Hotels are also hilariously taxed, because it's perfect taxation without representation - the people staying at the hotels aren't residents!

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

#184

Post by dorchadas »

vertis wrote: post #129
short_sells_poo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that the service that you as a digital nomad enjoy turns the life of permanent residents into misery. Unregulated, private short term rentals are a blight upon cities. Is this a price worth paying for the convenience of vacationers/nomads? There's nothing wrong with AirBnb in principle, but I strongly suspect if they were properly regulated and actually carried out the necessary checks, provided an adequ…

It's always a complicated issue. Depending on the city/region, tourists can be the life blood. More than a few places that I've visited you're a welcome addition to the local ecosystem, bringing much needed revenue. There is always a healthy layer of NIMBY, I want to be a tourist but I don't want tourists to come where I live. Sure, they should be regulated, and in many places in Europe they are regulated. Any busine…

And AirBnB skirts these zoning laws by basically allowing hotels in areas not zoned for them. Tourists aren't locals, they shouldn't get housing at the locals' expense, which is exactly what is happening. Housing prices go up for locals, they have to deal with all the downsides of basically living next to a hotel all because tourists feel entitled to not have to stay in places meant for tourists. It's destroying cities - Dublin, for instance, is beyond ridiculous. And at one point there's more AirBnB to rent in city centre Dublin than apartments in the entire country. AirBnB is a big cause on the housing crisis because they circumvent rules and push all externalities to the locals.

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

#185

Post by Tarsul »

noasaservice wrote: post #147
mcculley wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Thank you for saying this. Sometimes I feel like I'm insane in that no one seems to acknowledge that many of these businesses are simply skirting real regulations because "internet" as you say so succinctly (e.g. PayPal skirting banking laws, Uber skirting Taxi laws, Amazon skirting tax laws etc.). Thankfully, it didn't/doesn't work in every country/case but it's apalling how often it did work.

btw. I'm all for interruption but please... it shouldn't be through these means (at least not on this scale).

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

#186

Post by asveikau »

hourago wrote: post #102
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…

> App Store app reviews, restaurant review apps and food delivery apps. Fortunately it's not a big deal if these are scams. It's just a few dollars. Tourists traps excel on this niche of scam. They serve bad food at high prices, but quite often not so bad or expensive as to be illegal. The only reason this business exist is because most people would visit them just once, customers are replaced each day with new arriv…

I don't understand how a restaurant being bad at their job, having bad food (a subjective assessment) and charging a high amount is a "scam". That just sounds like a bad restaurant.

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

#187

Post by dorchadas »

vertis wrote: post #132
elforce002 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guilty as charged. I saw this and went back to use hotels ans resorts (they employ thousands and help local economy).

AirBnBs tend to employ people as well (cleaning, maintenannce, administration). With many hotels the money is actually flowing out of the local community as the business is owned by a big multi-national. It's not really so cut and dried in favour of hotels.

And AirBnB also takes housing away from locals and gives it to entitled tourists. Does way more harm than the few people that get employed by them.

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

#188

Post by codexjourneys »

soco wrote: post #114
NateEag wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This - I wish they had categories for "host lives here too" and "this is a boarding house." You can usually figure it out by scrutinizing the reviews, but I'd like to see it overtly stated.

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

#189

Post by SapporoChris »

omgomgomgomg wrote: post #126

Oh my, oh my, how the tune has changed on hn and social media on this and uber. Whereever people sense they can make a buck or save a buck, laws amd regulations be damned. I have never swayed an inch off my view. I knew first hand how this affects housing prices and wear, I live in a severly affected area and pay the price for it, literally. Same for uber. Neither is cheaper than the previous thing, hotel offers bett…

>>"uber is literally outlawed in half of europe." Uber is banned or partially banned in UK, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, and Italy. Eight countries out of forty-four of the European countries.
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