But there's no bubble.
Airbnb has a solid business model.
Ashton Kutcher Joins the Airbnb Team
21–30 of 94 posts
Re: Ashton Kutcher Joins the Airbnb Team
#22[deleted]
Re: Ashton Kutcher Joins the Airbnb Team
#23Is this really a good thing? What does he offer?
Airbnb has done a great job already of promoting themselves (e.g., rent a country/village promotions) so I tend to think they know what they're doing. Kutcher could put his pad up there, get some of his famous friends to offer their places?
Re: Ashton Kutcher Joins the Airbnb Team
#24I lost respect for Ashton after the thing a few days ago where he released the "Aplusk twitter app" with the tag line "...my latest creation..." and it's just another app rebranded. Seems he's just selling his name now.
Donald Trump does that all the time with properties, this is just the Internet version of that.
Who has respect for Donald Trump?
Re: Ashton Kutcher Joins the Airbnb Team
#25I've been meaning to write about the absolutely horrible experience I had using AirBnB in San Francisco recently. It was a nightmare. The place was filthy (the pictures online were taken on their best day ever), the people were unfriendly, the room was small and dank- with no way to even lock the door. It was really, really bad. I suppose it would be worth a gamble if you have the means to change plans on a dime and…
I guess I'm like Fred Wilson who said "Why would anyone want to rent someone's couch" - I'm probably out of touch or just mildly privileged. But the idea of sleeping on some stranger's couch doesn't appeal at all (plus the unknowns like cleanliness, security, etc)
Using AirBnB for the first time -- currently staying at a great apartment in Manhattan. My girlfriend and I are both quite happy! Both of us, and the apartment owner, are first-time AirBnB'ers. It _can_ work, I believe, but you've got to vet things carefully.
We had to work around an understandable but (I think) misguided AirBnB restriction that makes it hard to get phone numbers in to messages -- it's so important to be able to talk to someone to understand who you're dealing with!
Re: Ashton Kutcher Joins the Airbnb Team
#26Hey now, I say if MC Hammer can promote good products (Flipboard), so can Ashton Kutcher.
Re: Ashton Kutcher Joins the Airbnb Team
#27I lost respect for Ashton after the thing a few days ago where he released the "Aplusk twitter app" with the tag line "...my latest creation..." and it's just another app rebranded. Seems he's just selling his name now.
Donald Trump does that all the time with properties, this is just the Internet version of that.
being an internet version of Donald Trump is not something I would aspire to
Re: Ashton Kutcher Joins the Airbnb Team
#28I've been meaning to write about the absolutely horrible experience I had using AirBnB in San Francisco recently. It was a nightmare. The place was filthy (the pictures online were taken on their best day ever), the people were unfriendly, the room was small and dank- with no way to even lock the door. It was really, really bad. I suppose it would be worth a gamble if you have the means to change plans on a dime and…
I guess I'm like Fred Wilson who said "Why would anyone want to rent someone's couch" - I'm probably out of touch or just mildly privileged. But the idea of sleeping on some stranger's couch doesn't appeal at all (plus the unknowns like cleanliness, security, etc)
From what I've seen, with most of them you either get your own bedroom or the entire house/apartment. It's really no different from a typical vacation rental, except the owner is possibly crashing at a friend's house or a motel during your stay.
Re: Ashton Kutcher Joins the Airbnb Team
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely an edge case, but I believe it is because of cases like this that AirBnB holds your payment until 24 hours after you've checked in. You were refunded, right?
Yes- the refund policies vary. This place had a liberal refund policy, so I got everything but the first night back. So, to be fair- not a big loss. It all turned out OK in the end for me, but I can't say I'm a big fan after the experience. I'm sure that there are plenty of great experiences others have had to counter balance my poor one, tho.
We found a place in Budapest for a stag do, via AirBNB, and it was great. Big, clean, well located, cheap, and the landlord was cool. So experiences definitely do vary. I'd certainly go back to AirBNB after this experience.
Re: Ashton Kutcher Joins the Airbnb Team
#30Is this really a good thing? What does he offer?