Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 427 posts

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

#221

Post by Ayesh »

mancerayder wrote: post #149
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 i…

Yeah, I almost never consider an Airbnb nowadays for these extra costs. Hotels do this too (with city tax for example), but that is just a few extra dollars a night, and not almost as high as the cost per night.

I think the original spirit of someone renting out extra space they have is long gone. It's either a big company renting out what could have been rental units in the first place, or someone renting their place but you have to almost beg them to be flexible with timing, amenities, etc. I would feel much more comfortable complaining to a hotel if the beds are dirty, as opposed to an Airbnb host.

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

#222

Post by ghaff »

mancerayder wrote: post #215
berkes wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> will be back in the hands of the people who actually live in the cities. There apparently is a real demand to rent such places for short terms like holidays or trips. Banning AirBnB, or AirBnB going down, won't remove that demand.

There's a real demand, but at one point the cost becomes too steep. The cleaning and service fees are being universally complained about. It definitely reduced some demand, especially since some of it seemed to have started recently - last year ? For long weekends, it becomes a very bad deal: the overhead of big service fees that are usually more than 1 day's rental, then you tack on the cleaning which can be 125-225…

>There's a demand for all sorts of consumer items in the world but people hit their limits.

That's the thing with a lot of VC-subsidized services. There are a lot of services that consumers would be happy to, well, consume if they were cheap enough. Drivers, personal chefs, weekly housekeepers, lawn services, laundry pickup, etc. Even people with an upper middle class income are pretty selective about that sort of thing.

>But many would rather go back to the tiny fridges filled with pricey junk food they never touch, if it means saving hundreds of dollars a weekend and flexible cancellation policies.

Kitchens are not a big deal for me when I travel. A fridge is nice but you get a small one you can use a lot of the time in hotels these days and minibars seem to have mostly gone out of fashion.

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

#223

Post by mbreese »

berkes wrote: post #194
dorchadas wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. I can only hope the tide is turning and these AirBnBs will be back in the hands of the people who actually live in the cities. Sadly corporations will probably eat them up and let, though hopefully as long-term instead of short!

> will be back in the hands of the people who actually live in the cities. There apparently is a real demand to rent such places for short terms like holidays or trips. Banning AirBnB, or AirBnB going down, won't remove that demand.

VRBO existed before Airbnb, and I’m sure it will exist for quite a while longer. The concept isn’t the issue.

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

#224

Post by ghaff »

dalyons wrote: post #220
ghaff wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are suite hotels with kitchenettes if that's a priority.

Unfortunately suite hotels are usually outrageously expensive

Not really in my experience. For example, Marriott's suite brands are often cheaper than their more upscale standard hotel room brands.

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

#225

Post by kennend3 »

sg47 wrote: post #176

My recent experience I rarely write bad reviews but this place deserves one. Here's a list of things that didn't go well for us. 1. Unit is advertised as having a pool but there's a disclaimer hidden somewhere that amenities are not accessible to guests. Had multiple emails back and forth to understand that it's closed only after labor day weekend. 2. Unit has a kitchen but we were told that it doesn't have pots and…

> 2. Unit has a kitchen but we were told that it doesn't have pots and pans. Again, a lot of back and forth. We packed a lot of utensils since we have some food allergies and can't eat restaurant food. In the end it turned out to have all the essential kitchen utensils.

I've got a friend who has used AirBnB and has been burned by this every single time. She comes with her daughters and wants to do a bit of cooking buts not a single pot or pan to be found? Once she came and borrowed my pans which wasn't convenient and not really why she was paying AirBnB fees.

After being burned multiple times, she just stays with me. It isn't as convenient as i live further away from where she wants to be, but at least i have a working kitchen.

I don't get why people advertise they have a kitchen, yet remove all the tools needed to use it? Just seems like a real dick move.

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

#226

Post by MaxMatti »

asciimov wrote: post #207
nlh wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a great point about the (de)evolution of marketplaces. Does anyone have any thoughts about how marketplace operations could prevent this sort of race to the bottom rot? It does kind of feel like an inevitability these days and I wonder if there’s a real solution. I suppose part of the problem is that the growth-at-all-costs mentality exists in conflict of quality-at-all-costs. Maybe the answer is just to sta…

Regulations. Put regulations on the Market Places to tighten up their process for accepting new sellers, and direct punishment of the Market Places themselves for selling bad products. These Market Places have no skin in the game when it comes to the stuff they sell, they need a reason to care. If they care, these problems start to sort themselves out. For example, instead of just fining the AirBNB host for an illega…

Or just have a lower fine that increases exponentially every time it occurs. That would make it easier for small companies to compete which would otherwise just have to go bankrupt on the first violation.

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

#227

Post by slivanes »

lifeformed wrote: post #216
mancerayder wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> 225 in cleaning fees Ah yes, and then you read in the notes that you also have to do the laundry and wash the dishes.

Doing the dishes seems reasonable, I behave as a guest in an Airbnb.

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

#229

Post by makestuff »

Ayesh wrote: post #221
mancerayder wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Yeah, I almost never consider an Airbnb nowadays for these extra costs. Hotels do this too (with city tax for example), but that is just a few extra dollars a night, and not almost as high as the cost per night. I think the original spirit of someone renting out extra space they have is long gone. It's either a big company renting out what could have been rental units in the first place, or someone renting their plac…

Well and I don't have to do chores at a hotel. AirBnB says pay us $200 for a cleaning fee but make sure to take the sheets off the bed, cut the grass, and paint the walls before you leave.

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

#230

Post by site-packages1 »

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…

I’m an early adopter of things like this and I’ve been using Airbnb since about Day 1. There was so much promise early. One of my best AirBnB memories was staying at a startup hotel in SF through AirBnB, the hosts had purchased a Victorian house to turn into a boutique hotel, seemed young and optimistic, and it was a fun, quirky experience. There was still construction and things happening, apparently we were one of the first few people to ever stay there under its new ownership.

So I’ve been using Airbnb regularly, travel regularly, and in the last 2ish years have moved all my work travel to Marriott. For scale, checking my Marriott app right now, I’ve stayed 77 nights in Marriotts this year so far. This used to be all Airbnb stays, but as you mention the hosts have become so unpredictable and listings do not match up to the experience that it’s more hassle and actively hostile to stay in Airbnb in a new city to get to know some quirky neighborhood on a work trip. And the usual complaint of basically a chore list to do at the end combined with huge cleaning fees on top of the chore list.

Currently my only Airbnb exception is that my partner and I have two airbnbs that we know to be good in resort towns and when we’re going there we book those Airbnbs if available, because they have known good experiences and good hosts. Otherwise we don’t even look at other options, particularly because we use those during vacations where we want to relax, and instead just book Four Seasons or whatever nice hotel is there because the experience will be good and consistent.

I really yearn for the early Airbnb days though when listings were more accurate and high quality and one could explore a new neighborhood (perhaps one without traditional hotels one might never stay in without Airbnb).

As an aside, I started using UberEats since literal Day 1 when they were driving circles around the city with a fixed menu, you selected your meal, one of them would drop it off to you within minutes. It was amazing. But now of course the hordes have descended and it’s 90% ghost kitchens serving slop in my city.

Post reply on HN