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

281–290 of 427 posts

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

#281

Post by dazc »

ghaff wrote: post #175
itsoktocry wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some hotels are good/bad. Some Airbnbs are good/bad. Tremendous insight. Did you even read the article? The point is, staying at the Hyatt in a major city isn't a crapshoot.

I'd add the nuance that you can end up with a pretty crappy experience at a 3+ star chain hotel for whatever reason. Usually though it's something that doesn't matter all that much at the end of the day like a room with minimal natural light. But generally speaking midrange business hotels are utterly unexciting--which is to say they're predictable which is what I'm looking for from my hotel in general when I travel.…

There is a budget hotel chain in the UK (premierInn) where if you complain you get a free breakfast and if you make your complaint official you will get a full refund. They have remained profitable for many years despite the obvious incentive for people to make unwarranted complaints.

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

#282

Post by michaelmrose »

stickfigure wrote: post #262
nrmitchi wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A system, but not AirBNBs system.

It's unreasonable to expect AirBNB to enforce your HOA rules. That's a private contract between you and your neighbors.

Basically even if it's not expressly forbidden it's an obvious misuse in pretty much any multi family dwelling. If your lease doesn't forbid you from keeping cows indoors it doesn't mean your not an asshole for keeping cows in your apartment.

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

#283

Post by HWR_14 »

scarby2 wrote: post #243
dorchadas wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but it'll force them to go to places that are actually planned to accommodate them. Tourists are included in city planning, believe it or not, but they're not expected to be taking up the actual residential places of the city. That's why areas are zoned for hotels and there's regulation around them.

> Tourists are included in city planning The reason AirBnB exists is that tourists are not properly accounted for in city planning and not properly serviced by hotels. There's a huge demand for what AirBnB provides (Serviced and short term accommodation). Hotels are inadequate for longer stays or where you just want the comforts of home, a good middle ground is the "serviced apartment" concept found in some places (e…

> tourists are not properly accounted for in city planning

Alternatively, tourists are unhappy that people in some areas don't want unlimited numbers of them and account for them properly with zoning restrictions.

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

#284

Post by mschuster91 »

brosinante wrote: post #253
spapas82 wrote: post #241

The OP seems to have spend like $3000 for a month. What's very puzzling to me is why not go to a decent hotel? I'm positive that you can easily find 3 and even 4 star hotels for less than $100 per night in Portugal. This question is not specifically about the OP but in general about people that pay so much money for an Airbnb when they can have a room in a nice hotel for the same (or even less) money. I'm not talking…

An airbnb (often) has a washing machine, a kitchen you can cook on and a fridge you can store food in.

For longer stays, hell even for short-term stays on weekends, I have found to like construction worker homes - usually these are rented out during the week for tradespeople and construction workers and during the weekend for tourists on a budget.

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

#285

Post by drc500free »

Spooky23 wrote: post #69
mcculley wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

These always remind me of the Stay Puft marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. Like the most innocuous thing ever becomes terrible at scale. Amazon, Uber, AirBnB, Facebook all seemed like reasonable to great ideas and were really neat at smaller scale. And once they grew they started wreaking havoc in new and unexpected ways.

It’s a good thought experiment for any startup - how could this cool thing that people like destroy the world if it became a paper clip maximizer?

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

#286

Post by dazc »

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.

Airbnb are not a govt agency and can not tell a genuine document image from one which has been slightly altered.

There is a reason why stolen passports are so valuable.

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

#287

Post by slivanes »

thepasswordis wrote: post #238
slivanes wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you charge guests in your home $100/night to stay there?

I wonder if this is a chicken/egg thing? Host are charging this silly fee because guests were not cleaning up after themselves?

Like at a cafe, it's socially accepted that you put away (bus) your finished utensils.

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

#288

Post by datavirtue »

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…

It's a scam. Plain and simple. VRBO is worse.

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

#289

Post by denton-scratch »

ghaff wrote: post #167
VBprogrammer wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sister uses AirBnB quite frequently because her and her partner are both Vegan. Having a kitchen is a big advantage over hotels.

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

I had to visit my employer in Ottawa (I live in the UK). They booked me into a suite hotel, because there was an international conference in town, and all the smaller rooms were booked.

So I got a huge TV, a kitchenette, a double bedroom with another huge TV, a bathroom with his-and-hers basins, and a single bedroom. The next morning I discovered a second bathroom, like the first; and a utility room with a washer and a dryer.

The problem was they didn't have a bar, so I couldn't get a bottle of wine. But not a big problem; the suite hotel shared a lift with the regular hotel next door. So I would ring the barman at the regular hotel, and he'd meet me on the second floor with my wine.

Post reply on HN