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How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

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Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#31
post #6

I feel like this is missing a really important factor: how likely are guests to use airbnb again after staying at a listing? A listing could look great online and receive a lot of bookings (so high LTV), but ultimately drive users away from the platform. A certain ad platform I worked on cared a lot about this - offensive ads could get you to quit the site altogether. You might want to count every ad as positive for…

In the case of Airbnb, wouldn't that show up in the listing's reviews, requests for refunds, etc. and ultimately drive down the listing's LTV? Nobody leaves reviews on an ad, and I imagine that very few users report inappropriate ads, so you can only measure that indirectly. But if somebody books an Airbnb and has a bad experience, they are much more likely to give you direct feedback about it.

Bad reviews are often moderated away and refund requests are stonewalled (and few people know about chargebacks so that isn't factored in). It is easier for the platform to acquire guests than hosts, so the platform takes the side of hosts.

Edit: at least that was the situation a couple of years ago. A host below now reports that the situation has changed and they take the side of the guests; however, either way it's open to abuse no matter which side they take.

The issue is that in a marketplace where both sides can be dishonest, the only way to ensure quality is to do spot checks by trusted actors (aka company employees) where the penalties for failing such a check are dissuasive enough that it becomes more profitable to play by the rules.

This is similar to how law enforcement is supposed to operate - the reason the penalty for theft (for example) is more than merely returning the stolen items is that since law enforcement can't observe everyone all at once, the penalty needs to be enough of a deterrent to make the bad behavior unprofitable overall, to discourage it even in cases where law enforcement isn't there to witness it and enforce said law.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#32
post #5

Why do they publish blogposts on such a lame paywalled website though...

Is this post paywalled for you? Or is there just a signup/login banner that you can dismiss? If there's a paywall we'll pin a workaround at the top.

My User Agent goes around the paywall easily.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#33

Man I'm so sick of trying to find something on Airbnb only to discover by the time I order that the price has doubled. Airbnb these last years went from feeling fresh and adventurous to scammy and dubious

Use booking.com, better in every way and customer support that won't stonewall you.

Booking.com is awful. Anyone can make a listing on Booking.com for places that don't exist. Airbnb at least makes an effort to verify the building is real.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#34

Man I'm so sick of trying to find something on Airbnb only to discover by the time I order that the price has doubled. Airbnb these last years went from feeling fresh and adventurous to scammy and dubious

Worse is when your booking is confirmed but then cancelled a week before you go, at which point all the prices are much higher

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use booking.com, better in every way and customer support that won't stonewall you.

Booking.com is awful. Anyone can make a listing on Booking.com for places that don't exist. Airbnb at least makes an effort to verify the building is real.

If anything the flight bit is even worse.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#36
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering that too! Surely Airbnb - a company that runs a website - has the capability to put a text post on their own website. Then they'd own the content, and people looking for it could find it easier? It's not a revolutionary concept either, Facebook has one: https://engineering.fb.com/ Wait, Airbnb already has one ? https://airbnb.io/ Genuinely confusing.

> Why Distribution. The reason for this blog post is "recruit engineers". Not every engineer is going to visit blog.airbnb.com, but presumably a lot of them are already on Medium. They even close the article with, > We continue to solve interesting problems around LTV every day (and as more insights come up, we’ll keep sharing them on our blog). Can you see yourself making an impact here? If so, we encourage you to e…

Why would I pay for a paywall to read a job ad?

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#37

Mega-tangent: As a host, I feel compelled to rant about Airbnb whenever they come up in a discussion. The last 2 years they have _really_ moved to squeeze the hosts. The customer service has been demolished and they seem to have taken a stance of "the guest is always right". I've spent countless hours going through their customer service as a super host, so I know I have a decent amount of anecdata. My suspicion is t…

I would love to not use Airbnb as a consumer but there is no real alternative here. I hear a lot of people say that Airbnb is just as expensive as hotels but I just don't see it. I'm looking at traveling and a hotel in the area is $900 to $1200 while Airbnbs are $500 to $800.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#38

Mega-tangent: As a host, I feel compelled to rant about Airbnb whenever they come up in a discussion. The last 2 years they have _really_ moved to squeeze the hosts. The customer service has been demolished and they seem to have taken a stance of "the guest is always right". I've spent countless hours going through their customer service as a super host, so I know I have a decent amount of anecdata. My suspicion is t…

You are yourself in the business of squeezing, so any company that will be willing to deal with you will have the aim to squeeze you.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use booking.com, better in every way and customer support that won't stonewall you.

Booking.com is awful. Anyone can make a listing on Booking.com for places that don't exist. Airbnb at least makes an effort to verify the building is real.

I've made thousands of reservations work booking.com, this does not happen.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#40
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An AirBNB host is not a landlord. Without landlords, you have no rental properties and everyone who can't afford to purchase their residence outright would have to find another option whatever that might be. (I have never used AirBNB.)

Without landlords we wouldn’t have a chunk of the housing supply held captive as investment, driving costs out of reach for most of the non-HN-reading audience.

So a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation?
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