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Airbnb S-1

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Re: Airbnb S-1

#311

Post by dheera »

silverpepsi wrote: post #305
kenneth wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I always stay in a hotel and not with friends or Airbnbs whenever I visit China. I'm not bothered to deal with registration and the hotel takes care of it.

Nevermind that around 90% of hotels in China do not allow foreigners. It was not a fond memory dragging my heavy baggage one place to the next for half a day being rejected all over Beijing (experienced it in Shanghai and Guangzhou too) Of course the wealthy here would never know, most places priced in the top 20% expensive accept foreigners. I was a poor student and also worked as a teacher($400/mo) looking for midr…

> dragging my heavy baggage one place to the next for half a day being rejected all over Beijing

Yep, one would think that for a government that cares so much about their image they would avoid visitors having to go through this nonsense.

For budget travellers to Beijing -- 如家 accepts foreigners last I checked. 7天 used to but they don't anymore as of a couple years ago.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#312

Post by Dragonai »

maltelandwehr wrote: post #43
x87678r wrote: post #29

I wonder about their long term business model. Sure they have opened up the industry, but I'd think its quite easy to copy them. Sure there are a bunch of people that will keep AirBnB their favorite but when I'm looking at places I'll religiously check every site I can. There will be nothing unique about them.

Trust, inventory, and demand are not that easy to copy. Most people probably don’t want to check a dozen different sites (convenience) or don’t know which sites they can trust.

I'd also like to add that Airbnb has become a pretty widely adopted verb. Once a brand becomes a verb, overtaking and unseating that degree of brand recognition becomes a feat that I can't recall has ever been done before.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#313

Post by tsjq »

newguy1234 wrote: post #139
kart23 wrote: post #104

I like airbnb. They need to get better at weeding out fake/scammy listings, that tend to plague many online marketplaces where things can be listed for free. Maybe some in-person verification system, or a fee that gets refunded if you have a certain number of guests. There are plenty of listings with huge/exclusive homes, yet no reviews and extremely cheap prices. I don't know what people get out of these listings, b…

Easiest solution is to force new hosts to provide a "surety bond" to basically be an honest host. Maybe make them pay 10-25k lump-sum in cash. After a certain amount of guests have visited the offering then the money can be returned. If the host is a scammer then the money can be used to reimburse the guests for their troubles. The risk vs rewards under this system would discourage bad hosts from joining the platform…

> After a certain amount of guests have visited the offering then the money can be returned.

fraudsters would easily game this. ask a bunch of their friends to "stay" , or even create a bunch of fake accounts and "be our guest"

Re: Airbnb S-1

#314

Post by CURLY3Y »

Torn wrote: post #303
wolco2 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is common then why did you say this was dangerous?

Chinese police are not known for a lax attitude to rule breaking when it comes to foreigners

Anecdotal experiences incoming:

I am moderately involved with various sinology students from Europe. And have traveled to China personally.

Personally I stayed at various AirBnBs within China and registered at the police in Bejing and Shanghai.

The host provided a signed letter confirming where we are staying. With that letter I headed to a local police station where I gave the letter and had to fill out a form with basic personal details and address of where I was staying.

In return I got a stamped letter confirming my stay.

Anecdotes from others: People who have registered late for various reasons (finding apartment, inconvenient arrival combined with work, etc)

I have as of yet not heard anything experience other than the police saying please register on time next time and still got their stamped confirmation of stay.

One standout story however is someone who looked up a recent political dissident via Baidu and got a visit from the police, nothing really exceptional happened except he got visited at his apartment got told off, had to sign a letter confirming the visit and infraction.

The person in question has been back to china multiple times since.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#315

Post by vincnetas »

garmaine wrote: post #302
hehetrthrthrjn wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, only if you're planning on living in the Netherlands for 3 months or more.

As an American it is so weird that a country would require you to register with the police at all, no matter your length of stay.

I see registering your place of living is quite importand when dealing with local taxes. Ie when staying in one place for longer than some period of time, alos same information is used for social purposes, for example to assign your kids a place in kindergarten or school. It just so happens that this responsibility is assigned to police. By the way passport issuing is also i think is under police in LT. And yeah tourists who stay for long periods are handled with same subroutine (if i can say so). Stay at one place for prolonget period of time, please register.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#316

Post by shafyy »

garmaine wrote: post #302
hehetrthrthrjn wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, only if you're planning on living in the Netherlands for 3 months or more.

As an American it is so weird that a country would require you to register with the police at all, no matter your length of stay.

As an European, it seems weird that in the US you don't need to register your address at all, leading to this last-cenutry 10-year Census process.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#317

Post by jonahss »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #206
mym1990 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb's main offering is its software and its ability to create a market between consumers and producers through that application. I imagine it is also a company that is heavily invested in its software engineering workforce and all the resources that support/flow from that. To note, it feels like 'tech company' is a bit ambiguous these days and doesn't necessarily have great clarity.

I would suggest the following: * a car company makes cars that it sells to consumers or other businesses * a tortilla company makes tortillas that it sells to consumers or other businesses * a chip fabrication company makes chips that it ... ... you see where I'm going with this? * a tech company is a company that makes technology that it sells to consumers and other businesses. Amazon is a tech company, but only bec…

An Amazon employee once told me that Jeff Bezos would agree that Amazon is _not_ a tech company

Re: Airbnb S-1

#318

Post by wikibob »

pembrook wrote: post #307
princeb wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is an amusing question actually. is cme group a tech company? it is literally marketplace technology. eurex and xetra, nasdaq, nyse, bats, lse all those guys as well. if you want to go a bit further, jpm, morgan stanley, goldman, barclays and so on are also tech companies, since they're one layer over all these marketplace tech companies, but with their own internal marketplace technology on top of it. anyway, i…

Everything can be both tech and not-tech if you want to argue semantics (ie. If you use a computer to do your job, is it tech?). That's not useful. But I find the zero marginal cost qualification useful. These companies are fundamentally different than companies that are further out on the marginal cost spectrum. Take for example CME, NYSE, Nasdaq, etc. Pure zero marginal cost. Virtually unassailable positions for th…

This is an incredibly insightful take.

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. (Serious)

Re: Airbnb S-1

#319

Post by estomagordo »

adventured wrote: post #286
finolex1 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple. Tesla too, if you're willing to stretch definitions a bit.

There are a few others beyond Microsoft and Apple. Intel has made a huge amount of money from China. Google's Android positioning in China has made it a lot of money as a defensive position for the rest of Asia. By conquering China with Android, it delayed the inevitability of China having their own domestic dominant mobile OS (which will push into other countries in Asia as well at least, harming Android elsewhere).…

Would you call Intel consumer electronics though?

Re: Airbnb S-1

#320

Post by namdnay »

garmaine wrote: post #302
hehetrthrthrjn wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, only if you're planning on living in the Netherlands for 3 months or more.

As an American it is so weird that a country would require you to register with the police at all, no matter your length of stay.

??? My memory is fuzzy now, but I’m 99% sure the same rule applies in the USA
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