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Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

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Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#461

Post by MyPasswordSucks »

distances wrote: post #205
jksflkjl3jk3 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's also...apartment hotels! They're not nearly as common as Airbnb apartments in most countries. I also trust Airbnb listings and reviews more than what I find on most booking sites.

I don't trust AirBnb reviews much at all. When I've found the same place on AirBnb and Booking, the difference was always clear: AirBnb has only glowing reviews with nothing wrong at all, while Booking reviews were much more realistic with also some critical but fair observations included.

When writing reviews in-app, there's a certain pressure to not fuck someone over.

For instance, hypothetically, there might be a listing that mentions plenty of clean towels, a swimming pool, and a walk to a convenience store. I get there and there were two towels, the swimming pool was one of those above-ground models, and the convenience store was a 20 minute walk.

Leaving a negative review on AirBnB might fuck the guy over in search results or certain incentives, so I wouldn't really delve into the definition of "plenty" and how a "swimming pool" should mean "a pool that's large enough to swim in" and not "a big puddle that's perfectly suited for splashing around in, but less so for actual swimming". I might mention them in a private note to the renter or something, but it's not egregious enough to sabotage the otherwise-perfectly-fine service I was provided.

There's no such direct gamification with a third-party review site, so I might bring these things up there.

It's similar to leaving a thumbs up for an Amazon driver who walks on the lawn because he didn't notice the paved walkway. Was it "perfect delivery"? No. But is it something I'd want the guy to have negative employment ramifications over? Also no.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#462

Post by MyPasswordSucks »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #426
levocardia wrote: post #139

Maybe I'm in the minority but I've generally had very good -- or at least, "good as I expected" -- experiences at AirBnbs, even recently. Sometimes I've stayed with rich friends who book nice places, and the experience is, as expected, very nice. Many other times I have stayed at bottom-of-the-barrel places, which were, as expected, bottom of the barrel flophouses. But tolerably so, and true to the advertisement (fun…

I was a digital nomad for 4 years. The ability to do your own laundry is why I prefer an Airbnb over hotel, especially when you’re only living out of carryon luggage with a few days of clothing. Relying on hotel laundry is hard to time and is not cheap.

If you were an analog nomad for 4 days you would have encountered a laundromat.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#463

Post by mike_hearn »

electric_muse wrote: post #371
freddie_mercury wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the people who say hotels are better than AirBnb aren't traveling with kids. Having an actual kitchen when you travel with kids is great. Having actual separate bedrooms so we don't have to go to sleep at 8pm when the kids go to sleep is great. Being able to do laundry without tracking down a laundromat or pay exorbitant hotel prices is great. Having a living room or similar area with at least a few square me…

Perhaps the difference is that you’ve been fortunate enough to never need Airbnb support to help you on something serious. When things go well, it’s amazing. When things go poorly, you realize how anti-guest the policies and support team behave. That’s when it changed for me. I realized how pro-host, anti-guest they are. Hotels generally seem to care when something goes wrong. Airbnb support behaves like you have inc…

Yeah, Chesky is crazy if he thinks people are going to trust AirBnb enough to use it as a passport. You pay them money but their support is what you'd expect from Google's free services, i.e. nonexistent.

For me AirBnb has the dubious distinction of being the only online service I'm banned from, and I have no idea why. I barely used it and the few times I did the hosts were happy. One day I tried to log in and the app wouldn't work properly. I filed a support ticket and they told me they weren't going to tell me anything and there was no appeals process either. And that was that. My guess is I got IP clustered with another person whose account was legit banned, but really, who knows. What's the point of the ID verification process if they act like a free webmail operation anyway?

With booking.com and hotels, you're paying about the same but avoid the BS that comes with Airbnb. It's a much more reliable and predictable experience. The idea of people requiring Airbnb for anything more important than a vacation rental is horrifying.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#464

Post by ricardobeat »

snowwrestler wrote: post #372
ricardobeat wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a massive difference between a bed-and-breakfast and what AirBnB offers. Old-style B&Bs are (family) businesses, open all year round, and registered with tourism entities, much like a hotel.

Vacation home rentals have been a thing for decades. As far back as the 1980s my family would book houses for vacation, usually in areas where lots of houses booked out that way. In vacation destinations there are real estate companies that specialize in this. In the old days you would contact the local chamber of commerce for a referral, or look them up in the phone book. After that, there were websites like VRBO (s…

Vacation rentals are just as far from what AirBnB (originally) offered as a B&B. Usually handled by a property manager, entire home, nice location / popular holiday destinations and facilities as it is someone's second property. Much higher prices. This is a far cry from an "air bed" in a corner of a standard urban family apartment in São Paulo, which you'd find by the thousands in the early years before regulations caught up.

I think you're underestimating how much AirBnB as a platform opened up this market to the average traveller, including business travel, and yes, absolutely contributed to the housing crisis, though I wasn't even making a point about that.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#465

Post by poulsbohemian »

jdminhbg wrote: post #306
cameldrv wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of hotels where you can get multiple rooms and a washing machine. When traveling with kids, one big advantage of hotels is predictability. The last thing I want to do when I'm pulling in after a long flight an hour past the kids' bedtime is to deal with potentially dealbreaking problems with the place. In a hotel, they generally have maintenance on staff and extra rooms to switch into in case of prob…

I have never stayed in a hotel room that had a washing machine.

There are long-term stay hotels that generally cater to business clientele, plus most of the chains have a laundry room somewhere on premise for guest use.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#466

Post by bee_rider »

MyPasswordSucks wrote: post #460
bee_rider wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The air usually seems pretty fresh and healthy when camping.

What about the carpets?

I’m not sure I follow the implication here, but: my point was that “camping” is generated seen as a fairly healthy vacationing option, so it seems weird to use it as the lower-bound on a spectrum that contains moldy Airbnbs and hotels.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#467

Post by golly_ned »

levocardia wrote: post #139

Maybe I'm in the minority but I've generally had very good -- or at least, "good as I expected" -- experiences at AirBnbs, even recently. Sometimes I've stayed with rich friends who book nice places, and the experience is, as expected, very nice. Many other times I have stayed at bottom-of-the-barrel places, which were, as expected, bottom of the barrel flophouses. But tolerably so, and true to the advertisement (fun…

Yeah, this is way too snarky for what Airbnb actually is.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#468

Post by [deleted] »

isaacremuant wrote: post #369
ricardobeat wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a massive difference between a bed-and-breakfast and what AirBnB offers. Old-style B&Bs are (family) businesses, open all year round, and registered with tourism entities, much like a hotel.

Experience wise for the customer, because I've been in both, not that much. Also there's a lot of Airbnb that are family businesses and BnBs that aren't so that's just a romantic moot point. There's interest in painting these strawmen by people who didn't use the service or just tried to get cheap stuff and didn't pick good places, which can happen with booking.com or google maps. The govs love blaming their failings…

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#469

Post by watwut »

bee_rider wrote: post #397
watwut wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and worrying for days afterwards about the effects of smoke, mold, dust etc on their health. I mean, that one is on you. It is possible to go on vacation even camping with kids without having anxiety attack over everything. Also, while some kids are difficult and kids are slow and certainly limit you, hours of tantrumps every holiday and impossibility to eat are not normal.

The air usually seems pretty fresh and healthy when camping.

There tend to be a lot of dust. Less hygiene then in hotel.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#470

Post by MyPasswordSucks »

fkyoureadthedoc wrote: post #380
BLenkomo wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone at AirBnB wanted to solve a real world issue. They wanted to disrupt a market, same as uber, and did this by circumventing laws and breaking everything. There is a reason why we have zoning laws: To protect housing for people. AirBnB broke this. Took my city munich / germany years in curt to get the data from AirBnB. While Covid, plenty of reports came up how suddenly good flats in good locations…

> There is a reason why we have zoning laws: To protect housing for people. Really? In practice it looks more like zoning laws exist so NIMBYs can increase their property value and keep black people away.

You should probably consume less sensationalist activist propaganda and spend more time delving into the actual unglamorous history of how, where, when, and why they came about. Chesterton's Fence [1] is a very relevant concept here.

Can cars be used as a weapon? Yes. Was Henry Ford a racist antisemite? Also yes. Do cars exist so people can run over Jews and minorities? No. (Family Guy cutaway aside)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...

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