Beyond Pricing – Automatic Dynamic Pricing for Airbnb

Post by samstave » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 12:35 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #31

buro9 wrote: post #4

Surge pricing for AirBNB, and suddenly we're back to looking our networks for floors to crash on and spare rooms to be had. I guess the rule of thumb is that even when costs are eroded, profits increased, intermediaries disintermediated... the prices will rise to the maximum levels that the market will bear. It just takes away the magic of being able to find that rare, cheap and great place. The sharing culture is no…

> I guess the rule of thumb is that even when costs are eroded, profits increased, intermediaries disintermediated... the prices will rise to the maximum levels that the market will bear. Price has always been about demand versus supply, not demand versus cost. Reducing costs in situations where supply is constrained by some other factor will just increase profits.

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 12:35 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #31

buro9 wrote: post #4

Surge pricing for AirBNB, and suddenly we're back to looking our networks for floors to crash on and spare rooms to be had. I guess the rule of thumb is that even when costs are eroded, profits increased, intermediaries disintermediated... the prices will rise to the maximum levels that the market will bear. It just takes away the magic of being able to find that rare, cheap and great place. The sharing culture is no…

> I guess the rule of thumb is that even when costs are eroded, profits increased, intermediaries disintermediated... the prices will rise to the maximum levels that the market will bear. Price has always been about demand versus supply, not demand versus cost. Reducing costs in situations where supply is constrained by some other factor will just increase profits.

Post by ianmchenry » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 1:40 AM UTC

downandout wrote: post #47

buro9 wrote: post #4

Surge pricing for AirBNB, and suddenly we're back to looking our networks for floors to crash on and spare rooms to be had. I guess the rule of thumb is that even when costs are eroded, profits increased, intermediaries disintermediated... the prices will rise to the maximum levels that the market will bear. It just takes away the magic of being able to find that rare, cheap and great place. The sharing culture is no…

On the other side of this argument, from what I've seen on AirBNB, a significant percentage of owners have dramatically overpriced their accommodations. Consequently, widespread adoption of a yield management system like this would lower the prices of many places on many days (while increasing the occupancy rate).

Post by Cogito » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 5:52 AM UTC

glibgil wrote: post #56

chollida1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please rethink these types of comments. They don't do anything to improve Hacker News.

Why can't I down vote the concern troll? Or, why aren't those with the power to down vote able to detect the concern troll? A valid argument was made that couchsurfing.com is an actual sharing economy and AirBnB has stopped being one. The concern troll ignored and derailed the argument.

Post by imaginenore » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 6:56 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

ForHackernews wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer couchsurfing.com anyway. It's an example of the actual sharing economy, and without the grey-area legal shadiness.

This part of couchsurfing (the third auto-suggest result when I start typing couchsurfing into Chrome) is my concern: http://www.businessinsider.com/couchsurfing-the-best-hook-up...