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

91–100 of 427 posts

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

#91

Post by Loughla »

elforce002 wrote: post #58
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…

My family went to an Airbnb (basically they were selling themselves as sort of resort) and when my wife saw she had to cook, etc... She was really mad. The listing didn't say it. Long history short, never again. We're going to resorts and hotels ever since. The extra money is not that much since Airbnb basically ramping up their prices.

The last two times we traveled, we looked at Airbnb versus hotels. The Airbnb's were all ~$150 for a bedroom in a shared space with shared bathroom/kitchen/living room, or ~1000-~1500 for a house or one floor of a two-story house. The hotel was $325 and $275 for a suite style in both cities.

To me, it's worth it to get consistent quality, guaranteed privacy, no questions about safety, and again, consistency in quality.

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

#92

Post by johnnymorgan »

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…

I love that you used the term flop house and it also accurately describes the value prop :)

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

#93

Post by ehecatl42 »

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #70

Yep. Had an Airbnb setup this week in Atlanta, looked good, responsive host. We arrived, looked clean and decorated well enough, but had 4 glade plugins for a 500sqft place… seemed excessive like their might be a bad smell hidden. Sat down on a chaise which collapsed because of a leg attached by gum. Found a cockroach under said chaise. Reported it and the owner said it was treated the other day, so it should be fine…

> I named one of them Gregor.

Not everyday you come across random Kafka references!

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

#94

Post by scarface74 »

My wife and I decided to do the whole digital nomad thing earlier this year, flying around the US. At first we thought about doing AirBnbs because that’s what people do.

We booked our first AirBnB and stayed for three weeks. While it was everything the host promised, we weren’t misled at all and it was nice enough. We realized we would like hotels better…

- consistency: we could just go on the Hilton or Hyatt app and we wouldn’t have to worry about what we were going to get. We knew what to expect from a Homewood Suites, Embassy Suites, Home2Suites or Hyatt Place. Even if the hotel ended up having issues, we knew there were easy remedies - everything from getting another room or changing hotels easier.

Besides, we are changing cities on Sundays and I need to be set up to work by Monday morning and don’t need any complications.

And no secret codes. We get to the hotel. We do a digital check in from the app and our phones open the door. We check out digitally and just leave.

- gym access: we have two rooms in our house dedicated to exercise. We have a studio for floor exercises and another room with cardio equipment. We wanted to be able to go downstairs to a gym.

- no hidden fees: we know exactly what we are going to be paying up front.

- no expectation to have the place spotless when we leave. Staying in a hotel is purely transactional. No reviewing the host. No worrying about reputation.

- loyalty points: between the loyalty points that come from the hotel and the cobranded credit cards, you can easily get 15%-25% back in points you can redeem for future stays.

- housekeeping - enough said.

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

#96

Post by Nextgrid »

miav wrote: post #40

Quite surprised by the amount of pitchforks here. I certainly don't think of AirBNB as a failure and I doubt most others would. Is there a problem with scams? Totally. But that's hardly exclusive to AirBNB, wherever there's a market, digital or physical, there will be scammers. This was the case for all of human history and it's on you to vet your stuff. I've used AirBNB for long and short term stays, in Europe and i…

The problem is that Airbnb is the scammer here. They've intentionally misleading customers thinking they will be protected against scams of this type while in reality they are not.

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

#97

Post by [deleted] »

mudrockbestgirl wrote: post #38
netsharc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me think that there's a market for a 3rd party website for reviews for AirBnB hosts (and probably guests). But a new host might not get any guests if they don't have a review on this site, and if the guests avoid them, then no one will review them. An idea would be for a host to pay a refundable deposit, and the website could indicate them as so, "We have no reviews for this host, but they have guaranteed with…

It's fundamentally a problem of trust. Hotels and big brands work because you can trust them. Why do you trust them? Because they have skin in the game. If their products suck their brand suffers and that's what they want to avoid the most. If Apple releases crappy products they can't just create a new "BtwNotApple" brand. They can sell overpriced products because you're paying for trust/brand. In these semi-anonymou…

[deleted]

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

#99

Post by Loughla »

brabel wrote: post #28

I hope the OP is well and managed to find better accomodation. If it was me, I would bit the bullet and just write off the place and check into the nearest hotel as soon as possible. But regarding fake hosts: I think this is standard practice on BnB. Nobody wants to expose their real names on Bnb and be subject to abuse by unhappy guests... unfortunately that's the reality of it. From the host's point of view, I can…

Can we stop using the PR term "host"? That is only valid if it is a space you live in and are hosting someone, like a guest.

So I don't have statistics behind this next sentence, but my anecdotal data has shown that most Airbnb rentals are not where people live. They are specific spaces purchased and maintained for renting out short term via services like Airbnb. These are renters. They are renting the space. Language is important.

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

#100

Post by data-ottawa »

hidelooktropic wrote: post #12

When I alerted AirBNB about a safety issue, they responded that they had completed their investigation (which apparently did not involve talking to me) and said the hosts were "elite" and basically took their side. AirBNB is not safe. https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-faces-thousands-sexua... https://feeneylawfirm.com/airbnb-spends-millions-to-keep-sex...

The last one I went to we walked in and contacted support as they didn’t have the accommodations they promised, and it took AirBnB support four days to get back to us. We waited several hours for a response before just booking a hotel.

I was shocked how bad their support was.

Post reply on HN