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Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

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Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#91

Post by somethoughts »

nailer wrote: post #55
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AirBNB forced hotels to MASSIVELY upgrade. There used to be very few hotels with kitchenettes, any space really beside just a bed. There's way more suite and kitchenette options. Lots of people travel for longer than just a night or two, or to travel beyond just business, where you might want to be able to actually enjoy being in your private space. Hotels weren't really designed for this. They wanted you to never be…

I just wish hotels did a load of laundry for me. I’d pay 30 bucks but not 250.

Interestingly in Asia there are services that drive by hotels and pick up laundry bags and bring them back the next day washed and folded.

Perhaps someone here on HN will read this here, make an app out of it, get funding and set up such a thing in the US.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#92

Post by poisonarena »

mmmBacon wrote: post #59
nailer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve found is that “hosts” usually wait to file a review of me as a guest until I file my review. Oh, I thought they did a double unlock. I.e. waiting for both reviews to be finished before publishing either.

Maybe they do now. I have only left 2 mixed reviews. One when the place they rented was not the one showed in photos. The people weren’t allowed to rent in their building and this was not something that was advertised. This meant none of the building’s amenities were available to us despite being advertised. I ended up getting dinged somehow. I thought maybe they could see the review by a 2nd account or something. Co…

its always been double unlock

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#93

Post by dreamcompiler »

Airbnb made the same mistake Google did: They screwed up their core service. I used to be a steady ABB customer but now hotels are almost always cheaper, offer better service, and are more predictable.

Not to mention that hotel websites are typically easier to navigate and contain a lot less React-sludge that makes every click take forever to respond.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#94

Post by singleshot_ »

nine_k wrote: post #51
infecto wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You paid $300 to stay on a fold out couch in a strangers living room. $1000 sounds like market price for a hotel room then.

This is fair. But the market of barebones $300/night sleeping spots was underserved by hotels, and likely even hostels.

Couldn't you stay in a nice $300/night hotel and just close your eyes when you walked by the pool?

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#95

Post by rester324 »

betaby wrote: post #69
zouhair wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't care about hotels or hotel prices. People need places to live. You can deal with Hotel prices a bit high. There are millions of people in rich countries right now having hard time paying rent or finding any.

Even in very popular cities AirBnBs are less than 0.1% of the residential dwellings. AirBnBs have negligible effect on a rent.

I don't think this is true. The proportion of short term rental places in some districts in European cities are as high as 8-10% and it's growing.

IMO it's meaningless to cite this 0.1% non-sense, because nobody will rent an AirBnB on the outskirts of huge cities far from tourist hotspots, so whoever comes up with these numbers, they probably try smearing the data by selecting an unreasonably wide area for comparison

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#96

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

betaby wrote: post #69
zouhair wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't care about hotels or hotel prices. People need places to live. You can deal with Hotel prices a bit high. There are millions of people in rich countries right now having hard time paying rent or finding any.

Even in very popular cities AirBnBs are less than 0.1% of the residential dwellings. AirBnBs have negligible effect on a rent.

Your entire comment is just made up with no evidence.

As a simple example, in Austin TX, Inside AirBnB tracks over 15000 short term rentals, which would be closer to 5% of housing stock.

And the "only a small percentage of housing is AirBNBs" is a poor argument anyway, because home prices are set at the margins, and a relatively small reduction in housing supply in a constrained market can have a significant effect on price. Plus, for people that rent out a room, in can essentially have the effect of increasing the amount they are willing to pay ("I could normally not afford this apartment, but I could if I rent out a room on AirBnB"), which also increases prices.

More importantly, though, people have actually done studies on the effect of AirBnBs on prices, and found they have a positive (i.e. housing gets more expensive) effect on rents and home prices. One example: https://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/...

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#97

Post by CuriousRose »

nine_k wrote: post #29
CuriousRose wrote: post #20

It amazes me that companies like AirBnB get huge valuations and user bases when the fundamental feature of searching for listings is phenomenally atrocious. - Paginated results that reset and call an API for new results when the map is moved (even to a subset of the initial call such as in a zoom). - Inability to change pagination size. - Inability to hide listings you aren't interested in. - Map only displaying list…

Did you notice that the search at Amazon is not that precise? It's not because they could not make it more precise. Equally, did you notice how milk and bread are in the opposite end of the grocery store? It's not because they could not put them next to the entrance. I suspect that a similar factor can be in play here. As of slowness, I suspect they don't have a DC an Australia, so your packets need to travel across…

I understand your point, nobody is claiming that separating the bread and milk is a particularly good experience either and while it probably makes more money in a physical store where you want to buy multiple options at once, this doesn't apply to AirBnB with a single item checkout. The search at Amazon almost always gets me what I want on the first page, which is the desired behaviour almost everywhere to reduce friction to checkout. Why would I want to increase user frustration and bounce rate on a single product checkout?

I imagine significantly reducing database calls and blob downloads due to short-sighted pagination behaviour would result in significant cost saving, reduce bounce rate and increase conversions.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#98

Post by massysett »

JohnMakin wrote: post #43

I am not a chronic traveler but never understood the appeal of airbnb. Most low-mid to midrange chain hotels offer reasonably clean rooms for equivalent (or sometimes cheaper) price than airbnb after fees and I don’t need to play housekeeper either, or worry about weird owners, which seems to me like the whole nice thing about renting a short term place to sleep.

Hotels have been disgusting for years. They weren’t great before Covid. After Covid hotel owners stopped cleaning during your stay. Trash piles up in my room, with guests leaving trash in the halls. Carpets quickly get nasty. Nobody cleaning up the common hallways.

An Airbnb isn’t cleaned during my stay either, but at least the trash can can hold a day’s worth of trash, and there’s a proper kitchen and more space.

If hotels brought back proper service I would prefer them.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#99

Post by bcoates »

mmmBacon wrote: post #50

Basic problem with Airbnb is that you’re dealing with small proprietors and the quality and value can be pretty inconsistent. Airbnb has relied on reviews to enforce this but what I’ve found is that “hosts” usually wait to file a review of me as a guest until I file my review. So there’s a disincentive to leave a mixed review. Additionally there’s a creep factor in the number of cameras on the property. Hotels have l…

As someone who doesn't have whatever lead poisoning makes people post reviews on yelp the review system is worse than useless.

I'm not gonna leave a mixed or negative review because snitches get stitches and I can't imagine anyone else reviewing has any less pathological incentives.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#100

Post by dreamcompiler »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #27
elteto wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the writing is sort of on the wall for airbnb's current business model. Local regulations are finally catching up to them, limiting new listings or applying the same taxes and fees applied to regular hotels. And airbnb's are not cheaper anymore, and many times not any more convenient than a hotel, due crappy hosts and their excessive fees and regulations. Airbnb is still a great option if the location is unde…

AirBNB forced hotels to MASSIVELY upgrade. There used to be very few hotels with kitchenettes, any space really beside just a bed. There's way more suite and kitchenette options. Lots of people travel for longer than just a night or two, or to travel beyond just business, where you might want to be able to actually enjoy being in your private space. Hotels weren't really designed for this. They wanted you to never be…

> AirBNB forced hotels to MASSIVELY upgrade.

And Uber did the same thing for taxis. Now Uber's ridiculously expensive and taxis are often a better option.

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