8 ms·

> Here’s what’s wrong: an increasing amount of Airbnb’s commercial activity in cities like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles does not come from the listi

> Here’s what’s wrong: an increasing amount of Airbnb’s commercial activity in cities like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles does not come from the listings of “regular people” who are merely renting out a spare room. This is my problem with AirBnB. I know investment firms buying as much property as they can to list on AirBnB. Every single rental I stayed in when traveling around Asia was done by 'power users' or real estate companies with scores of listing throughout the cities. Unfortunately, that means in my experience the quality drops, no 'homey' feel, and it negatively impacts the locals. AirBnB should implement the rule that you only get to list 1 rental. That would solve this problem, and allow them to stop lying to everyone about who is actually renting on their platform.

jgalt212 11y ago
> AirBnB should implement the rule that you only get to list 1 rental. That would solve this problem, and allow them to stop lying to everyone about who is actually renting on their platform. That proposal is a one way train from a $25B valuation to $2.5B valuation. Of course, if AirBnB loses a number of these key regulatory battles that too could put a serious damper on their biz. Hence, their massive lobbying efforts.
- orthoganol 11y ago
  If 90% of their business comes from 'power users' and investment firms and not 'locals renting their home while they are out of town' - then AirBnB is founded on an extraordinary lie.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    Yes.
  - x0x0 11y ago
    Personally I'd bet that a majority of their revenue is attributable to units that are not owner-occupied for several reasons: * people using a dwelling limits how much hosting they can do * how hard they've fought to avoid forcing these professional landlords to obey the law (viz nyc, sf, etc); would they have fought so hard (potentially endangering their whole business, see current prop F backlash in sf) if this were a small fraction of revenue? see eg http://www.sfchronicle.com/airbnb-impact-san-francisco-2015/#1 http://www.sfchronicle.com/airbnb-impact-san-francisco-2015/... My back-of-napkin rough estimates are 40-70% of revenue is not the face of the anti-prop F campaign, ie someone earning a little extra money from the odd weekend guest.
  - JonFish85 11y ago
    Uh, of course it is. This is why they continue to resist showing any meaningful property data. I'd wager good money on the majority of their rentals also being illegal. But it props up their value and makes money cheap for them so they'll continue to fight until legally forced to do otherwise.
- untog 11y ago
  But what is the better foundation: an honest 2.5B valuation, or dishonest 25B one? (calling Airbnb 'dishonest' is perhaps an exaggeration, but their advertising definitely reflects values that a lot of hosts don't represent, and they must know that)
  - prawn 11y ago
    From Paul Graham's "What We Look for in Founders", point 4 is "Naughtiness": http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html
    - untog 11y ago
      Pretty sure governments don't share the same view.
      - prawn 11y ago
        Depends where the company is being naughty.
jessriedel 11y ago
> AirBnB should implement the rule that you only get to list 1 rental. I agree with your concerns, but why not just distinguish between personal/regular/single user and power/multi-listing/comercial users? Craigslist does this pretty well with their "for sale by owner" vs. "for sale by dealer" option.
- SapphireSun 11y ago
  The reason they don't do this, I suspect, is because "for sale by dealer" is illegal is a lot of places unless the host registers as a hotel and complies with hotel regulations (which probably excludes their property from being usable).
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    Well, then, there you go. AirBnB are profiting by violating law. Good, bad, or otherwise, the owner/dealer distinction clarifies this. Eventually the site simply becomes one-stop shopping for atty's g'l intent on enforcement.
    - fineman 11y ago
      There's a huge difference between me breaking the law and me not auditing you to know that you are. Does Craigslist investigate every item sold to make sure it's not stolen?
      - kenko 11y ago
        <em>Does Craigslist investigate every item sold to make sure it's not stolen? </em> No, but they probably should. Pawnshops, in many jurisdictions at least, are supposed to hold things that they buy in case they turn out to be stolen. You can be on the hook for fencing something even if you didn't know it was stolen.
        christianmann 11y ago
        Craigslist also does not take a cut of the price of the item -- it is solely a marketplace.
mgkimsal 11y ago
Agreed. Small sample size, but my wife used airbnb twice in london. First time was good (not great, but good). Second was horrible. (no curtain on windows directly facing office buildings, broken shower, no tv, 2 hangers for a 10 day booked stay, etc). Video evidence for everything, and multi-day delays in getting resolutions (everything documented via their platform). Requested a partial refund (no working shower for 4 days?) Response was a resounding no, then threats from the person who was doing the renting that they would post negative reviews of my wife as a renter so no one would rent from us again. Guess what? The owner (and his girlfriend) had several airbnb properties they were renting out, growing a landlording business (without all the pesky regulation). (edit: there were multiple reviews stating how great it was - it was a veritable dump - which is partially ok, but broken shower, no tv, etc - when those are clearly listed amenities - is simply lying. Oh, and if you're going to rent out a room/place via airbnb, please remove moldy/stale food from your refrigerator first) Contrasting that with a recent nashville visit via airbnb (I didn't book it, but stayed there) - the epitome of the "share my home" aspect that gets played up - notes around the house, everything fresh and tidy, etc). Forcing just 1 would certainly get back to the roots. Or perhaps a sliding scale - fees go up as you want to list more rooms? The individuals wanting to rent out a spare room get the cheapest fees - the people trying to be the next hilton (sans service and regulation) pay correspondingly higher fees).
- larrys 11y ago
  I wonder what controls they have to prevent someone who gets dinged with bad ratings (as a landlord) from reposting the same exact property. After all it would be trivial to post with an address and unit "1705a" and then if a problem just call it "1705b" with different pictures as if it's a completely new listing (and curious if that much effort is actually needed). Likewise landlords (I am a commercial landlord) often have various entities that they use so it's easy to come up with a new "owner" of the unit. I wonder if Airbnb even cross refs ownership with city records at all.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  > Second was horrible. (no curtain on windows directly facing office buildings, broken shower, no tv, 2 hangers for a 10 day booked stay, etc). With current housing boom in London that is the luxury package .... /almost sarcastic
tlogan 11y ago
This is exactly what happen to eBay: eventually, eBay become "crappy Amazon". If I'm AirBnB I would focus to be real marketplace so AirBnB does not end up as "crappy hotels.com" - but on other hand, eBay did extremely good (if you sold stocks before 2014).
- prawn 11y ago
  For a while, eBay was the default name in "looking to buy/sell something second hand" in Australia. "Just put it on eBay," that sort of thing. It was then overrun by professional sellers and I almost never hear it mentioned. People speak almost exclusively here of Gumtree which is individuals selling second hand things. Gumtree is, these days, owned by eBay.
  - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
    Sort of similar in the Netherlands, we had Marktplaats (marketplace). Pretty much totally dominated the market, eBay bought them actually. Now? I barely hear anyone about it, haven't used it in a long time. It, too, is pretty much dominated by professional sellers now. If you look for product XYZ the first full page of hits (it's beyond ridiculous) are dedicated sellers who paid for the spot or just spam the same stuff. All of the 2nd hand trading by me and my peers now goes through FB trading groups, a natural platform to communicate in text, post images of the product, negotiate prices, get a sense of identity/trust etc. This was great for about a year, but right now all of the few FB groups I used to frequent are seeing timed posts advertising professional services and products which keep popping up on my feed, drowning out the real sellers and causing me to delist myself from the group. New niche marketplaces pretty much keep popping up that grow pretty quickly until they're big enough to get spammed by professional accounts looking for new sales channels.
    - rosege 11y ago
      Marktplaats is extremely frustrating for a non-professional seller that has come from ebay. The main issue I had with it is that the bids are not binding. So getting someone to commit once they have bid is extremely hard. Ebay should just shut it and redirect it to its own superior site.
thaumasiotes 11y ago
> Every single rental I stayed in when traveling around Asia was done by 'power users' or real estate companies with scores of listing throughout the cities. To some extent this probably reflects what you're looking for. When I investigated airbnb rentals in Shanghai, there were a number of notices to the effect of "because I'm female, it's not convenient for me to have a male guest".
gogaoa 11y ago
I don't mind professional listings, really; but I do mind fraudulent ones. And AirBNB isn't setup to encourage honest feedback. My singular experience with AirBNB was a listing where they advertised a NYC address 2 avenues from the real address; they lied about details; they used a multitude of names; they told me to lie about who I was to a superintendent who might stop by. The place was a pit. But my recourse was limited, because I didn't feel like getting into a fight with fraudsters who knew my real identity but who'd hid their own, and AirBNB doesn't give a shit. So I just recognized that AirBNB is a haven for crime, realized that their review policies are designed to protect the criminals, and I stopped using it, and became an anti-airbnb advocate. I hope I meet Brian Chesky someday, because PG loves to go on about what a great guy he is, but as near as I can tell he's a sociopathic asshole who made purposeful design decisions specifically to enable fraud that happens to increase his profits. This makes sense, given that he built the whole damned thing by being a spammer (and lying about it). I'm genuinely curious if he's not the completely worthless piece of shit that he absolutely appears to be from a customer standpoint.
- AJ007 11y ago
  Big companies turn a blind eye to bad stuff, in part because it is really hard to manage and because truly cracking down may remove all revenue growth for a while. I don't need to list the specifics, but both Google and Amazon are certainly guilty of the same thing. Some interesting things I don't hear mentioned often: a) prostitutes have been shifting away from hotels to airbnb ~ at some point this could be a serious safety concern b) there is nothing in place to prevent racial discrimination I haven't had any terrible experiences with Airbnb. I've used it just a few times. I have noticed a tendency for places to look good in pictures but you don't know if like the mattress is horrible. Realistically cities may need to have an additional zoning category for short term residential rentals. Buildings/condos/apartments/co-ops most certainly have a right to aggressively enforce rules if something like airbnb is prohibited. If an airbnb host is either breaking the rules of the property or the city, they should be on the hook to refund all booking fees from day one.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  > I don't mind professional listings Back in my day, they were called hotels. And were regulated.
knocte 11y ago
> AirBnB should implement the rule that you only get to list 1 rental. Disagree to an extent. If you have two extra bedrooms in your house besides your bedroom, you should be able to have 2 listings. The rule should be "only N listings that belong to 1 property".
- scintill76 11y ago
  Concurrently renting out 2 rooms so often that you would want this, is still a qualitative difference between renting out just 1 room or renting out your whole personal residence for just 5 weeks in the year. I don't know that it crosses a meaningful line yet, but it is moving toward the "professional/large-scale" side of the spectrum that your parent comment is complaining about.
coupdejarnac 11y ago
I don't think getting to list only one rental is the solution, but perhaps an owner can only list one property as their primary residence.
princeb 11y ago
I remember seeing their "Never a stranger" ad runs on tv. thought it was unusual that they promote the idea that hosts stay with guests. i've used airbnb twice too and both times the host was an employee of a property management company. at least, in the first one i met the host to collect and return the keycard to the room. second one was just a text message of the numeric password on the main door. Not saying that's a bad thing, but just an observation on the reality. I sort of preferred it this way, although who knows how the neighbours felt. I certainly could not care very much while I was there since I was in and out in a few weeks.
vuchr 11y ago
I prefer it when its run by a company, rather than someone renting out their apartment (I've stayed a coupleof times where they moved out of their home (once to stay with parents next door, not sure about the other)). I don't really see any advantage (for the person staying). The company ran ones are tidier, have cleaners they can arrange to come out and clean when required (like a hotel's daily clean), etc. I use airbnb for cheap accomodation and because I can see exactly what the apartment will look like. I don't do it to talk to someone when checking in for an extra 10 minutes.
crabasa 11y ago
I understand the correlation you're making between "corporate" units and the quality of the experience, but shouldn't the ratings and reviews system completely solve this? As a frequent user of AirBnB, I feel like there is more than enough information for people to make an well-informed choice when booking. I really feel like an arbitrary limit of one would create more problems than it solves, especially since plenty of people have no desire for a "homey" experience.
choppaface 11y ago
The fact that "power users" are making so much money from Airbnb indicates just how poorly hotels serve travelers. Rather than curb users to 1 listing, why not try to embrace their energy to create a better travel service? These negative Airbnb articles simply indicate that Airbnb is growing faster than the company can keep up with its users. Every issue outlined in the article-- fire safety, tax compliance, banning Ellis Act abusers, regulating "power users"-- can be mitigated or solved completely. Not without effort, for sure, but it's going too far tarnish their brand without a solid thesis about how one could build a better Airbnb. (And if somebody's going to make that argument, they might as well start a competitor or join Airbnb given the market opportunity...). These sorts of articles should send an important message to future founders with wildly successful products: if you can curb growth and yet still outpace your competition, do that instead of "blitzscaling." You want to scale quality, you don't want to lose the faith of your users and the media in your ability to execute, and growing fast (without competition warranting it) will benefit investors more than your customers.
- muglug 11y ago
  Surely these articles lend credence to the idea that AirBnB is only growing at the rate it is because landlords are using it to "abuse" the housing market. As the situation stands right now, they have absolutely nothing to gain by limiting those "power users", and a substantial amount to lose.
- Swannie 11y ago
  "The fact that "power users" are making so much money from Airbnb indicates just how poorly hotels serve travelers" There are plenty of well ran boutique hotels that serve travellers very well. "Power users" are making so much money by breaking the law. If they were following the law, they would be running highly profitable boutique hotels/bed and breakfast houses /above the law/.
- pyrophane 11y ago
  > The fact that "power users" are making so much money from Airbnb indicates just how poorly hotels serve travelers. Rather than curb users to 1 listing, why not try to embrace their energy to create a better travel service? A lot of people prefer Airbnb not because hotels are so terrible but because Airbnb is so cheap. > These negative Airbnb articles simply indicate that Airbnb is growing faster than the company can keep up with its users. Airbnb is a big company with a lot of resources at this point. They aren't doing anything about these problems because they don't want to. Right now they are exactly where they want to be: they collect a hefty percentage of every transaction that rolls through their platform, and they get to offload pretty much all of the risk onto their users.
rtpg 11y ago
I think AirBnB relies on those power users to have the volume it does. It's unlikely they would ever set that rule because it would basically break their business model (hotel listings, basically)
HNSucksAss 11y ago
"Unfortunately, that means in my experience the quality drops, no 'homey' feel, and it negatively impacts the locals." Well, I just invested in a four-unit deal with a friend for this very purpose. And I can assure you that quality in our case will not suffer, and an fact will be quite good because my partner lives on premises. Limiting listings to one per person would be bullshit.
trymas 11y ago
And it also made real estate prices skyrocket in some places, because rich people (or usually companies) bought out a lot of property, which is now rented for a nice profit. Some apartment buildings can looks very strange as they are relatively empty because it is clearly used as 'AirBnB hotel'. Basically if you want to buy/rent property for a sane price you must go deep into suburbs. P.S. It's all my subjective experience, I have not conducted any studies.

jgalt212 11y ago

> AirBnB should implement the rule that you only get to list 1 rental. That would solve this problem, and allow them to stop lying to everyone about who is actually renting on their platform. That proposal is a one way train from a $25B valuation to $2.5B valuation. Of course, if AirBnB loses a number of these key regulatory battles that too could put a serious damper on their biz. Hence, their massive lobbying efforts.

orthoganol 11y ago
If 90% of their business comes from 'power users' and investment firms and not 'locals renting their home while they are out of town' - then AirBnB is founded on an extraordinary lie.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  Yes.
- x0x0 11y ago
  Personally I'd bet that a majority of their revenue is attributable to units that are not owner-occupied for several reasons: * people using a dwelling limits how much hosting they can do * how hard they've fought to avoid forcing these professional landlords to obey the law (viz nyc, sf, etc); would they have fought so hard (potentially endangering their whole business, see current prop F backlash in sf) if this were a small fraction of revenue? see eg http://www.sfchronicle.com/airbnb-impact-san-francisco-2015/#1 http://www.sfchronicle.com/airbnb-impact-san-francisco-2015/... My back-of-napkin rough estimates are 40-70% of revenue is not the face of the anti-prop F campaign, ie someone earning a little extra money from the odd weekend guest.
- JonFish85 11y ago
  Uh, of course it is. This is why they continue to resist showing any meaningful property data. I'd wager good money on the majority of their rentals also being illegal. But it props up their value and makes money cheap for them so they'll continue to fight until legally forced to do otherwise.
untog 11y ago
But what is the better foundation: an honest 2.5B valuation, or dishonest 25B one? (calling Airbnb 'dishonest' is perhaps an exaggeration, but their advertising definitely reflects values that a lot of hosts don't represent, and they must know that)
- prawn 11y ago
  From Paul Graham's "What We Look for in Founders", point 4 is "Naughtiness": http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html
  - untog 11y ago
    Pretty sure governments don't share the same view.
    - prawn 11y ago
      Depends where the company is being naughty.

jessriedel 11y ago

> AirBnB should implement the rule that you only get to list 1 rental. I agree with your concerns, but why not just distinguish between personal/regular/single user and power/multi-listing/comercial users? Craigslist does this pretty well with their "for sale by owner" vs. "for sale by dealer" option.

SapphireSun 11y ago
The reason they don't do this, I suspect, is because "for sale by dealer" is illegal is a lot of places unless the host registers as a hotel and complies with hotel regulations (which probably excludes their property from being usable).
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  Well, then, there you go. AirBnB are profiting by violating law. Good, bad, or otherwise, the owner/dealer distinction clarifies this. Eventually the site simply becomes one-stop shopping for atty's g'l intent on enforcement.
  - fineman 11y ago
    There's a huge difference between me breaking the law and me not auditing you to know that you are. Does Craigslist investigate every item sold to make sure it's not stolen?
    - kenko 11y ago
      <em>Does Craigslist investigate every item sold to make sure it's not stolen? </em> No, but they probably should. Pawnshops, in many jurisdictions at least, are supposed to hold things that they buy in case they turn out to be stolen. You can be on the hook for fencing something even if you didn't know it was stolen.
      - christianmann 11y ago
        Craigslist also does not take a cut of the price of the item -- it is solely a marketplace.

mgkimsal 11y ago

Agreed. Small sample size, but my wife used airbnb twice in london. First time was good (not great, but good). Second was horrible. (no curtain on windows directly facing office buildings, broken shower, no tv, 2 hangers for a 10 day booked stay, etc). Video evidence for everything, and multi-day delays in getting resolutions (everything documented via their platform). Requested a partial refund (no working shower for 4 days?) Response was a resounding no, then threats from the person who was doing the renting that they would post negative reviews of my wife as a renter so no one would rent from us again. Guess what? The owner (and his girlfriend) had several airbnb properties they were renting out, growing a landlording business (without all the pesky regulation). (edit: there were multiple reviews stating how great it was - it was a veritable dump - which is partially ok, but broken shower, no tv, etc - when those are clearly listed amenities - is simply lying. Oh, and if you're going to rent out a room/place via airbnb, please remove moldy/stale food from your refrigerator first) Contrasting that with a recent nashville visit via airbnb (I didn't book it, but stayed there) - the epitome of the "share my home" aspect that gets played up - notes around the house, everything fresh and tidy, etc). Forcing just 1 would certainly get back to the roots. Or perhaps a sliding scale - fees go up as you want to list more rooms? The individuals wanting to rent out a spare room get the cheapest fees - the people trying to be the next hilton (sans service and regulation) pay correspondingly higher fees).

larrys 11y ago
I wonder what controls they have to prevent someone who gets dinged with bad ratings (as a landlord) from reposting the same exact property. After all it would be trivial to post with an address and unit "1705a" and then if a problem just call it "1705b" with different pictures as if it's a completely new listing (and curious if that much effort is actually needed). Likewise landlords (I am a commercial landlord) often have various entities that they use so it's easy to come up with a new "owner" of the unit. I wonder if Airbnb even cross refs ownership with city records at all.
venomsnake 11y ago
> Second was horrible. (no curtain on windows directly facing office buildings, broken shower, no tv, 2 hangers for a 10 day booked stay, etc). With current housing boom in London that is the luxury package .... /almost sarcastic

tlogan 11y ago

This is exactly what happen to eBay: eventually, eBay become "crappy Amazon". If I'm AirBnB I would focus to be real marketplace so AirBnB does not end up as "crappy hotels.com" - but on other hand, eBay did extremely good (if you sold stocks before 2014).

prawn 11y ago
For a while, eBay was the default name in "looking to buy/sell something second hand" in Australia. "Just put it on eBay," that sort of thing. It was then overrun by professional sellers and I almost never hear it mentioned. People speak almost exclusively here of Gumtree which is individuals selling second hand things. Gumtree is, these days, owned by eBay.
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  Sort of similar in the Netherlands, we had Marktplaats (marketplace). Pretty much totally dominated the market, eBay bought them actually. Now? I barely hear anyone about it, haven't used it in a long time. It, too, is pretty much dominated by professional sellers now. If you look for product XYZ the first full page of hits (it's beyond ridiculous) are dedicated sellers who paid for the spot or just spam the same stuff. All of the 2nd hand trading by me and my peers now goes through FB trading groups, a natural platform to communicate in text, post images of the product, negotiate prices, get a sense of identity/trust etc. This was great for about a year, but right now all of the few FB groups I used to frequent are seeing timed posts advertising professional services and products which keep popping up on my feed, drowning out the real sellers and causing me to delist myself from the group. New niche marketplaces pretty much keep popping up that grow pretty quickly until they're big enough to get spammed by professional accounts looking for new sales channels.
  - rosege 11y ago
    Marktplaats is extremely frustrating for a non-professional seller that has come from ebay. The main issue I had with it is that the bids are not binding. So getting someone to commit once they have bid is extremely hard. Ebay should just shut it and redirect it to its own superior site.

thaumasiotes 11y ago

> Every single rental I stayed in when traveling around Asia was done by 'power users' or real estate companies with scores of listing throughout the cities. To some extent this probably reflects what you're looking for. When I investigated airbnb rentals in Shanghai, there were a number of notices to the effect of "because I'm female, it's not convenient for me to have a male guest".

gogaoa 11y ago

I don't mind professional listings, really; but I do mind fraudulent ones. And AirBNB isn't setup to encourage honest feedback. My singular experience with AirBNB was a listing where they advertised a NYC address 2 avenues from the real address; they lied about details; they used a multitude of names; they told me to lie about who I was to a superintendent who might stop by. The place was a pit. But my recourse was limited, because I didn't feel like getting into a fight with fraudsters who knew my real identity but who'd hid their own, and AirBNB doesn't give a shit. So I just recognized that AirBNB is a haven for crime, realized that their review policies are designed to protect the criminals, and I stopped using it, and became an anti-airbnb advocate. I hope I meet Brian Chesky someday, because PG loves to go on about what a great guy he is, but as near as I can tell he's a sociopathic asshole who made purposeful design decisions specifically to enable fraud that happens to increase his profits. This makes sense, given that he built the whole damned thing by being a spammer (and lying about it). I'm genuinely curious if he's not the completely worthless piece of shit that he absolutely appears to be from a customer standpoint.

AJ007 11y ago
Big companies turn a blind eye to bad stuff, in part because it is really hard to manage and because truly cracking down may remove all revenue growth for a while. I don't need to list the specifics, but both Google and Amazon are certainly guilty of the same thing. Some interesting things I don't hear mentioned often: a) prostitutes have been shifting away from hotels to airbnb ~ at some point this could be a serious safety concern b) there is nothing in place to prevent racial discrimination I haven't had any terrible experiences with Airbnb. I've used it just a few times. I have noticed a tendency for places to look good in pictures but you don't know if like the mattress is horrible. Realistically cities may need to have an additional zoning category for short term residential rentals. Buildings/condos/apartments/co-ops most certainly have a right to aggressively enforce rules if something like airbnb is prohibited. If an airbnb host is either breaking the rules of the property or the city, they should be on the hook to refund all booking fees from day one.
venomsnake 11y ago
> I don't mind professional listings Back in my day, they were called hotels. And were regulated.

knocte 11y ago

> AirBnB should implement the rule that you only get to list 1 rental. Disagree to an extent. If you have two extra bedrooms in your house besides your bedroom, you should be able to have 2 listings. The rule should be "only N listings that belong to 1 property".

scintill76 11y ago
Concurrently renting out 2 rooms so often that you would want this, is still a qualitative difference between renting out just 1 room or renting out your whole personal residence for just 5 weeks in the year. I don't know that it crosses a meaningful line yet, but it is moving toward the "professional/large-scale" side of the spectrum that your parent comment is complaining about.

coupdejarnac 11y ago

I don't think getting to list only one rental is the solution, but perhaps an owner can only list one property as their primary residence.

princeb 11y ago

I remember seeing their "Never a stranger" ad runs on tv. thought it was unusual that they promote the idea that hosts stay with guests. i've used airbnb twice too and both times the host was an employee of a property management company. at least, in the first one i met the host to collect and return the keycard to the room. second one was just a text message of the numeric password on the main door. Not saying that's a bad thing, but just an observation on the reality. I sort of preferred it this way, although who knows how the neighbours felt. I certainly could not care very much while I was there since I was in and out in a few weeks.

vuchr 11y ago

I prefer it when its run by a company, rather than someone renting out their apartment (I've stayed a coupleof times where they moved out of their home (once to stay with parents next door, not sure about the other)). I don't really see any advantage (for the person staying). The company ran ones are tidier, have cleaners they can arrange to come out and clean when required (like a hotel's daily clean), etc. I use airbnb for cheap accomodation and because I can see exactly what the apartment will look like. I don't do it to talk to someone when checking in for an extra 10 minutes.

crabasa 11y ago

I understand the correlation you're making between "corporate" units and the quality of the experience, but shouldn't the ratings and reviews system completely solve this? As a frequent user of AirBnB, I feel like there is more than enough information for people to make an well-informed choice when booking. I really feel like an arbitrary limit of one would create more problems than it solves, especially since plenty of people have no desire for a "homey" experience.

choppaface 11y ago

The fact that "power users" are making so much money from Airbnb indicates just how poorly hotels serve travelers. Rather than curb users to 1 listing, why not try to embrace their energy to create a better travel service? These negative Airbnb articles simply indicate that Airbnb is growing faster than the company can keep up with its users. Every issue outlined in the article-- fire safety, tax compliance, banning Ellis Act abusers, regulating "power users"-- can be mitigated or solved completely. Not without effort, for sure, but it's going too far tarnish their brand without a solid thesis about how one could build a better Airbnb. (And if somebody's going to make that argument, they might as well start a competitor or join Airbnb given the market opportunity...). These sorts of articles should send an important message to future founders with wildly successful products: if you can curb growth and yet still outpace your competition, do that instead of "blitzscaling." You want to scale quality, you don't want to lose the faith of your users and the media in your ability to execute, and growing fast (without competition warranting it) will benefit investors more than your customers.

muglug 11y ago
Surely these articles lend credence to the idea that AirBnB is only growing at the rate it is because landlords are using it to "abuse" the housing market. As the situation stands right now, they have absolutely nothing to gain by limiting those "power users", and a substantial amount to lose.
Swannie 11y ago
"The fact that "power users" are making so much money from Airbnb indicates just how poorly hotels serve travelers" There are plenty of well ran boutique hotels that serve travellers very well. "Power users" are making so much money by breaking the law. If they were following the law, they would be running highly profitable boutique hotels/bed and breakfast houses /above the law/.
pyrophane 11y ago
> The fact that "power users" are making so much money from Airbnb indicates just how poorly hotels serve travelers. Rather than curb users to 1 listing, why not try to embrace their energy to create a better travel service? A lot of people prefer Airbnb not because hotels are so terrible but because Airbnb is so cheap. > These negative Airbnb articles simply indicate that Airbnb is growing faster than the company can keep up with its users. Airbnb is a big company with a lot of resources at this point. They aren't doing anything about these problems because they don't want to. Right now they are exactly where they want to be: they collect a hefty percentage of every transaction that rolls through their platform, and they get to offload pretty much all of the risk onto their users.

rtpg 11y ago

I think AirBnB relies on those power users to have the volume it does. It's unlikely they would ever set that rule because it would basically break their business model (hotel listings, basically)

HNSucksAss 11y ago

"Unfortunately, that means in my experience the quality drops, no 'homey' feel, and it negatively impacts the locals." Well, I just invested in a four-unit deal with a friend for this very purpose. And I can assure you that quality in our case will not suffer, and an fact will be quite good because my partner lives on premises. Limiting listings to one per person would be bullshit.

trymas 11y ago

And it also made real estate prices skyrocket in some places, because rich people (or usually companies) bought out a lot of property, which is now rented for a nice profit. Some apartment buildings can looks very strange as they are relatively empty because it is clearly used as 'AirBnB hotel'. Basically if you want to buy/rent property for a sane price you must go deep into suburbs. P.S. It's all my subjective experience, I have not conducted any studies.