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Nothing prevents another company from doing that, but all of the hosts & guests are already on Airbnb. Two-sided marketplaces are very difficult to start, but o

Nothing prevents another company from doing that, but all of the hosts & guests are already on Airbnb. Two-sided marketplaces are very difficult to start, but once they have some momentum, it's even more difficult to unseat them. Look at Craigslist - terrible UI, hundreds of startups have tried to challenge it in the past 15+ years, and yet it's still my go-to when I need to sell some old furniture.

polskibus 8y ago
Moreover, booking.com existed long before Airbnb and is still going strong!
conanbatt 8y ago
Craigslist has a fantastic moat: they are insanely operationally efficient. To make more money than craigslist at a lower cost is virtually impossible. The real entrance cost to becoming a host in airbnb is not airbnb, its having a house. And a host will use airbnb or whatever to keep the appartment occupied. It can absolutely be commoditized, much like Lyft and Uber have. A service that posts your apt in multiple websites would make that permanent. Today they must own the demand side: i have never seen something become so popular with no little ads (particularly in argentina, it was incredible to see it going from 0 to ubiquitous in 2 years). But demand on apartment rentals is incredibly price sensitive, demonstrated by the competition airlines have.
- asteli 8y ago
  I have friends who worked at Craigslist, and was astonished to hear them describe a team of IIRC 35-40 employees. They have somewhere around 50 now? Makes you wonder what those 3k+ employees at Twitter all do.
  - gammateam 8y ago
    A lot of companies have an affinity towards jobs numbers, and derive benefits from the local municpality by being able to print job numbers It simultaneously helps the organization’s tax efficiency and MAYBE something interesting gets developed
  - gfosco 8y ago
    Sales, Marketing, Partnerships, Content Moderation/Censorship.
  - samatman 8y ago
    While this doesn't explain all of the difference, Twitter tries, and largely succeeds, to distribute both Tweets and likes in mere seconds, all around the world, while maintaining a search that can find any string in relatively recent messages. That this is a substantially harder mandate than that of Craigslist I take as a given.
- jaked89 8y ago
  It's irrelevant how many sites you can use to list your apartment. What matters is which site guests use.
  - 8ytecoder 8y ago
    Sure. Unless, let's say, a company that's already used by travelers to book travel options enters the space and/or syndicates the data to hotel search engines in addition to their own website. If I can find both hotels and apartments in hotels.com, why do you think I'd use airbnb? (Assuming apartment owners don't mind listing their space in multiple sites - which is a hard problem to solve but not an impossible one. It has less churn on the supply side compared to, let's say, Uber)
nkrisc 8y ago
I'm not arguing your point, but I think Craigslist's UI is very focused in scope and meets the expectations of its audience.
cc439 8y ago
I'd argue that CL actually has a fantastic UI, it presents all the information you need, and nothing you don't, in a format that is quick to read. The only feature it's missing (or was missing the last time I needed it) is a map based list of housing for rent so you can simply filter out 90% of the listings that you'd never consider based on location anyways. That and a "prevent all Craigslist stereotypes from responding to my listing" button.
- atombender 8y ago
  But it's not about presenting information. It's a completely different experience. AirBnB handholds the traveller from the moment they start looking to when they're going on the trip. CL just presents an ad, and lets the parties email/text on their own. AirBnB handles the financial transactions, with all that that entails, and CL does not. AirBnB facilitates the communication between the landlord and the customer. They also let you add on "experiences" as part of your trip. They also include an identity verification system for both landlords and consumers, and there's a review/rating system for both. It might not be perfect, but Craigslist has nothing like it. For example, I generally avoid renting places that don't have reviews, and landlords can choose to ignore/reject renters who have built up a bad reputation. CL, on the other hand, has a reputation for being full of scammers and other shady people.
  - jakevn 8y ago
    CL UX is great, as both a buyer and seller. It _could_ introduce more barriers to reduce scammers, but that would come at a cost to both buyer and seller UX. There is value in simplicity, and the market thus far agrees. Craigslist is the anti-thesis to the hubris-fueled notion that technology can and should solve every problem, including dishonesty. I've not yet been scammed on Craigslist because I've built up a valuable skill in identifying scammers in general rather than relying on an imperfect system implemented differently on all marketplaces. In return, I do not get scammed as a _seller_, which is something most marketplaces seem to neglect. More broadly, we often blame human nature on software implementations, as if there was a software solution to (all of) such without trade-offs.
EpicEng 8y ago
>Look at Craigslist - terrible UI, I love their UI. It's fast and does exactly what it needs to do, with the bonus that I don't have to download 12 js frameworks to look at a damn listing.
kwikiel 8y ago
Airbnb actually disrupted them https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/airbnb https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/airbnb
bleu-ble-bleu22 8y ago
Here in Utah, Ksl.com does the majority of classified transactions. Craigslist was late to market and never caught on. Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/ksl-craigslist-classifieds/521916/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/ksl-c...
shaklee3 8y ago
Many of the exact same properties are on VRBO.com already, so Airbnb doesn't even have a lock on their own properties.
sjg007 8y ago
Curious.. why not facebook marketplace?
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Because it's Facebook. I know they are heavily spamming that feature but I have literally never seen anything on there of any value. It's a crappy feature that should go away.
  - sjg007 8y ago
    It works in my town. In fact it’s preffered.
fergie 8y ago
Does it actually have a terrible UI though? The UI is certainly basic and dated, but its so usable and distinctive. You could argue that Craiglist's brutalist aesthetic is its genius.
dageshi 8y ago
Big hotel booking sites like booking.com/agoda already have the customers and the world wide logistics for handling this stuff, I can see them becoming direct competitors to airbnb in this space.

polskibus 8y ago

Moreover, booking.com existed long before Airbnb and is still going strong!

conanbatt 8y ago

Craigslist has a fantastic moat: they are insanely operationally efficient. To make more money than craigslist at a lower cost is virtually impossible. The real entrance cost to becoming a host in airbnb is not airbnb, its having a house. And a host will use airbnb or whatever to keep the appartment occupied. It can absolutely be commoditized, much like Lyft and Uber have. A service that posts your apt in multiple websites would make that permanent. Today they must own the demand side: i have never seen something become so popular with no little ads (particularly in argentina, it was incredible to see it going from 0 to ubiquitous in 2 years). But demand on apartment rentals is incredibly price sensitive, demonstrated by the competition airlines have.

asteli 8y ago
I have friends who worked at Craigslist, and was astonished to hear them describe a team of IIRC 35-40 employees. They have somewhere around 50 now? Makes you wonder what those 3k+ employees at Twitter all do.
- gammateam 8y ago
  A lot of companies have an affinity towards jobs numbers, and derive benefits from the local municpality by being able to print job numbers It simultaneously helps the organization’s tax efficiency and MAYBE something interesting gets developed
- gfosco 8y ago
  Sales, Marketing, Partnerships, Content Moderation/Censorship.
- samatman 8y ago
  While this doesn't explain all of the difference, Twitter tries, and largely succeeds, to distribute both Tweets and likes in mere seconds, all around the world, while maintaining a search that can find any string in relatively recent messages. That this is a substantially harder mandate than that of Craigslist I take as a given.
jaked89 8y ago
It's irrelevant how many sites you can use to list your apartment. What matters is which site guests use.
- 8ytecoder 8y ago
  Sure. Unless, let's say, a company that's already used by travelers to book travel options enters the space and/or syndicates the data to hotel search engines in addition to their own website. If I can find both hotels and apartments in hotels.com, why do you think I'd use airbnb? (Assuming apartment owners don't mind listing their space in multiple sites - which is a hard problem to solve but not an impossible one. It has less churn on the supply side compared to, let's say, Uber)

nkrisc 8y ago

I'm not arguing your point, but I think Craigslist's UI is very focused in scope and meets the expectations of its audience.

cc439 8y ago

I'd argue that CL actually has a fantastic UI, it presents all the information you need, and nothing you don't, in a format that is quick to read. The only feature it's missing (or was missing the last time I needed it) is a map based list of housing for rent so you can simply filter out 90% of the listings that you'd never consider based on location anyways. That and a "prevent all Craigslist stereotypes from responding to my listing" button.

atombender 8y ago
But it's not about presenting information. It's a completely different experience. AirBnB handholds the traveller from the moment they start looking to when they're going on the trip. CL just presents an ad, and lets the parties email/text on their own. AirBnB handles the financial transactions, with all that that entails, and CL does not. AirBnB facilitates the communication between the landlord and the customer. They also let you add on "experiences" as part of your trip. They also include an identity verification system for both landlords and consumers, and there's a review/rating system for both. It might not be perfect, but Craigslist has nothing like it. For example, I generally avoid renting places that don't have reviews, and landlords can choose to ignore/reject renters who have built up a bad reputation. CL, on the other hand, has a reputation for being full of scammers and other shady people.
- jakevn 8y ago
  CL UX is great, as both a buyer and seller. It _could_ introduce more barriers to reduce scammers, but that would come at a cost to both buyer and seller UX. There is value in simplicity, and the market thus far agrees. Craigslist is the anti-thesis to the hubris-fueled notion that technology can and should solve every problem, including dishonesty. I've not yet been scammed on Craigslist because I've built up a valuable skill in identifying scammers in general rather than relying on an imperfect system implemented differently on all marketplaces. In return, I do not get scammed as a _seller_, which is something most marketplaces seem to neglect. More broadly, we often blame human nature on software implementations, as if there was a software solution to (all of) such without trade-offs.

EpicEng 8y ago

>Look at Craigslist - terrible UI, I love their UI. It's fast and does exactly what it needs to do, with the bonus that I don't have to download 12 js frameworks to look at a damn listing.

kwikiel 8y ago

Airbnb actually disrupted them https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/airbnb https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/airbnb

bleu-ble-bleu22 8y ago

Here in Utah, Ksl.com does the majority of classified transactions. Craigslist was late to market and never caught on. Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/ksl-craigslist-classifieds/521916/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/ksl-c...

shaklee3 8y ago

Many of the exact same properties are on VRBO.com already, so Airbnb doesn't even have a lock on their own properties.

sjg007 8y ago

Curious.. why not facebook marketplace?

paulie_a 8y ago
Because it's Facebook. I know they are heavily spamming that feature but I have literally never seen anything on there of any value. It's a crappy feature that should go away.
- sjg007 8y ago
  It works in my town. In fact it’s preffered.

fergie 8y ago

Does it actually have a terrible UI though? The UI is certainly basic and dated, but its so usable and distinctive. You could argue that Craiglist's brutalist aesthetic is its genius.

dageshi 8y ago

Big hotel booking sites like booking.com/agoda already have the customers and the world wide logistics for handling this stuff, I can see them becoming direct competitors to airbnb in this space.