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I feel the same way. Some of my fondest travel memories are staying in airbnbs. But in the past few years, at a seemingly accelerating pace, what an airbnb is

I feel the same way. Some of my fondest travel memories are staying in airbnbs. But in the past few years, at a seemingly accelerating pace, what an airbnb is has changed. In the last few years when I've used them, not all but almost all of them have simply been unlicensed hotels run by investor-landlords who aren't present and at best will pay someone else to come meet you with a key, but usually just leave it in a lock box. Everything feels cheap, and sketchy. There is no personality. You're not meeting anyone, getting local knowledge, living with a local. On the contrary, you're sometimes sharing the same apartment with other tourists. If I don't get any of the good sides, all I'm left with is the downsides - unpredictability, suspicion from other residents in the building, the plethora of random ways things can go wrong when your host isn't available to help you out 24/7. I'd honestly rather just pay the extra 20% or so for a basic hotel room to get the same thing but without those downsides. Booking.com or Hotels.com are now the places I go first, before Airbnb. I'm not at all sure that Airbnb care about this to be honest. They obviously must be aware of it, yet it continues getting more like that, not less. I guess the growth and the numbers from running a cheap unlicensed hotel rooms service is just better than they could get from their original vision. Wish them well, but also wish the old Airbnb was back!

opportune 7y ago
In some ways I actually prefer the cheap-investor Airbnb experience. I recently stayed with a very kind lady at a low rate. I didn’t dislike her at all but I was staying in her house with her and it was just an odd experience for me. Usually when I get an Airbnb it’s because I know the hotels/motels in the area are a racket and I want somewhere that is cheaper, bigger, and in a better location than the hotels. It’s especially useful and cheap when traveling in a group of 3+. I actually would prefer not to stay with a host who is present because it gives me anxiety.
- meowface 7y ago
  I feel the same way as you, but Airbnb lets you filter for this when searching ("whole apartment", "one room", etc.). I've been in one where the owner lived in a different apartment upstairs, but there was no sound travel or anything. The weird cheap investor units I've been in never had the owner around, but there was a lot of noise leakage between guests in different units because the units were low-quality industrial "pods" retrofitted into some warehouse space or something.
jliptzin 7y ago
The problem is the old airbnb that you describe would probably cap at a few billion $ market cap. The one with investor-landlords optimizing everything and squeezing out every last bit of profit gets airbnb closer to that juicy $35B exit that their investors are looking for.
- davnicwil 7y ago
  Oh I agree, sure. Actually put that in the last paragraph. I don't blame them, business is business, and perhaps there's an argument that the growth enables the marketplace to exist at all because otherwise it wouldn't large enough to be self-sustaining. Perhaps the earlier model just wasn't, was subsidised by VC money, they realised that and just pushed on with what could work. I've listened to a few podcasts from years ago with the founders and you can hear the excitement in their voices talking about the early vision and what it could be. And it was like that, years ago. It had its own problems, but it really was something truly great that wasn't really easily accessible before at any kind of scale. I just imagine the founders coming with me to some of the places I've ended up staying, and imagining what they'd think, how disappointed they'd be at what it's become. How different it is from their original vision. They're probably not disappointed with how their business is doing, but for sure, the vision has evaporated along the way to enable this.

opportune 7y ago

In some ways I actually prefer the cheap-investor Airbnb experience. I recently stayed with a very kind lady at a low rate. I didn’t dislike her at all but I was staying in her house with her and it was just an odd experience for me. Usually when I get an Airbnb it’s because I know the hotels/motels in the area are a racket and I want somewhere that is cheaper, bigger, and in a better location than the hotels. It’s especially useful and cheap when traveling in a group of 3+. I actually would prefer not to stay with a host who is present because it gives me anxiety.

meowface 7y ago
I feel the same way as you, but Airbnb lets you filter for this when searching ("whole apartment", "one room", etc.). I've been in one where the owner lived in a different apartment upstairs, but there was no sound travel or anything. The weird cheap investor units I've been in never had the owner around, but there was a lot of noise leakage between guests in different units because the units were low-quality industrial "pods" retrofitted into some warehouse space or something.

jliptzin 7y ago

The problem is the old airbnb that you describe would probably cap at a few billion $ market cap. The one with investor-landlords optimizing everything and squeezing out every last bit of profit gets airbnb closer to that juicy $35B exit that their investors are looking for.

davnicwil 7y ago
Oh I agree, sure. Actually put that in the last paragraph. I don't blame them, business is business, and perhaps there's an argument that the growth enables the marketplace to exist at all because otherwise it wouldn't large enough to be self-sustaining. Perhaps the earlier model just wasn't, was subsidised by VC money, they realised that and just pushed on with what could work. I've listened to a few podcasts from years ago with the founders and you can hear the excitement in their voices talking about the early vision and what it could be. And it was like that, years ago. It had its own problems, but it really was something truly great that wasn't really easily accessible before at any kind of scale. I just imagine the founders coming with me to some of the places I've ended up staying, and imagining what they'd think, how disappointed they'd be at what it's become. How different it is from their original vision. They're probably not disappointed with how their business is doing, but for sure, the vision has evaporated along the way to enable this.