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A long or short term rental discoverability platform with payments, dispute resolution, and an availability calendar is really all that was needed. All of the e

by jsonne 6y ago

A long or short term rental discoverability platform with payments, dispute resolution, and an availability calendar is really all that was needed. All of the experience stuff seems nice but really feels like a distraction. Airbnb for so long was so good at a very simple and useful thing. Genuinely, I wonder why this happens. Is this because companies raise too much money that they have to morph into some "experience" company that ever offers more and more to get more and more revenue growth until they eventually bloat to the tech equivalent of a department store? I see it repeatedly with not just tech companies but DTC brands that pretend to be tech companies as well. Is the pressure from VC money that you have short term opportunity but you eventually will mutate into a blob of a company that isn't really good at anything like so many old-world companies that die?

JoshTko 6y ago
It easy to estimate the revenue and hard to estimate the inefficiency. Revenue scales linearly while the inefficiency grows exponentially (even though it starts small). Inefficiencies such as Customer service rep training, brand dilution, shopping cart conversions rates, etc. all suffer a little when you add additional products. The "Wow look at the TAM of X!" is a powerful distraction that is hard to avoid without discipline.
CalRobert 6y ago
I always assumed "experiences" was a hedge against being made illegal by various jurisdictions.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  I always thought it was a way to derive profit from not only people's accommodation, but also whatever else they want to spend their time doing on their holidays.
  - saddestcatever 6y ago
    That was my thought. Same as ads. If the currency is the attention of users, why not double-dip profits! It's the same reason when I book a plane flight, someone's always trying to sell me the rental car while I'm there
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    It's both but there's no doubt they were feeling squeezed in numerous locales for having people skirting or outright violating regulations on hotels and vacation properties.
- exclusiv 6y ago
  Probably part of it, but I'm pretty sure they did it because they essentially saturated the current market and in order to grow (and/or pump up their valuation) they had to reach outside their core.
- blululu 6y ago
  Partly that, but it’s also a way to differentiate a largely generic product that mostly acts as a middleman. There are already a few Airbnb clones, and there are really not very high barriers to switch platforms. In the long term Airbnb needs to add value beyond the basic marketplace.
pjc50 6y ago
"Dispute resolution" is incredibly difficult, expensive and requires non-scalable humans to work out which of the other humans is lying and what the right resolution is. AirBnB was also an "illegality exploitation" company responsible for converting a lot of rental housing into hotels without going through the planning process, which was great for travellers but bad for their neighbours, and AirBnB was also going to struggle with the backlash.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- treeman79 6y ago
  Got super sick. Like near death level. Recovery took a year. Would be homeless if I hadn’t been able to run an Airbnb. It paid most of my housing cost. Changing a room over would take 1-6 hours because I was so weak and slow. But it gave me time to recover and start working again. I found keeping price up kept the trouble makers away. Being super flexible on everything Kept rooms booked near 100%. Glad to not be doing it anymore but it probably saved my life. Meet lots of interesting people. Several stories from it. I also own a LOT of air filters now due to all the the various international cooking.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    It seems that all the positive airbnb stories are "people renting out part of the house they live in to guests" and all the negative ones are "absentee landlord buys property specifically for the purpose, hires immigrants to do the turnover at below minimum wage and overfills it". If they'd kept to the first model they wouldn't be so widely hated. AirBnb has driven the cost of normal long-term rental property in city centers up to almost the cost of hotel rooms while reducing its availability.
    - dorchadas 6y ago
      Yeah, I don't think the hatred for AirBnB would be anywhere near the levels it is if it was just people renting out parts of their house to guests. It's the fact people are buying up (or building properties) that were/would be long-term without AirBnB that's upsetting people. This is what's pushing the price up everywhere, as rentiers realize that can make more money from short-term lets.
swang720 6y ago
I actually really enjoy experiences. I've used the product myself and it's a great way to experience a new location with a local host.
- treeman79 6y ago
  Used it for six months of traveling a few years ago. Lot cheaper than hotels. A few bad experiences, but mostly positive. Leaned quickly to not take the cheapest rooms available.
  - jobigoud 6y ago
    GP comment is talking about "Airbnb experiences" a specific offering of Airbnb that's not related to short term renting. It's to book a local guide to an activity.
PopeDotNinja 6y ago
I like the experiences. It's a great way to discover things I might not think to do. Last month before the lockdown, I went snorkeling with a marine ecologist and stargazing with a working astronomer. I quite enjoyed the experience of chatting with people who had a side hustle related to their primary profession.
- lasgsf 6y ago
  Same here as one of the biggest pain in the ass after booking a hotel and airflight is what do you do at your destination? This helps a bunch.
acdha 6y ago
I think it’s the VC money: we’ve seen wave after wave of this since the late 90s where a company with a plausible idea is under a ton of pressure to grow unrealistically fast because that’s the only way to get the kind of returns their investors are hoping for. There are a few businesses where you can scale that rapidly because you have insanely high leverage on your staff time (software, very broad services like Google search which almost everyone can use many times daily) but too many money guys think everything which uses computers can scale like that. I mean, back in 1999 you could get groceries and other shopping delivered by Kozmo — clearly something people want since that’s an established mainstream business now – and it was profitable in a number of urban markets. Unfortunately their investors weren’t thinking long-term and demanded country-wide expansion, and they went bankrupt as soon as the easy money dried up because they’d taken on so much startup cost in different markets. If they’d understood the business they were actually in, they’d probably have blocked Peapod, Doordash, Instacart, etc. from even starting.

by jsonne 6y ago

JoshTko 6y ago

It easy to estimate the revenue and hard to estimate the inefficiency. Revenue scales linearly while the inefficiency grows exponentially (even though it starts small). Inefficiencies such as Customer service rep training, brand dilution, shopping cart conversions rates, etc. all suffer a little when you add additional products. The "Wow look at the TAM of X!" is a powerful distraction that is hard to avoid without discipline.

CalRobert 6y ago

I always assumed "experiences" was a hedge against being made illegal by various jurisdictions.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
I always thought it was a way to derive profit from not only people's accommodation, but also whatever else they want to spend their time doing on their holidays.
- saddestcatever 6y ago
  That was my thought. Same as ads. If the currency is the attention of users, why not double-dip profits! It's the same reason when I book a plane flight, someone's always trying to sell me the rental car while I'm there
- rtkwe 6y ago
  It's both but there's no doubt they were feeling squeezed in numerous locales for having people skirting or outright violating regulations on hotels and vacation properties.
exclusiv 6y ago
Probably part of it, but I'm pretty sure they did it because they essentially saturated the current market and in order to grow (and/or pump up their valuation) they had to reach outside their core.
blululu 6y ago
Partly that, but it’s also a way to differentiate a largely generic product that mostly acts as a middleman. There are already a few Airbnb clones, and there are really not very high barriers to switch platforms. In the long term Airbnb needs to add value beyond the basic marketplace.

pjc50 6y ago

"Dispute resolution" is incredibly difficult, expensive and requires non-scalable humans to work out which of the other humans is lying and what the right resolution is. AirBnB was also an "illegality exploitation" company responsible for converting a lot of rental housing into hotels without going through the planning process, which was great for travellers but bad for their neighbours, and AirBnB was also going to struggle with the backlash.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
treeman79 6y ago
Got super sick. Like near death level. Recovery took a year. Would be homeless if I hadn’t been able to run an Airbnb. It paid most of my housing cost. Changing a room over would take 1-6 hours because I was so weak and slow. But it gave me time to recover and start working again. I found keeping price up kept the trouble makers away. Being super flexible on everything Kept rooms booked near 100%. Glad to not be doing it anymore but it probably saved my life. Meet lots of interesting people. Several stories from it. I also own a LOT of air filters now due to all the the various international cooking.
- pjc50 6y ago
  It seems that all the positive airbnb stories are "people renting out part of the house they live in to guests" and all the negative ones are "absentee landlord buys property specifically for the purpose, hires immigrants to do the turnover at below minimum wage and overfills it". If they'd kept to the first model they wouldn't be so widely hated. AirBnb has driven the cost of normal long-term rental property in city centers up to almost the cost of hotel rooms while reducing its availability.
  - dorchadas 6y ago
    Yeah, I don't think the hatred for AirBnB would be anywhere near the levels it is if it was just people renting out parts of their house to guests. It's the fact people are buying up (or building properties) that were/would be long-term without AirBnB that's upsetting people. This is what's pushing the price up everywhere, as rentiers realize that can make more money from short-term lets.

swang720 6y ago

I actually really enjoy experiences. I've used the product myself and it's a great way to experience a new location with a local host.

treeman79 6y ago
Used it for six months of traveling a few years ago. Lot cheaper than hotels. A few bad experiences, but mostly positive. Leaned quickly to not take the cheapest rooms available.
- jobigoud 6y ago
  GP comment is talking about "Airbnb experiences" a specific offering of Airbnb that's not related to short term renting. It's to book a local guide to an activity.

PopeDotNinja 6y ago

I like the experiences. It's a great way to discover things I might not think to do. Last month before the lockdown, I went snorkeling with a marine ecologist and stargazing with a working astronomer. I quite enjoyed the experience of chatting with people who had a side hustle related to their primary profession.

lasgsf 6y ago
Same here as one of the biggest pain in the ass after booking a hotel and airflight is what do you do at your destination? This helps a bunch.

acdha 6y ago

I think it’s the VC money: we’ve seen wave after wave of this since the late 90s where a company with a plausible idea is under a ton of pressure to grow unrealistically fast because that’s the only way to get the kind of returns their investors are hoping for. There are a few businesses where you can scale that rapidly because you have insanely high leverage on your staff time (software, very broad services like Google search which almost everyone can use many times daily) but too many money guys think everything which uses computers can scale like that. I mean, back in 1999 you could get groceries and other shopping delivered by Kozmo — clearly something people want since that’s an established mainstream business now – and it was profitable in a number of urban markets. Unfortunately their investors weren’t thinking long-term and demanded country-wide expansion, and they went bankrupt as soon as the easy money dried up because they’d taken on so much startup cost in different markets. If they’d understood the business they were actually in, they’d probably have blocked Peapod, Doordash, Instacart, etc. from even starting.