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Fascinating conversation. Thanks for giving insight into how these deals work... >ABNB reminds me of Etsy in that it facilitates real commerce in a marketplac

Fascinating conversation. Thanks for giving insight into how these deals work... >ABNB reminds me of Etsy in that it facilitates real commerce in a marketplace model directly between two people. Interestingly enough, I still tend to side with Fred's assessment of AirBnB's future. All my experiences with it as a user have been too unreliable to expect that it can scale to truly massive usability. Selling your old guitar online is a lot different than renting a room to someone. Renting a room has so much more of a personal aspect to it. There are so many more subtleties to actually having a stranger come and stay in your house than there are to sending a stranger a book, guitar, etc via USPS. Regardless, I still think there's a massive market out there for this type of thing, I just don't see it swallowing up the whole Hotel industry.

ryandvm 16y ago
My take on it is that Airbnb is great unless you're the kind of person that doesn't trust strangers. Sadly, in the United States, the tendency to not trust strangers has been on the upswing for the last few decades.
- pjscott 16y ago
  I think the trusting-strangers thing actually comes down to two questions: 1. The collective level: are there enough people who trust strangers that Airbnb can make tons of money, and help out those people? It looks like the answer is yes. 2. The individual level: are you okay with trusting some random strangers from the internet? I think you probably should be -- people tend toward decency, overall -- and it's possible to change the way you feel about something with a little effort.
webwright 16y ago
Strangers renting rooms are only a piece of their future. HomeAway (vacation rentals) just bought a superbowl commercial and are reporting revenue of $100M+. writing on the wall: https://skitch.com/webwright/rieyj/airbnb-search https://skitch.com/webwright/rieyj/airbnb-search Note the # of entire home/apt entries. My guess is that these (with B&Bs, inns, and eventually hotels) will dominate the listings. ABNB has a challenge with positioning moving forward-- a LOT of people think they are all about renting a room in a stranger's house, sharing a common area, etc. But their growth speaks for itself.
randall 16y ago
I just did my first AirBNB experience (actually am still in the middle of it) and I can say that it's actually been surprisingly smooth. It's almost like a paid way to make friends. The hosts who I'm staying with are so cool, and since I'm pretty public online, it was easy for them to feel comfortable with me staying at their pad. They've set it up as much like a hotel as I could ask for. It's really great, and it's paying half their rent (they have about 100% occupancy, believe it or not).
- joshcrews 16y ago
  I like Airbnb. I've hosted 8ish times and stayed with people once. Why I think the people on Airbnb are 'cool' is that its a small population that has a lot in common (young or young-at-heart, singles and couples without kids, internet natives, own a macbook, would love to hitchhike Europe while submitting correspond reports for the NYTimes). As it grows, I'm worried that everyone's not going to find everyone else 'cool' on Airbnb. I wasn't around for the early days of Craigslist, but I imagine it was easy to like people you found on Craigslist because they were probably very similar people to be on Craigslist so early. But now, after scale and popularity, that's gone. I wonder if Airbnb might lose the 'cool' people edge after scaling.
  - thedaveoflife 16y ago
    Good question but I think they will always have the 'cool' crowd simply because allowing a weary stanger to stay in your apartment is inherently a cool thing to do. also money talks in this case. As has been brought up elsewhere in this thread, there is a huge market here for unused space that AirBnB is exploiting. Even cool people like saving/making money.
  - Eliezer 16y ago
    What Airbnb would need to do is allow renters to rate rentees. Two-way system like eBay used to be.
    - brianchesky 16y ago
      We do.
auston 16y ago
I disagree. I opted for ABNB literally 5 out of 6 times this past February. All successful.
mechanical_fish 16y ago
There are so many more subtleties to actually having a stranger come and stay in your house than there are to sending a stranger a book, guitar, etc via USPS. So, PG is a good salesman, and he hit the nail on the head with this comment: Just wait till all the 10-room pensiones in Rome discover this site. If you ever read a Rick Steves guide (which are not exactly the scariest guidebooks on the planet -- they're fairly comfortable middle-class NPR stuff) or tour around Europe in backpacker mode you will become familiar with the pension, aka the German zimmer or the English B&B. These are rooms. In pubs, or very tiny hotels, or people's homes. Which get rented out. They are very common, they have been a tradition forever, and they aren't very formal. Maybe you call ahead. Sometimes that doesn't even work. Sometimes you call ahead but then the landlord forgets your reservation. But ultimately you turn up, meet the landlord, get taken to the room, you look around for two minutes, you say "si" or "no" and fork over a night's rent, and there you go. It's not like buying a house or getting married or anything. Yes, it's a bit more subtle to rent a room than to deal in used books. But it's not that subtle.
bigiain 16y ago
"I just don't see it swallowing up the whole Hotel industry." I've been out of the travel/hotel game for about 4 years now, but I worked in it on and off from ~'97 through to '07. It's an industry ripe for a new player to do a Paypal style end run around the traditional banking/creditcard industry. I don't know whether Airbnb are that player (I'm 100% sure pg and Fred are _much_ better judges of that then I am), but I'm also at least 99% sure that it _won't_ be any of the existing big players (Sabre, Gallileo, Pegasus, MyFideleo, Worldres were the large players I worked with) that revolutionise the hotel booking business.
- betolive 16y ago
  I definitely agree! the industry is stagnant and ready to be disrupted.
- vessenes 16y ago
  I'm going to Vancouver soon with my family; the first thing I did with my wife this week was pull up AirBNB (where is your ipad app, guys?) to check out what sort of deals we could get. I'm not saying I wouldn't check hotel deals, but reading honest reviews from people who really stayed in each room, and sometimes getting to half off a hotel works great for me. They are definitely moving into 'high on my list' for travel, personal and business. I'm guessing I'm not alone here.

ryandvm 16y ago

My take on it is that Airbnb is great unless you're the kind of person that doesn't trust strangers. Sadly, in the United States, the tendency to not trust strangers has been on the upswing for the last few decades.

pjscott 16y ago
I think the trusting-strangers thing actually comes down to two questions: 1. The collective level: are there enough people who trust strangers that Airbnb can make tons of money, and help out those people? It looks like the answer is yes. 2. The individual level: are you okay with trusting some random strangers from the internet? I think you probably should be -- people tend toward decency, overall -- and it's possible to change the way you feel about something with a little effort.

webwright 16y ago

Strangers renting rooms are only a piece of their future. HomeAway (vacation rentals) just bought a superbowl commercial and are reporting revenue of $100M+. writing on the wall: https://skitch.com/webwright/rieyj/airbnb-search https://skitch.com/webwright/rieyj/airbnb-search Note the # of entire home/apt entries. My guess is that these (with B&Bs, inns, and eventually hotels) will dominate the listings. ABNB has a challenge with positioning moving forward-- a LOT of people think they are all about renting a room in a stranger's house, sharing a common area, etc. But their growth speaks for itself.

randall 16y ago

I just did my first AirBNB experience (actually am still in the middle of it) and I can say that it's actually been surprisingly smooth. It's almost like a paid way to make friends. The hosts who I'm staying with are so cool, and since I'm pretty public online, it was easy for them to feel comfortable with me staying at their pad. They've set it up as much like a hotel as I could ask for. It's really great, and it's paying half their rent (they have about 100% occupancy, believe it or not).

joshcrews 16y ago
I like Airbnb. I've hosted 8ish times and stayed with people once. Why I think the people on Airbnb are 'cool' is that its a small population that has a lot in common (young or young-at-heart, singles and couples without kids, internet natives, own a macbook, would love to hitchhike Europe while submitting correspond reports for the NYTimes). As it grows, I'm worried that everyone's not going to find everyone else 'cool' on Airbnb. I wasn't around for the early days of Craigslist, but I imagine it was easy to like people you found on Craigslist because they were probably very similar people to be on Craigslist so early. But now, after scale and popularity, that's gone. I wonder if Airbnb might lose the 'cool' people edge after scaling.
- thedaveoflife 16y ago
  Good question but I think they will always have the 'cool' crowd simply because allowing a weary stanger to stay in your apartment is inherently a cool thing to do. also money talks in this case. As has been brought up elsewhere in this thread, there is a huge market here for unused space that AirBnB is exploiting. Even cool people like saving/making money.
- Eliezer 16y ago
  What Airbnb would need to do is allow renters to rate rentees. Two-way system like eBay used to be.
  - brianchesky 16y ago
    We do.

auston 16y ago

I disagree. I opted for ABNB literally 5 out of 6 times this past February. All successful.

mechanical_fish 16y ago

There are so many more subtleties to actually having a stranger come and stay in your house than there are to sending a stranger a book, guitar, etc via USPS. So, PG is a good salesman, and he hit the nail on the head with this comment: Just wait till all the 10-room pensiones in Rome discover this site. If you ever read a Rick Steves guide (which are not exactly the scariest guidebooks on the planet -- they're fairly comfortable middle-class NPR stuff) or tour around Europe in backpacker mode you will become familiar with the pension, aka the German zimmer or the English B&B. These are rooms. In pubs, or very tiny hotels, or people's homes. Which get rented out. They are very common, they have been a tradition forever, and they aren't very formal. Maybe you call ahead. Sometimes that doesn't even work. Sometimes you call ahead but then the landlord forgets your reservation. But ultimately you turn up, meet the landlord, get taken to the room, you look around for two minutes, you say "si" or "no" and fork over a night's rent, and there you go. It's not like buying a house or getting married or anything. Yes, it's a bit more subtle to rent a room than to deal in used books. But it's not that subtle.

bigiain 16y ago

"I just don't see it swallowing up the whole Hotel industry." I've been out of the travel/hotel game for about 4 years now, but I worked in it on and off from ~'97 through to '07. It's an industry ripe for a new player to do a Paypal style end run around the traditional banking/creditcard industry. I don't know whether Airbnb are that player (I'm 100% sure pg and Fred are _much_ better judges of that then I am), but I'm also at least 99% sure that it _won't_ be any of the existing big players (Sabre, Gallileo, Pegasus, MyFideleo, Worldres were the large players I worked with) that revolutionise the hotel booking business.

betolive 16y ago
I definitely agree! the industry is stagnant and ready to be disrupted.
vessenes 16y ago
I'm going to Vancouver soon with my family; the first thing I did with my wife this week was pull up AirBNB (where is your ipad app, guys?) to check out what sort of deals we could get. I'm not saying I wouldn't check hotel deals, but reading honest reviews from people who really stayed in each room, and sometimes getting to half off a hotel works great for me. They are definitely moving into 'high on my list' for travel, personal and business. I'm guessing I'm not alone here.