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This was really short sighted given Airbnb have claimed since the beginning to regulators, local authorities and the public that they exist only to provide a pl

This was really short sighted given Airbnb have claimed since the beginning to regulators, local authorities and the public that they exist only to provide a platform for people to rent out their spare rooms when it's convenient for them. Their core claim is that they are not a hotel company, which is how they manage to skirt so many hotel regulations. Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the properties offered on the platform can afford to keep them without renting then out full time, since it's supposed to be their primary home. In reality, Airbnb is a glorified hotel room broker but with added facilitation of discrimination, normalisation of the charging of extra fees such as for "cleaning" (how have hotels managed to get by since time immemorial without charging one!?), rating obfuscation and a huge negative impact on local rental prices with landlords assembling empires of dozens of Airbnb properties. The fact Airbnb were so tone deaf to all this, asking the public to offset the losses made by landlords in times like these is really incredible.

jliptzin 6y ago
Not disagreeing with you except about the cleaning fee. Hotels usually clean every room every day and have an on-site cleaning staff. The marginal cost to clean one room is pretty low, and it happens every day while you’re there, so it’s baked into the price. On Airbnb, typically your place is cleaned once after you leave whether you stayed one night or two weeks, and it’s more expensive than just cleaning a hotel room, so it’s a separate charge, as it should be.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  ...which is baked into their room rates? It’s predatory to advertise a lower rate and then inflate it after the fact with all kinds of tacked on fees. People (rightfully) go nuts at hotels that try to do this.
  - jliptzin 6y ago
    What is being inflated after the fact? When you book on Airbnb it shows you all the fees including cleaning fee before you book...
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      Go look at an Airbnb listing, it will be advertised at a lower, per night rate, but when you go to book, it can jump up as much as 50% with tacked on fees. Hotels don’t do this. I just went on the site and looked at an advertised $80 per night listing. On booking it became $137, with the $40 cleaning and $17 service fees. That’s a $137 room not an $80 one and I doubt it costs $40 to clean it.
      - solidasparagus 6y ago
        Hotels absolutely do this. Most egregiously in Las Vegas with 'resort fees', but try to book any hotel and you will get charged more than the advertised price due to 'taxes and fees'.
        claudeganon 6y ago
        I always just prepay through third party sites like Expedia and never have this issue. Sometimes the the advertised rate is for a smaller room than I need, but I’ve learned to check that and the difference is rarely on the order of Airbnb’s fee/price inflation.
        distances 6y ago
        This doesn't happen in Europe. I assume we have consumer protections against this the same way as with flight prices.
        solidasparagus 6y ago
        Maybe it only applies to users from Europe but when I try to book a hotel room in Europe right now it happens.
      - cultofmetatron 6y ago
        airbnb makes a lot more sense for long term stays. I'm a nomad and hop between cities and countries so I book for a minimum of two weeks with a norm of one to two months. The one time Cleaning fee is minimal compared to the total cost and I would not be able to afford my lifestyle if hotels were my only option.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    For condos rentals through realtors cleaning fees are often a norm - although they often have a baseline level of cleanliness where you don't have to pay a surcharge if it is to a certain standard such as all of the dishes either cleaned and put away or in the dishwasher cleaning while you check out and all trash cans emptied. That sort of thing is a legitimate reason for a separate fee. I guess pedantically it is "non-baked in unconditional cleaning fees" essentially.
  - foota 6y ago
    I personally would rather hotels separate a per cleaning fee and allow me to choose not to have it done every day.
    - zwily 6y ago
      Lucky for you, hotels don’t clean every day anymore because of covid. They didn’t drop prices though. In fact Marriott added a new covid cleaning fee! Some places will clean every 4 days, some won’t clean at all during your stay. I suspect this may be the new normal, even post-covid.
      - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
        The last hotel I stayed in did not clean during your stay, and also left the room vacant for 24 hours after checkout before they allowed the cleaning staff into the room. I don’t know if the regulations required that, but I was pretty happy for the cleaning staff that their health was being looked after.
    - Kaze404 6y ago
      What does that change for the hotel at the end of the day? Cleaning a room that's been dirty for a week is the same (if not more) effort than cleaning it every day, considering they can't just hire staff for one day of the week.
      - foota 6y ago
        I think there's two things missing here. One is that not everyone leaves on the same day, so cleaning would still be distributed throughout the week. Secondly. They could still require something like once every 3 days. My room is always spotless when I stay, I don't understand how cleaning it for most people would take much longer.
    - walls 6y ago
      I've stayed in a few hotels that gave drink coupons or other perks for skipping cleaning during your stay. I greatly prefer that as well.
  - sk5t 6y ago
    Although, many hotels have managed to wedge a mandatory “resort fee” into the final bill (and I’d like to see this nationally prohibited).
    - seanmcdirmid 6y ago
      Resort fees are annoying especially when someone else prepaid your hotel bill but you are still asked to pay extra on checkin, even when it provide no resort amenities and is obviously just a business hotel.
- bkor 6y ago
  > Not disagreeing with you except about the cleaning fee. Having different fees is fine. What is troublesome is that AirBNB doesn't immediately show the total price (including all surcharges). I think recently they finally were forced to do that in the EU (before that I used a browser addon). That the initial price includes all the additional surcharges has been mandatory for quite a while due to companies using this to trick customers (e.g. advertising 200 EUR for renting 1 week; practically you need to pay 700 EUR). Note that various companies still try to skirt that bit (surcharges only shown at a later stage). E.g. mandatory "booking fees" and so on.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - fredophile 6y ago
    Hotels are as bad about this or worse. At least the cleaning fee is only paid once for the booking. Lots of hotels now charge nightly resort or destination fees. There is no excuse for that not being part of the nightly rate.
zwirbl 6y ago
I fully agree with most criticisms, but fees for the final cleaning of the room (usually only once per 1 or 2 week stay) are oftentimes separate from the room (or apartment) price, but they have to be advertised
- MrPowers 6y ago
  When you searched Airbnb for prices they wouldn't include cleaning or additional services. For my first few years using Airbnb, this wasn't a problem, but then folks began hacking the search algorithm and charging huge cleaning fees to get included in more searches. You'd select a place for $500 and find it was $700 when checking out. I started going back to hotels cause they were cheaper than Airbnb.
  - dTal 6y ago
    This sounds like very much the same class of problem as "absurd shipping fees on eBay". When the fees are not actually guaranteed to go to the thing they purport to go into, but are just ways of moving money into line items the sorting algorithms don't see, I think it amounts to false advertising.
  - zwirbl 6y ago
    thank you for the clarification, I really thought it was normal business practice (which it can be), but this sounds much more like a scam
  - spaetzleesser 6y ago
    ”You'd select a place for $500 and find it was $700 when checking out” Noticed that too lately. It’s become pretty difficult to search for something by price because a lot of places almost double the price after cleaning fees.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
monkeynotes 6y ago
I have somewhat of a 'not in my backyard' opinion of Airbnb. I have admittedly used the service multiple times, but since I moved into a new house I've changed my view on the business model. Our neighbour Airbnbs multiple rooms in his house full time. He barely has parking for 3 cars, 2 cars if you don't want to be boxed in. However he rents out room for 6 people. He constantly has business moving through his house, occasionally his guests encroach on our driveway which is adjacent to his. The city has not been able to catch up with the modern world and has no policy or licensing for Airbnb style businesses. The pandemic has had zero impact on his ability to rent out rooms, it's always full. TLDNR: I wish I had a neighbour and not a business next to me in a residentially zoned street. /rant
- apexalpha 6y ago
  In my country the city is playing catchup on policy level. Currently you can only allow 30 days of AirBnB for a property. Over here the demand for AirBnB is pretty much non existant now, though. The Coronavirus lockdown has put an end to all travel and tourism for now. Many properties are now returning to normal, long term rental units.
- ericpauley 6y ago
  Have you looked into reporting a zoning violation? The operation may violate existing laws relating to rental permitting or commercial use.
  - monkeynotes 6y ago
    We've called the city and consulted with a friend who worked in planning. Basically they said they have no structure of vetting and dealing with Airbnb. I don't think it's even on their agenda.
    - skbly7 6y ago
      Have you tried talking to your neighbour about the issue or adding a small A4 print saying "No Parking"?
- 6y ago
PascLeRasc 6y ago
Does anyone know of an alternative to Airbnb that's somewhat more ethical/sustainable? I strongly dislike hotels and I've really enjoyed the home feeling of some Airbnbs I've stayed at. If there was some alternative that didn't promote the rental property culture that'd be great.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  You might try VRBO.
  - magnetic 6y ago
    What makes VRBO more ethical/sustainable than AirBNB?
    - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
      I don’t know that it is, but it is an alternative.
ramraj07 6y ago
> how have hotels managed to get by since time immemorial without charging one!? Because I suppose hotels have to actually clean their rooms well, so the housekeeping expense is probably a significant fraction of the daily charge. But Airbnbs definition of cleaning is at best changing the sheets (if you're lucky) and make sure that there are no streaks in the toilet. So they charge a pittance and get away with it.
earthboundkid 6y ago
It's a truly end-of-capitalism† move to shift the risk burden of property ownership from the center to the periphery. I guess McDonalds does this too with its franchises, but this is so much more pure: you own the property, you figure out all the property management work, and AirBnB takes the cut. McDonalds at least sends its franchises frozen hamburgers. AirBnB is just pure toll-bridge-as-a-service. † Not sure if capitalism will actually end any time soon, but stuff like this is what makes radicals try their best to end it.
- 2038AD 6y ago
  > Not sure if capitalism will actually end any time soon It can't because any change or evolution keeps the name. The only way to end it would be to revert back to a pre-capitalist economy that's not been retroactively deemed one (either by fans or detractors).
  - earthboundkid 6y ago
    Yes, people call China “capitalist” now, but I don’t think that’s a very good label for what they’re doing. It’s a bad label because the category is not well defined.
specialist 6y ago
Agree with all. "Airbnb is a glorified hotel room broker but with..." Still want phrasing which is more critical. Something along the lines of profiting from cheating.
iratewizard 6y ago
Hotel regulations are by and large rent-seeking behavior (irony?). For example, OTA's have created several rules that only exist to protect their profits. Hotels have to have the same price on all listing websites including their own, so it doesn't matter if one OTA charges 40% as their cut. You're not allowed to bake their overhead into your bottom line. Despite the wild-west nature of vacation rentals like this, people often prefer it over traditional hotels. Maybe it's the free market saying all this regulation meant to entrench the incumbents has hit its critical mass.
Redoubts 6y ago
Eh, hotels have "resort fees" now. Same scam.
dwild 6y ago
> Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the properties offered on the platform can afford to keep them without renting then out full time, since it's supposed to be their primary home. It's not because they are supposed to be able to afford it that you didn't assumed you would get that revenue. We do pet sitting, we don't need that revenue, in fact, we would nearly do it for the cost (food and cat litter) if the platform allowed it, simply because we like having pets, but can't afford the long-term responsibility of owning one right now (it's also incredibly rewarding to allow people to know their cats are well taken care of during their travel). For obvious reason, that revenue wen't down to nearly 0 during the pandemic. We don't need that cash, but it did change our plans quite a bit, because we expected that revenue. In our case it wasn't too bad, but I have no doubt it can be worst for others (I can easily see people that paid for renovations expecting to keep getting that revenue). That's also completely ignoring the fact that it's not only the loss of revenue from Airbnb that can be the issue. The pandemic had impact much greater than Airbnb. It's not because someone didn't even expected any revenue from Airbnb, that they aren't in need right now. You don't want to help someone? Don't, I'm not either right now, can't afford that, but that doesn't means there isn't people in needs and that you will never want to help them. Airbnb added that feature on their platform... that's all... > (how have hotels managed to get by since time immemorial without charging one!?) Hotel staff aren't paid? You pay the fee, it's just not itemized... Would it be better if it weren't itemized? The total cost is shown before clicking on any offer... it wouldn't change a thing to hide it better.
mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE 6y ago
Cleaning fee is actually a discount on longer stays. Hotels offer such discounts too.

jliptzin 6y ago

Not disagreeing with you except about the cleaning fee. Hotels usually clean every room every day and have an on-site cleaning staff. The marginal cost to clean one room is pretty low, and it happens every day while you’re there, so it’s baked into the price. On Airbnb, typically your place is cleaned once after you leave whether you stayed one night or two weeks, and it’s more expensive than just cleaning a hotel room, so it’s a separate charge, as it should be.

claudeganon 6y ago
...which is baked into their room rates? It’s predatory to advertise a lower rate and then inflate it after the fact with all kinds of tacked on fees. People (rightfully) go nuts at hotels that try to do this.
- jliptzin 6y ago
  What is being inflated after the fact? When you book on Airbnb it shows you all the fees including cleaning fee before you book...
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    Go look at an Airbnb listing, it will be advertised at a lower, per night rate, but when you go to book, it can jump up as much as 50% with tacked on fees. Hotels don’t do this. I just went on the site and looked at an advertised $80 per night listing. On booking it became $137, with the $40 cleaning and $17 service fees. That’s a $137 room not an $80 one and I doubt it costs $40 to clean it.
    - solidasparagus 6y ago
      Hotels absolutely do this. Most egregiously in Las Vegas with 'resort fees', but try to book any hotel and you will get charged more than the advertised price due to 'taxes and fees'.
      - claudeganon 6y ago
        I always just prepay through third party sites like Expedia and never have this issue. Sometimes the the advertised rate is for a smaller room than I need, but I’ve learned to check that and the difference is rarely on the order of Airbnb’s fee/price inflation.
      - distances 6y ago
        This doesn't happen in Europe. I assume we have consumer protections against this the same way as with flight prices.
        solidasparagus 6y ago
        Maybe it only applies to users from Europe but when I try to book a hotel room in Europe right now it happens.
    - cultofmetatron 6y ago
      airbnb makes a lot more sense for long term stays. I'm a nomad and hop between cities and countries so I book for a minimum of two weeks with a norm of one to two months. The one time Cleaning fee is minimal compared to the total cost and I would not be able to afford my lifestyle if hotels were my only option.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  For condos rentals through realtors cleaning fees are often a norm - although they often have a baseline level of cleanliness where you don't have to pay a surcharge if it is to a certain standard such as all of the dishes either cleaned and put away or in the dishwasher cleaning while you check out and all trash cans emptied. That sort of thing is a legitimate reason for a separate fee. I guess pedantically it is "non-baked in unconditional cleaning fees" essentially.
- foota 6y ago
  I personally would rather hotels separate a per cleaning fee and allow me to choose not to have it done every day.
  - zwily 6y ago
    Lucky for you, hotels don’t clean every day anymore because of covid. They didn’t drop prices though. In fact Marriott added a new covid cleaning fee! Some places will clean every 4 days, some won’t clean at all during your stay. I suspect this may be the new normal, even post-covid.
    - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
      The last hotel I stayed in did not clean during your stay, and also left the room vacant for 24 hours after checkout before they allowed the cleaning staff into the room. I don’t know if the regulations required that, but I was pretty happy for the cleaning staff that their health was being looked after.
  - Kaze404 6y ago
    What does that change for the hotel at the end of the day? Cleaning a room that's been dirty for a week is the same (if not more) effort than cleaning it every day, considering they can't just hire staff for one day of the week.
    - foota 6y ago
      I think there's two things missing here. One is that not everyone leaves on the same day, so cleaning would still be distributed throughout the week. Secondly. They could still require something like once every 3 days. My room is always spotless when I stay, I don't understand how cleaning it for most people would take much longer.
  - walls 6y ago
    I've stayed in a few hotels that gave drink coupons or other perks for skipping cleaning during your stay. I greatly prefer that as well.
- sk5t 6y ago
  Although, many hotels have managed to wedge a mandatory “resort fee” into the final bill (and I’d like to see this nationally prohibited).
  - seanmcdirmid 6y ago
    Resort fees are annoying especially when someone else prepaid your hotel bill but you are still asked to pay extra on checkin, even when it provide no resort amenities and is obviously just a business hotel.
bkor 6y ago
> Not disagreeing with you except about the cleaning fee. Having different fees is fine. What is troublesome is that AirBNB doesn't immediately show the total price (including all surcharges). I think recently they finally were forced to do that in the EU (before that I used a browser addon). That the initial price includes all the additional surcharges has been mandatory for quite a while due to companies using this to trick customers (e.g. advertising 200 EUR for renting 1 week; practically you need to pay 700 EUR). Note that various companies still try to skirt that bit (surcharges only shown at a later stage). E.g. mandatory "booking fees" and so on.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- fredophile 6y ago
  Hotels are as bad about this or worse. At least the cleaning fee is only paid once for the booking. Lots of hotels now charge nightly resort or destination fees. There is no excuse for that not being part of the nightly rate.

zwirbl 6y ago

I fully agree with most criticisms, but fees for the final cleaning of the room (usually only once per 1 or 2 week stay) are oftentimes separate from the room (or apartment) price, but they have to be advertised

MrPowers 6y ago
When you searched Airbnb for prices they wouldn't include cleaning or additional services. For my first few years using Airbnb, this wasn't a problem, but then folks began hacking the search algorithm and charging huge cleaning fees to get included in more searches. You'd select a place for $500 and find it was $700 when checking out. I started going back to hotels cause they were cheaper than Airbnb.
- dTal 6y ago
  This sounds like very much the same class of problem as "absurd shipping fees on eBay". When the fees are not actually guaranteed to go to the thing they purport to go into, but are just ways of moving money into line items the sorting algorithms don't see, I think it amounts to false advertising.
- zwirbl 6y ago
  thank you for the clarification, I really thought it was normal business practice (which it can be), but this sounds much more like a scam
- spaetzleesser 6y ago
  ”You'd select a place for $500 and find it was $700 when checking out” Noticed that too lately. It’s become pretty difficult to search for something by price because a lot of places almost double the price after cleaning fees.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

monkeynotes 6y ago

I have somewhat of a 'not in my backyard' opinion of Airbnb. I have admittedly used the service multiple times, but since I moved into a new house I've changed my view on the business model. Our neighbour Airbnbs multiple rooms in his house full time. He barely has parking for 3 cars, 2 cars if you don't want to be boxed in. However he rents out room for 6 people. He constantly has business moving through his house, occasionally his guests encroach on our driveway which is adjacent to his. The city has not been able to catch up with the modern world and has no policy or licensing for Airbnb style businesses. The pandemic has had zero impact on his ability to rent out rooms, it's always full. TLDNR: I wish I had a neighbour and not a business next to me in a residentially zoned street. /rant

apexalpha 6y ago
In my country the city is playing catchup on policy level. Currently you can only allow 30 days of AirBnB for a property. Over here the demand for AirBnB is pretty much non existant now, though. The Coronavirus lockdown has put an end to all travel and tourism for now. Many properties are now returning to normal, long term rental units.
ericpauley 6y ago
Have you looked into reporting a zoning violation? The operation may violate existing laws relating to rental permitting or commercial use.
- monkeynotes 6y ago
  We've called the city and consulted with a friend who worked in planning. Basically they said they have no structure of vetting and dealing with Airbnb. I don't think it's even on their agenda.
  - skbly7 6y ago
    Have you tried talking to your neighbour about the issue or adding a small A4 print saying "No Parking"?
6y ago

PascLeRasc 6y ago

Does anyone know of an alternative to Airbnb that's somewhat more ethical/sustainable? I strongly dislike hotels and I've really enjoyed the home feeling of some Airbnbs I've stayed at. If there was some alternative that didn't promote the rental property culture that'd be great.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago
You might try VRBO.
- magnetic 6y ago
  What makes VRBO more ethical/sustainable than AirBNB?
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    I don’t know that it is, but it is an alternative.

ramraj07 6y ago

> how have hotels managed to get by since time immemorial without charging one!? Because I suppose hotels have to actually clean their rooms well, so the housekeeping expense is probably a significant fraction of the daily charge. But Airbnbs definition of cleaning is at best changing the sheets (if you're lucky) and make sure that there are no streaks in the toilet. So they charge a pittance and get away with it.

earthboundkid 6y ago

It's a truly end-of-capitalism† move to shift the risk burden of property ownership from the center to the periphery. I guess McDonalds does this too with its franchises, but this is so much more pure: you own the property, you figure out all the property management work, and AirBnB takes the cut. McDonalds at least sends its franchises frozen hamburgers. AirBnB is just pure toll-bridge-as-a-service. † Not sure if capitalism will actually end any time soon, but stuff like this is what makes radicals try their best to end it.

2038AD 6y ago
> Not sure if capitalism will actually end any time soon It can't because any change or evolution keeps the name. The only way to end it would be to revert back to a pre-capitalist economy that's not been retroactively deemed one (either by fans or detractors).
- earthboundkid 6y ago
  Yes, people call China “capitalist” now, but I don’t think that’s a very good label for what they’re doing. It’s a bad label because the category is not well defined.

specialist 6y ago

Agree with all. "Airbnb is a glorified hotel room broker but with..." Still want phrasing which is more critical. Something along the lines of profiting from cheating.

iratewizard 6y ago

Hotel regulations are by and large rent-seeking behavior (irony?). For example, OTA's have created several rules that only exist to protect their profits. Hotels have to have the same price on all listing websites including their own, so it doesn't matter if one OTA charges 40% as their cut. You're not allowed to bake their overhead into your bottom line. Despite the wild-west nature of vacation rentals like this, people often prefer it over traditional hotels. Maybe it's the free market saying all this regulation meant to entrench the incumbents has hit its critical mass.

Redoubts 6y ago

Eh, hotels have "resort fees" now. Same scam.

dwild 6y ago

> Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the properties offered on the platform can afford to keep them without renting then out full time, since it's supposed to be their primary home. It's not because they are supposed to be able to afford it that you didn't assumed you would get that revenue. We do pet sitting, we don't need that revenue, in fact, we would nearly do it for the cost (food and cat litter) if the platform allowed it, simply because we like having pets, but can't afford the long-term responsibility of owning one right now (it's also incredibly rewarding to allow people to know their cats are well taken care of during their travel). For obvious reason, that revenue wen't down to nearly 0 during the pandemic. We don't need that cash, but it did change our plans quite a bit, because we expected that revenue. In our case it wasn't too bad, but I have no doubt it can be worst for others (I can easily see people that paid for renovations expecting to keep getting that revenue). That's also completely ignoring the fact that it's not only the loss of revenue from Airbnb that can be the issue. The pandemic had impact much greater than Airbnb. It's not because someone didn't even expected any revenue from Airbnb, that they aren't in need right now. You don't want to help someone? Don't, I'm not either right now, can't afford that, but that doesn't means there isn't people in needs and that you will never want to help them. Airbnb added that feature on their platform... that's all... > (how have hotels managed to get by since time immemorial without charging one!?) Hotel staff aren't paid? You pay the fee, it's just not itemized... Would it be better if it weren't itemized? The total cost is shown before clicking on any offer... it wouldn't change a thing to hide it better.

mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE 6y ago

Cleaning fee is actually a discount on longer stays. Hotels offer such discounts too.