4 ms·

What's their moat?

• thebean11 6y ago
  The main one to me is network effect. Hosts will join the platform because there are renters there, renters will join because there are hosts.
  • heavenlyblue 6y ago
    You should also be a chef because people will never stop eating. This is a train that went away a long time ago. AirBNB is slowing down and becoming the yellow pages/TripAdvisor of the internet (that is very clear in terms of the commodification of the review process). It doesn’t mean they will fail, however you can’t just state they will grow forever.
    • thebean11 6y ago
      > You should also be a chef because people will never stop eating. Not sure how this has anything to do with the network effect point I brought up. I definitely never stated they will "grow forever", I said the network effects of their platform are a sort of moat. Do you have a source for AirBNB slowing down?
      • heavenlyblue 6y ago
        You brought up a very obvious point. Any marketplace will benefit from network effects. The devil is in the extent to which you can take advantage of these. And you made no points about that.
        • thebean11 6y ago
          Sure, my comment wasn't great. Was just surprised by the chef thing since it seemed like a non sequitur. Do you have the source about the slowdown? Really curious.
  • phatfish 6y ago
    As soon as a competitor comes along that is better for landlords, renters or has a good marketing campaign people will move. The network effect is not that of Facebook where you would have to convince all your friends and family to sign up and start using a new site/app. I suppose they could just buy the competitor like Facebook does, assuming another large corp is not behind it.
    • thebean11 6y ago
      Better how? Though, I agree the network effect here isn't as strong as for a social network.