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I assume they’re trying to fight against bots buying up “hot” Airbnbs that sell out quickly. It’s a weird captcha for sure, but understandable why they wouldn’t

I assume they’re trying to fight against bots buying up “hot” Airbnbs that sell out quickly. It’s a weird captcha for sure, but understandable why they wouldn’t want bots accessing the site.

jazzyjackson 5y ago
Wait, what does a robot do once it rents a house?
- cillian64 5y ago
  Dream of electric sheep?
- yreg 5y ago
  It sets up a workshop inside to build more robots.
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  Depends if its a member of the Church of Appliantology, let alone those miniature rubberized homo replicas.
- pjc50 5y ago
  Sublet it to a human. It's a market, so it's potentially susceptible to HFT and arbitrage bots like anything else.
- smcl 5y ago
  Sublet it? I mean it's possible that someone really dedicated writes a bot to reserve a room for themselves, but more likely it'd be done by someone who will list it somewhere else for an even higher fee.
  - aembleton 5y ago
    Airbnb could just raise their prices by 10% if they detect a bot; that would be a way to take a cut of someone doing that. It would be really subtle too, so they wouldn't know that they'd been detected.
- rocqua 5y ago
  Perhaps it takes 'pre-orderes'. You want a place to stay, inform the bot "give me anything good in this area when available", pay the bot extra money, and then the bot goes out and hits the good rooms in the area the moment they become available.
- throwaway2037 5y ago
  This sound like a great idea for Futurama (TV show) episode with Bender (the robot).
dannyw 5y ago
Does this actually happen??
- bartread 5y ago
  And why would they care if it did, if the robots are "buying" the properties, implying payment?
  - dollop43 5y ago
    That makes the impression that Airbnb is always out of service, and the other platform selling Airbnb rent is more available. It creates a competitor and worsen the service of Airbnb at the same time.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    implying payment, until the last second when the robot's operators decide they can only have one unit to live in. Or any other such scams
- londons_explore 5y ago
  It is a way to bankrupt competing Airbnb properties. Book them all up with hundreds of fake accounts with stolen credit cards. Nobody ends up staying in them, but it can bankrupt the Airbnb host pretty quickly if they have many properties on highly leveraged mortgages.
orlp 5y ago
If you have bots buying your merchandise as fast as possible you don't have a bot problem, you have a pricing problem.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  here we go
- rocqua 5y ago
  There can be good reasons to keep prices "below market value".
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    There’s nothing immoral about taking advantage of someone else’s marketing budget. If they feel like pricing below market that’s great. If you can resell their stuff for more great. If they don’t like it they can try to stop you. You can’t fix the real price of things far from market demand without the full force of the state behind you and that usually doesn’t work either.
nefitty 5y ago
They probably want to reduce scraping and definitely unauthorized account access. In addition, Airbnb has thousands of A/B tests running at all times. Scrapers may try to decode pricing algorithms, price fluctuations, etc. The traffic and interest to an offering also has an impact on its search ranking. There are also anon account crews that will make many fake accounts using sourced credentials from their social group or bought on darknets. Generally, those only result in things like pop-up events from which entry fees are collected. I assume some could use the same method to commit robbery. Another method is to use a botnet of fake accounts and use the bots to build up fake reputation, eg offer a fake listing, book the fake listing, leave good reviews, etc. There are also some weird currency arbitrage opportunities that might be found if someone was really inclined. From what I saw of that aspect, you'd have to be really looking for pennies in the couch seams. Source: Did major customer support work for Airbnb pre-ipo

jazzyjackson 5y ago

Wait, what does a robot do once it rents a house?

cillian64 5y ago
Dream of electric sheep?
yreg 5y ago
It sets up a workshop inside to build more robots.
birdyrooster 5y ago
Depends if its a member of the Church of Appliantology, let alone those miniature rubberized homo replicas.
pjc50 5y ago
Sublet it to a human. It's a market, so it's potentially susceptible to HFT and arbitrage bots like anything else.
smcl 5y ago
Sublet it? I mean it's possible that someone really dedicated writes a bot to reserve a room for themselves, but more likely it'd be done by someone who will list it somewhere else for an even higher fee.
- aembleton 5y ago
  Airbnb could just raise their prices by 10% if they detect a bot; that would be a way to take a cut of someone doing that. It would be really subtle too, so they wouldn't know that they'd been detected.
rocqua 5y ago
Perhaps it takes 'pre-orderes'. You want a place to stay, inform the bot "give me anything good in this area when available", pay the bot extra money, and then the bot goes out and hits the good rooms in the area the moment they become available.
throwaway2037 5y ago
This sound like a great idea for Futurama (TV show) episode with Bender (the robot).

dannyw 5y ago

Does this actually happen??

bartread 5y ago
And why would they care if it did, if the robots are "buying" the properties, implying payment?
- dollop43 5y ago
  That makes the impression that Airbnb is always out of service, and the other platform selling Airbnb rent is more available. It creates a competitor and worsen the service of Airbnb at the same time.
- fragmede 5y ago
  implying payment, until the last second when the robot's operators decide they can only have one unit to live in. Or any other such scams
londons_explore 5y ago
It is a way to bankrupt competing Airbnb properties. Book them all up with hundreds of fake accounts with stolen credit cards. Nobody ends up staying in them, but it can bankrupt the Airbnb host pretty quickly if they have many properties on highly leveraged mortgages.

orlp 5y ago

If you have bots buying your merchandise as fast as possible you don't have a bot problem, you have a pricing problem.

Brian_K_White 5y ago
here we go
rocqua 5y ago
There can be good reasons to keep prices "below market value".
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  There’s nothing immoral about taking advantage of someone else’s marketing budget. If they feel like pricing below market that’s great. If you can resell their stuff for more great. If they don’t like it they can try to stop you. You can’t fix the real price of things far from market demand without the full force of the state behind you and that usually doesn’t work either.

nefitty 5y ago

They probably want to reduce scraping and definitely unauthorized account access. In addition, Airbnb has thousands of A/B tests running at all times. Scrapers may try to decode pricing algorithms, price fluctuations, etc. The traffic and interest to an offering also has an impact on its search ranking. There are also anon account crews that will make many fake accounts using sourced credentials from their social group or bought on darknets. Generally, those only result in things like pop-up events from which entry fees are collected. I assume some could use the same method to commit robbery. Another method is to use a botnet of fake accounts and use the bots to build up fake reputation, eg offer a fake listing, book the fake listing, leave good reviews, etc. There are also some weird currency arbitrage opportunities that might be found if someone was really inclined. From what I saw of that aspect, you'd have to be really looking for pennies in the couch seams. Source: Did major customer support work for Airbnb pre-ipo