4 ms·

> The hotel must be trusted to actually provide the room, so why not trust the hotel to also store the booking information? Because the hotel then has to swap

> The hotel must be trusted to actually provide the room, so why not trust the hotel to also store the booking information? Because the hotel then has to swap the reservation whenever it's traded. Let's say I want to book a hotel in the future for downtown Chicago Cubs making it to the World Series. As the season progresses it's a future whose value goes up and down depending on how they are playing. If the hotel is in the loop they could play shenanigans and charge you a fee every time you reschedule. The idea of the blockchain is that it's out of their hands. The owner of the room at the time of the booking shows up with the private key, and swaps it for the room key. If you involve the hotel enshittification will ensue to make sure they grind out every last cent. Also, being on a blockchain allows for trades such as swapping rooms across chains, trading rooms for cars, etc. The blockchain unifies ownership and rights as tradeable like money did for barter. There is a common unifying method of exchange.

automatic6131 3y ago
You're literally suggesting turning hotel stays into speculative financial assets. This is, fundamentally, a really dumb idea. Whilst hotels do price sometimes unfairly, your suggestion where a selection of speculative traders engage in (at best) zero sum - and it doesn't even benefit the hotel providing the service. Just faceless traders.
- Pet_Ant 3y ago
  > it doesn't even benefit the hotel providing the service. It does. Unused bookings are pure profit for them. It also means that they get the cash now. It means they don't have the uncertainties of unusually low or high demand so it smoothes out their finances. * To be clear, for this to make any sense, the booking has to be prepaid, or at least a significant portion of it. Maybe just minus a room cleaning fee etc that is due on check-in.
  - xnorswap 3y ago
    > Unused bookings are pure profit for them They want to be fully booked, because not only does it avoid the appearance and vibe of being a "ghost town", they also make a lot of money on things like the hotel bar, minibars, laundry services, etc. If a room stays un-used, the marginal cost to the hotel does not actually decrease much, especially not in the short term. They still pay the same to their laundry contract, they still pay the same rent, they still pay for the front of house staff and the chefs to be there, and they still pay to heat / AC most of the hotel. They might save very marginally on some room AC not being on as much, and eventually if the reduced bookings was noticeable might negotiate a smaller laundry contract, reduce head count, but at that point you just look like a failing hotel. I'm confident if you looked at the accounts, it's more profitable for a guest to turn up than not, even if the guest still paid for the booking.
jkubicek 3y ago
IMHO, this is a perfect little example of why so much blockchain/crypto/NFT stuff is silly. a) Everything you mentioned here can already be done with just a database. Trading a hotel room, rescheduling, swapping across chains, etc. b) The hotel has no incentive to allow any of this
dudeinhawaii 3y ago
If the hotel ultimately owns the room then I'm pretty sure they would simply have software to look at exchanges on the chain and could charge you if you've swapped it. They could also simply not honor your booking. I think this is the point regarding "the real world" vs the idea of "digital ownership". You can have a token that says you get to stay a week in a given room and I (as the hotel) can say "no, this token is no longer valid within our system and the room has been rebooked". Crypto/blockchain can't enforce anything in the real world. The hotel though, backed by real-world laws, can say "there is an additional fee for swapping the reservation and you're outside of the refund period.". If you attempt to stay, you'll be arrested. So you see there's no actual power behind a digital representation of ownership unless governments (which crypto doesn't want involved) grant them.
- jkubicek 3y ago
  > Crypto/blockchain can't enforce anything in the real world. Exactly! At some point a real person has to choose to honor your hotel room NFT or not, just as easily as they could choose to honor your driver's license or not. There's no advantage to mucking up the entire system with crypto and blockchain.

automatic6131 3y ago

You're literally suggesting turning hotel stays into speculative financial assets. This is, fundamentally, a really dumb idea. Whilst hotels do price sometimes unfairly, your suggestion where a selection of speculative traders engage in (at best) zero sum - and it doesn't even benefit the hotel providing the service. Just faceless traders.

Pet_Ant 3y ago
> it doesn't even benefit the hotel providing the service. It does. Unused bookings are pure profit for them. It also means that they get the cash now. It means they don't have the uncertainties of unusually low or high demand so it smoothes out their finances. * To be clear, for this to make any sense, the booking has to be prepaid, or at least a significant portion of it. Maybe just minus a room cleaning fee etc that is due on check-in.
- xnorswap 3y ago
  > Unused bookings are pure profit for them They want to be fully booked, because not only does it avoid the appearance and vibe of being a "ghost town", they also make a lot of money on things like the hotel bar, minibars, laundry services, etc. If a room stays un-used, the marginal cost to the hotel does not actually decrease much, especially not in the short term. They still pay the same to their laundry contract, they still pay the same rent, they still pay for the front of house staff and the chefs to be there, and they still pay to heat / AC most of the hotel. They might save very marginally on some room AC not being on as much, and eventually if the reduced bookings was noticeable might negotiate a smaller laundry contract, reduce head count, but at that point you just look like a failing hotel. I'm confident if you looked at the accounts, it's more profitable for a guest to turn up than not, even if the guest still paid for the booking.

jkubicek 3y ago

IMHO, this is a perfect little example of why so much blockchain/crypto/NFT stuff is silly. a) Everything you mentioned here can already be done with just a database. Trading a hotel room, rescheduling, swapping across chains, etc. b) The hotel has no incentive to allow any of this

dudeinhawaii 3y ago

If the hotel ultimately owns the room then I'm pretty sure they would simply have software to look at exchanges on the chain and could charge you if you've swapped it. They could also simply not honor your booking. I think this is the point regarding "the real world" vs the idea of "digital ownership". You can have a token that says you get to stay a week in a given room and I (as the hotel) can say "no, this token is no longer valid within our system and the room has been rebooked". Crypto/blockchain can't enforce anything in the real world. The hotel though, backed by real-world laws, can say "there is an additional fee for swapping the reservation and you're outside of the refund period.". If you attempt to stay, you'll be arrested. So you see there's no actual power behind a digital representation of ownership unless governments (which crypto doesn't want involved) grant them.

jkubicek 3y ago
> Crypto/blockchain can't enforce anything in the real world. Exactly! At some point a real person has to choose to honor your hotel room NFT or not, just as easily as they could choose to honor your driver's license or not. There's no advantage to mucking up the entire system with crypto and blockchain.