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It's rather sad that even the author concluded that they would continue to use Airbnb in the future, and there are no real consequences for the company. The pro

It's rather sad that even the author concluded that they would continue to use Airbnb in the future, and there are no real consequences for the company. The profit from scammers as much as from legitimate users, so like Google (blogspam) or Amazon (fakes) or Etsy (drop shipping), they don't really care about them. I've limited my exposure to these companies over the last years. But this is a path with a lot of friction, and unlikely to be chosen by most users, so until politicians are pressured enough into doing something, I believe that the scammers will continue to prosper.

mjburgess 2y ago
Until a competitor comes along. Companies, do in the end, suffer. ChatGPT is little more than Google c. 2010
- fnordian_slip 2y ago
  You are correct, of course, but then the circle of enshittification[0] begins anew. The competitor starts out great, as Google did, with its clean front page without any bullshit. They defeat the incumbents, establish themselves, create a quasi-monopoly and begin extracting maximum value while coasting on their reputation. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the wheel of time [1], and it seems that this has carried over into our world. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time
- amelius 2y ago
  If Airbnb has a penalty of any kind for property owners to list on competitor websites, then it will be very difficult for competitors to enter the market.
  - hakanderyal 2y ago
    It's up to the relevant regulators of relevant countries to ensure that doesn't happen. This shouldn't be a barrier for entry.
    - amelius 2y ago
      The problem is that if you list on 2 websites at the same time, then these websites cannot guarantee availability anymore, unless there is some protocol to communicate this. E.g. what if someone books an apartment on website 1, and another person books the same apartment on website 2 at the same time.
      - kbos87 2y ago
        There is an ecosystem of third party tools that communicate calendar availability between platforms to help solve this problem
      - HenrikB 2y ago
        Seems like a technical problem that could be solved, if they want to
        amelius 2y ago
        Of course the incumbents (Airbnb) will forever try to stall the development and adoption of it.
      - hakanderyal 2y ago
        This is a somewhat solved problem by hotel reservation platforms. Responsibility to notify the platform about availability changes are on the property owners. They pay some fines or (some other form of cost) if they have to cancel a reservation due to clashes.
      - zo1 2y ago
        Usually hosters that do this are "professional" and have multiple listings or ways to mitigate it. One is tools that auto-update multiple platforms to keep them in-sync, leaving only small "timing" windows where there could be a double booking. Another is to simply phone the renter and offer another place (if they have multiples right next to eachother which is often the case), or give some sort of discount, etc. Essentially, it's a "solved" problem at this point and is on the level of being a commodity.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    1. They don't have any such penalty 2. They have competitors that are larger than them, Booking.com Booking.com is in every way better than AirBnB for guests and for honest hosts. This means that with time, AirBnB is going to get more and more scams, becoming the market for lemons.
    - redblacktree 2y ago
      I don't have first-hand experience, but I own a couple of short-term rentals, and the word on the street in the hosts community is that booking.com (BDC) is full of scammers and not worth the effort to integrate with.
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        This makes me wonder where you get your word from? Booking is well established since a very long time, if a host is problematic you'll see it in the reviews. If they're scams they get removed from booking. For clients there is no way for them to scam a host.
    - sottol 2y ago
      Booking.com does sometimes seem not to do a proper integration and just rely on emails or phone calls to confirm the bookings. I've used them multiple times around 10 years ago and the hotel would show me a printout of an email from them with my booking details afair. A friend of mine recently had to sleep in the car because booking never confirmed her reservation with the hotel and wouldn't accept her booking.com confirmation printout.
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        That depends entirely on the hotel. They can use one of the many booking systems that integrate with booking.com through XML or they can choose not to. If they choose not to, then they will have to manually sync availability and receive their bookings by e-mail. A nightmare, but their own fault for not running their business properly. > A friend of mine recently had to sleep in the car because booking never confirmed her reservation with the hotel and wouldn't accept her booking.com confirmation printout. I'm 100% sure this was the hotels fault.
b3lvedere 2y ago
As long as the customer is just 'very angry', but will continue to put money in the company, the company will gladly accept your money and will tell you it is 'very sorry'.

mjburgess 2y ago

Until a competitor comes along. Companies, do in the end, suffer. ChatGPT is little more than Google c. 2010

fnordian_slip 2y ago
You are correct, of course, but then the circle of enshittification[0] begins anew. The competitor starts out great, as Google did, with its clean front page without any bullshit. They defeat the incumbents, establish themselves, create a quasi-monopoly and begin extracting maximum value while coasting on their reputation. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the wheel of time [1], and it seems that this has carried over into our world. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time
amelius 2y ago
If Airbnb has a penalty of any kind for property owners to list on competitor websites, then it will be very difficult for competitors to enter the market.
- hakanderyal 2y ago
  It's up to the relevant regulators of relevant countries to ensure that doesn't happen. This shouldn't be a barrier for entry.
  - amelius 2y ago
    The problem is that if you list on 2 websites at the same time, then these websites cannot guarantee availability anymore, unless there is some protocol to communicate this. E.g. what if someone books an apartment on website 1, and another person books the same apartment on website 2 at the same time.
    - kbos87 2y ago
      There is an ecosystem of third party tools that communicate calendar availability between platforms to help solve this problem
    - HenrikB 2y ago
      Seems like a technical problem that could be solved, if they want to
      - amelius 2y ago
        Of course the incumbents (Airbnb) will forever try to stall the development and adoption of it.
    - hakanderyal 2y ago
      This is a somewhat solved problem by hotel reservation platforms. Responsibility to notify the platform about availability changes are on the property owners. They pay some fines or (some other form of cost) if they have to cancel a reservation due to clashes.
    - zo1 2y ago
      Usually hosters that do this are "professional" and have multiple listings or ways to mitigate it. One is tools that auto-update multiple platforms to keep them in-sync, leaving only small "timing" windows where there could be a double booking. Another is to simply phone the renter and offer another place (if they have multiples right next to eachother which is often the case), or give some sort of discount, etc. Essentially, it's a "solved" problem at this point and is on the level of being a commodity.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  1. They don't have any such penalty 2. They have competitors that are larger than them, Booking.com Booking.com is in every way better than AirBnB for guests and for honest hosts. This means that with time, AirBnB is going to get more and more scams, becoming the market for lemons.
  - redblacktree 2y ago
    I don't have first-hand experience, but I own a couple of short-term rentals, and the word on the street in the hosts community is that booking.com (BDC) is full of scammers and not worth the effort to integrate with.
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      This makes me wonder where you get your word from? Booking is well established since a very long time, if a host is problematic you'll see it in the reviews. If they're scams they get removed from booking. For clients there is no way for them to scam a host.
  - sottol 2y ago
    Booking.com does sometimes seem not to do a proper integration and just rely on emails or phone calls to confirm the bookings. I've used them multiple times around 10 years ago and the hotel would show me a printout of an email from them with my booking details afair. A friend of mine recently had to sleep in the car because booking never confirmed her reservation with the hotel and wouldn't accept her booking.com confirmation printout.
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      That depends entirely on the hotel. They can use one of the many booking systems that integrate with booking.com through XML or they can choose not to. If they choose not to, then they will have to manually sync availability and receive their bookings by e-mail. A nightmare, but their own fault for not running their business properly. > A friend of mine recently had to sleep in the car because booking never confirmed her reservation with the hotel and wouldn't accept her booking.com confirmation printout. I'm 100% sure this was the hotels fault.

b3lvedere 2y ago

As long as the customer is just 'very angry', but will continue to put money in the company, the company will gladly accept your money and will tell you it is 'very sorry'.