> Aside from first mover advantage, what is stopping copycats from moving in and starting a price war with Airbnb? First mover advantage is only part of the st

> Aside from first mover advantage, what is stopping copycats from moving in and starting a price war with Airbnb? First mover advantage is only part of the story. The network effect is already pretty powerful and only gets stronger. AirBNB has done all the work to polish the experience, and hosts are making money using the site. That's very sticky. On top of that, as a guest, you now know that there's nowhere you can go to get a bigger selection (which co-incidentally, gets bigger everyday) of reputable hosts. Same is true for hosts, with the added benefit that guests are insured. > just like the Groupon copycats, it'll be worth it for copycats to "buy" users to gain market share. Whatever the copycats can pay, AirBnB can pay more, and even then, the hosts have no incentive to switch from AirBnB to something else. They might list elsewhere, but as long as more guests are coming through AirBnB, they wont cancel their AirBnB accounts. Fundamentally - AirBnB enabled people to monetize something that lay fallow before. The thing that makes people switch wont be a lower transaction cost; it will be a greater chance of booking (and thus revenues).