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Sadly I have encountered this on multiple different kinds of European tech platforms. There is some deep cultural disconnect on understanding how/why American t
by pclowes 1y ago
Sadly I have encountered this on multiple different kinds of European tech platforms. There is some deep cultural disconnect on understanding how/why American tech companies are successful.
Most often they seem to ape most of major US tech platforms functionality but critically somehow miss the "make something people want" and instead make something that:
- Sort of works? Has all the major screens but the whole experience just feels off and not well thought out.
- Is basically a way for locals to prey on tourists. Or is easily abused to scam etc.
Bluntly that is not a viable business model. Additionally tourism as a whole will not build a durable and innovative economy.
There is this distinct disinterest in serving the customer. Making the experience delightful, frictionless, feeling good is oddly foreign. I basically gave up trying to use local things unless I have to because when things go poorly customer support is basically non-existent.
I know Uber, AirBnb etc for better or worse. I don't want to deal with whatever surprising edge case or unexpectedly subpar experience is normed on the local platforms.
- twiss 1y agoIt's interesting to claim that tourism in Europe won't be "durable" at a moment when tourism in the US is sharply declining.. Anyway, Booking.com is a European company and has many more customers than AirBnB.
- legitster 1y agoApples and Oranges. Booking.com is an aggregator. Also, Booking.com is unbelievably exploitative and rife with dark patterns.
- teekert 1y agoBut great for its _users_, so just like the US companies then.
- TremendousJudge 1y ago> Also, Booking.com is unbelievably exploitative and rife with dark patterns. So it seems that Europeans have no issue doing the same thing as American tech companies?
- twiss 1y agoHow so? At least Booking.com shows me the total price for an accommodation up front, without any additional fees or surprises coming up later in the booking process. The same cannot be said for AirBnB: if I go to the home page right now it lists a bunch of bookings for e.g. "€ 80 for 2 nights", while when I click through the total price is €160. So apparently what they meant is "€80 per night". I'd call that much more of a dark pattern than anything I've seen Booking do.
- legitster 1y agoBookings.com runs some incredibly evil tactics. Generally they take about 20% of the booking fees. But they will do things like delist you if you have lower prices anywhere else, and then undercut your prices on their website. My parents ran a small motel - the only hotel for miles around. But on top of the fees, if they weren't paying for additional promotions Booking would find unrelated distant hotels even when searching in the area. People would sometimes mistakenly book for a motel states away.
- twiss 1y agoFair enough, I'm willing to believe it's doing evil things to hosts on the platform, indeed. But FWIW, the EU is at least making an effort to regulate the company: https://nltimes.nl/2024/09/19/eu-court-says-bookingcom-wrong-put-price-limitations-hotels https://nltimes.nl/2024/09/19/eu-court-says-bookingcom-wrong... (which claims that Booking can no longer prevent hosts in the EU from offering lower prices elsewhere).
- pclowes 1y agoI don't understand what you are trying to claim. 1. Booking.com is owned by Booking Holdings which is an American parent company. 2. US GDP growth has been massively outperforming the EU since 2008. I am saying tourism is not something governments should want to heavily optimize an economy for. No amount of taking money from people on vacation will translate into building a more competitive or innovative economy.
- twiss 1y agoApparently Priceline.com Inc. took over Booking.com (founded in the Netherlands) for € 110 million, and then changed its name to Booking Holdings to reflect the fact that Booking.com was much bigger than Priceline.com. Indeed a great example of "American innovation" :)
- TMWNN 1y ago> It's interesting to claim that tourism in Europe won't be "durable" at a moment when tourism in the US is sharply declining.. Sorry to shatter your illusions, but for April 2025 (most recent month with final data) <https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.trade.gov%2F%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2F2025-07%2FFINAL_SummaryAnalysis_COR_April_2025.xlsx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2...>, Canadian visits are down 20% yoy but overall worldwide visits to US are up 1.3% yoy, including 17% yoy rise in Mexican visitors. Full data <https://www.trade.gov/i-94-arrivals-program https://www.trade.gov/i-94-arrivals-program>
- socalgal2 1y agoI know this is an anecdote but I was curious if Europeans can tell me if this is a one-off experience or if there is something more to do this. I was booked to catch a DBS train from Brussels to Berlin at 9:45 am. I get to the station at 9:25 looking for the train, can't find it. I go to the counter and get told the train came early at 9:15 then "Not my fault" (the first words out of the DBS attendant's mouth"). I got this same thing from a Swiss Air attendant when something happened. Nearly the first words were "Not My Fault" I'm not sure I've ever heard that from a customer service rep in the USA and it was shocking to hear those words as the first like conditioned/scripted words from these reps. I only brought it up because of it seemed to fit the previous comment of poor customer service.
- stickfigure 1y agoWat? Trains departing early? How does that happen? Seems easy to fix, you just need a clock...
- Gud 1y agoSounds completely made up to me. I travel a lot by train and I can’t remember once this has happened.
- ghaff 1y agoI actually have with Eurostar. They changed the schedule and then it was kind of a mess to rebook with lots of finger pointing. (They had sent an email but it didn't land in my primary Gmail tag and I never saw it.)