7 ms·

There has been somewhat of a stigma associated with it. I was the guy telling my friend in Illinois about it when we were planning a trip to LA with some other

by jmtame 13y ago

There has been somewhat of a stigma associated with it. I was the guy telling my friend in Illinois about it when we were planning a trip to LA with some other friends. I also told my parents when we were planning a vacation. Once you experience it, it's awesome and people will talk about it. You can find this pattern in other markets, like online dating. A lot of people were initially hesitant (and still are), so there are social forces at work. Once the lid comes off that, I think it'll blow up. I have the urge to box Airbnb into this "paid couch-surfing" category, but that's not really what they are. They positioned their company as something greater than that: all of the services that went along with their experience. Funny enough, the investors didn't buy it because they were tunnel visioned by how big it could be and whether it would scale at the seed stage. Those are the wrong questions to be asking at seed, and actually I don't think many founders could have pulled off starting Airbnb. The team clearly was the overriding factor in Airbnb working, followed by their excitement to be doing that startup. I liked the Subject: Airbnb "essay" which showed how true this was (http://paulgraham.com/airbnb.html http://paulgraham.com/airbnb.html).

dano414 13y ago
Some people are still turned off by online dating.
- jmtame 13y ago
  I'm not sure why this is downvoted. That stigma in dating is still alive and strong today, and Airbnb is still stigmatized for some of the younger people I know outside of Silicon Valley. Part of the article talks about trust, which is pretty important. Both couch-surfing and dating have lacked identity and trust, which makes it more comfortable. The last thing you want is for someone to axe murder you or spike your drink and not know who it was. If you get axe murdered, knowing who it was is your last concern, but at least it acts as an enormous deterrent. Identity is the reason places like Hacker News don't completely degrade to the rules of Crowd Psychology (well, most of the time). That friend in Illinois was very uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping in some random person's house, and I didn't realize how absurd it sounded until I was listening to myself explain it to him and his very uncertain reaction. The reputation/trust element removes that "randomness." So much so that I won't book with listings that don't have any reviews, and I tell my friends the same thing.
  - majormajor 13y ago
    That comment, while accurate, was almost literally just rephrasing something already in the comment it replied to[1], yet presented it as some kind of rebuttal. It doesn't look like the poster had really read what they were replying to. Personally, I think the "weird factor" around AirBNB will probably be harder to erode than the one around online dating. I think the existing hotel industry comes a lot closer to meeting a wide range of people's needs for accommodations than the standard informal "go out to a bar or meet people through mutual friends" thing does, and for someone like me, who travels fairly infrequently, I don't mind spending more once or twice a year to have that extra identity/trust from the known quantity of an actual hotel. [1]"A lot of people were initially hesitant (and still are)"
applecore 13y ago
The AirBnB founders are one of the hardest working teams I've ever seen. When you think of all the incredible feats they pulled off in the beginning, it's hard to conceive of another team managing it.
- joering2 13y ago
  Suure, and its not the first time either! http://gawker.com/5853754/the-seedy-spammy-past-of-airbnbs-co+founder http://gawker.com/5853754/the-seedy-spammy-past-of-airbnbs-c...
  - seiji 13y ago
    This is HN. Anything goes in the name of growing a startup! (including, but not limited to: rampant cross-site promotional spam, dead baby jokes, rambling on about how you overcame such adversity all the way from your $40,000/year private high school, follow-the-bouncing-ball upvote rings to promote insiders higher on the front page of Marketing To Nerds and Journalists Daily, and becoming an apologist for other people abusing/lying/cheating/stealing/manipulating things now that they are successful and you're afraid of them politically.)
- jes5199 13y ago
  I don't know about hard-working, but my impression after meeting the founders was that they were clueless stuffed-shirts who have no idea why their idea created a community of authentic enthusiasts - and they're desperately trying to cash out without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
  - pg 13y ago
    As someone who knows them well, I can tell you that you're so mistaken that it makes me wince. The Airbnbs are among the most earnest and dedicated founders we've funded.
    - pbsdp 13y ago
      Earnestly and dedicatedly inducing people to break their contractual obligations, fall afoul of local hotel regulations, and make life suck a little more for their neighbors. They're not nice people.
seiji 13y ago
Once you experience it, it's awesome and people will talk about it. Why is it so flatly awesome? My experience was: overpriced room (overpriced because the high airbnb fees get passed on to the person who stays), annoying extra "cleaning/deposit" fees that don't get refunded (and you're not notified that they didn't get refunded), and a quasi-too-personal system of booking where half the listings are by weirdos ("RENT A ROOM IN MAH CAMPER ON THE STREET!") you can't filter out or fake listings nobody responds to. It's squarely not in my "things that make me happy" column.
- jmtame 13y ago
  Were there hidden fees that you didn't see? I filter by price and feedback, so I know the hosts are legit. The cleaning fees are shown on the listing. They show you response rate, so you know if the hosts are active or not. You won't always receive a response, but that's why I never message people who have no reviews or a low response rate. They may just be trying it out casually ("window shoppers"). My experiences have been very positive when I've used it--which isn't that often, but when I do, I no longer even consider hotels.
  - seiji 13y ago
    Well, the fees do get paid whether they're listed externally or not. If the fees are $250, then the lister is just jacking up the listed price by $250. The cleaning fees had some wording like "if necessary" or "if damage is done," but it was never returned or communicated nothing would be returned. (Sidenote: There's also no recourse or discount for "weirdness." The lady whose second bedroom I rented had her non-english-speaking mother stay for two weeks (unannounced, unasked--suddenly there was just someone new living there) whose hobbies included power sanding furniture starting about two hours before daylight and taking up the entire kitchen for five hours a day.) The response rate things are okay, but there are still tons of people who cannot communicate effectively online (or even form coherent thoughts in person most days). It's a crapshoot. (Kinda like trying to sell things on craigslist -- you never realize how many weirdos are out there until you have something they want. "Yoooooo maaan... will you take some pot for tha xbox? we aint got no monay.")

by jmtame 13y ago

dano414 13y ago

Some people are still turned off by online dating.

jmtame 13y ago
I'm not sure why this is downvoted. That stigma in dating is still alive and strong today, and Airbnb is still stigmatized for some of the younger people I know outside of Silicon Valley. Part of the article talks about trust, which is pretty important. Both couch-surfing and dating have lacked identity and trust, which makes it more comfortable. The last thing you want is for someone to axe murder you or spike your drink and not know who it was. If you get axe murdered, knowing who it was is your last concern, but at least it acts as an enormous deterrent. Identity is the reason places like Hacker News don't completely degrade to the rules of Crowd Psychology (well, most of the time). That friend in Illinois was very uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping in some random person's house, and I didn't realize how absurd it sounded until I was listening to myself explain it to him and his very uncertain reaction. The reputation/trust element removes that "randomness." So much so that I won't book with listings that don't have any reviews, and I tell my friends the same thing.
- majormajor 13y ago
  That comment, while accurate, was almost literally just rephrasing something already in the comment it replied to[1], yet presented it as some kind of rebuttal. It doesn't look like the poster had really read what they were replying to. Personally, I think the "weird factor" around AirBNB will probably be harder to erode than the one around online dating. I think the existing hotel industry comes a lot closer to meeting a wide range of people's needs for accommodations than the standard informal "go out to a bar or meet people through mutual friends" thing does, and for someone like me, who travels fairly infrequently, I don't mind spending more once or twice a year to have that extra identity/trust from the known quantity of an actual hotel. [1]"A lot of people were initially hesitant (and still are)"

applecore 13y ago

The AirBnB founders are one of the hardest working teams I've ever seen. When you think of all the incredible feats they pulled off in the beginning, it's hard to conceive of another team managing it.

joering2 13y ago
Suure, and its not the first time either! http://gawker.com/5853754/the-seedy-spammy-past-of-airbnbs-co+founder http://gawker.com/5853754/the-seedy-spammy-past-of-airbnbs-c...
- seiji 13y ago
  This is HN. Anything goes in the name of growing a startup! (including, but not limited to: rampant cross-site promotional spam, dead baby jokes, rambling on about how you overcame such adversity all the way from your $40,000/year private high school, follow-the-bouncing-ball upvote rings to promote insiders higher on the front page of Marketing To Nerds and Journalists Daily, and becoming an apologist for other people abusing/lying/cheating/stealing/manipulating things now that they are successful and you're afraid of them politically.)
jes5199 13y ago
I don't know about hard-working, but my impression after meeting the founders was that they were clueless stuffed-shirts who have no idea why their idea created a community of authentic enthusiasts - and they're desperately trying to cash out without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
- pg 13y ago
  As someone who knows them well, I can tell you that you're so mistaken that it makes me wince. The Airbnbs are among the most earnest and dedicated founders we've funded.
  - pbsdp 13y ago
    Earnestly and dedicatedly inducing people to break their contractual obligations, fall afoul of local hotel regulations, and make life suck a little more for their neighbors. They're not nice people.

seiji 13y ago

Once you experience it, it's awesome and people will talk about it. Why is it so flatly awesome? My experience was: overpriced room (overpriced because the high airbnb fees get passed on to the person who stays), annoying extra "cleaning/deposit" fees that don't get refunded (and you're not notified that they didn't get refunded), and a quasi-too-personal system of booking where half the listings are by weirdos ("RENT A ROOM IN MAH CAMPER ON THE STREET!") you can't filter out or fake listings nobody responds to. It's squarely not in my "things that make me happy" column.

jmtame 13y ago
Were there hidden fees that you didn't see? I filter by price and feedback, so I know the hosts are legit. The cleaning fees are shown on the listing. They show you response rate, so you know if the hosts are active or not. You won't always receive a response, but that's why I never message people who have no reviews or a low response rate. They may just be trying it out casually ("window shoppers"). My experiences have been very positive when I've used it--which isn't that often, but when I do, I no longer even consider hotels.
- seiji 13y ago
  Well, the fees do get paid whether they're listed externally or not. If the fees are $250, then the lister is just jacking up the listed price by $250. The cleaning fees had some wording like "if necessary" or "if damage is done," but it was never returned or communicated nothing would be returned. (Sidenote: There's also no recourse or discount for "weirdness." The lady whose second bedroom I rented had her non-english-speaking mother stay for two weeks (unannounced, unasked--suddenly there was just someone new living there) whose hobbies included power sanding furniture starting about two hours before daylight and taking up the entire kitchen for five hours a day.) The response rate things are okay, but there are still tons of people who cannot communicate effectively online (or even form coherent thoughts in person most days). It's a crapshoot. (Kinda like trying to sell things on craigslist -- you never realize how many weirdos are out there until you have something they want. "Yoooooo maaan... will you take some pot for tha xbox? we aint got no monay.")