3 ms·

> "The key is to find places that have lots of reviews and read them." I've done this, I'm rather risk-averse with it comes to AirBnbs, and I've still run into

> "The key is to find places that have lots of reviews and read them." I've done this, I'm rather risk-averse with it comes to AirBnbs, and I've still run into bad places. I've had two bad experiences in this regard: - One was a nice apartment, but I found out the landlord (the word "host" is both disingenuous and inaccurate for AirBnb and I despise the attempt at newspeak) lived full time in the room I was renting. She was old and clearly needed the supplemental income, and I displaced her onto the couch. This was not made at all clear beforehand, and her place had many positive reviews. I did not sign up to displace an elderly person from her own bed, nor did I sign up to deny someone their only source of badly needed income. I suspect a lot of the positive reviews came from this. There was nothing otherwise wrong with the apartment. - In the other one the bedroom was nice, at a good location, but the landlord had a dog that pissed and shat all over the common areas. Her place also had no shortage of good reviews (over a dozen at the time IIRC). In this case also it was clear she needed the supplemental income, and she was so damn apologetic about it and spent so much time trying to clean up after the dog that it was hard to write a negative review. I suspect, again, that this is why the place was so positively rated. AirBnb's system is far from foolproof. In both cases I abstained from reviewing the places - a move I'm still unsure about. One thing I am sure about is that I resent being put in a position where I have such profound influence on someone's (badly needed) livelihood.

NathanKP 13y ago
I guess the issue then is that its hard to balance trying to be nice to the person and being honest in your review. Personally I don't have a problem calling out issues in my reviews because I feel like I owe it to future people who want to find a place on Airbnb to leave accurate reviews. But yeah I agree that its not easy to leave a bad review sometimes. Usually there is a way you can word it that isn't mean or bad, but which lets future potential guests know what to expect.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  > "Usually there is a way you can word it that isn't mean or bad, but which lets future potential guests know what to expect." Sure, and I did actually go back afterwards to see if I was just too thick to read between the lines. Couldn't find anything definitive, maybe some oblique hints. Either way though, judiciously worded faux-reviews seem like they make the problem worse, not better. It forces the system into a state where only the power users know WTF is actually going on, and for everyone else the information is pure noise. You spend less time reading what's on the page and more time reading what isn't. Funnily enough, this reminds me of the rental market in NYC, where it's all between-the-lines parsing and the system has invented a whole 'nother vocabulary to avoid saying what's what (see: "flex" 2-bedrooms). This is one of the fundamental problems. I have no compunctions about leaving a hotel a bad review, because I know that they can afford it in the short run, and that as a stimulus mechanism for them to correct themselves, it's likely to work. In this case though, I don't think these landlords could afford a bad review, and they are not in a position where a bad review is a correcting mechanism - it's more likely to sink them entirely instead.
  - NathanKP 13y ago
    I guess in a traditional hotel you don't care about the hotel owner and you are one of numerous faceless people passing through on a daily basis so leaving bad reviews is easy. In the Airbnb system not only have you met the host face to face and in some cases spent some time with them, and what's more it really isn't even possible to leave an anonymous review because the host can pretty easily tell who left the review based on the timing of its appearance. The thing is Airbnb originates from the couch surfing and hostel ecosystem which has considerably less controls and reviews but also a guest base who in general are willing to put up with less than savory conditions. Airbnb kind of tames that wild west of couch surfing by providing a review system and a more legitimate system of paying and getting paid. But it doesn't reach the full legitimacy of a corporate hotel. Some of my friends ask me whether or not they should try Airbnb, and based on their personalities I will sometimes tell them no, because I know some of my friends just can't deal with it and need a real hotel. Others are more adventurous and I'll tell them to go for it. For that subset of people who would be willing to try couch surfing on staying in a hostel Airbnb is like a luxury service and has all the key benefits of meeting interesting people and living like a local when traveling. But for people who wouldn't dare try couch surfing and find hostels unsavory then Airbnb is kind of on the edge. They might like it because it is a step above couch surfing and hostels, but most of the time they won't like Airbnb either.
    - potatolicious 13y ago
      I disagree. Don't take me as a "hurrr corporations" person, I am not - hotels, even chain hotels, are at the end of the day run by real people. Your local Best Western is likely run by a family, not suited, faceless corporate officers. The difference between reviewing them and reviewing an AirBnb isn't how faceless they are, it's how much they can afford it, and how much they can actually use the review as an impetus to improve. That review does no good if it simply means the business folds. > "The thing is Airbnb originates from the couch surfing and hostel ecosystem" Ehhhh... I'm not sure if I buy that line of argument. Couchsurfing.org originates from the couch surfing and hostel ecosystems, where the focus is on experience with the host/guests instead of a plainly quid pro quo exchange. AirBnb has no real focus on this experiential exchange and instead has always been very firmly in the "make money on your place" camp. AirBnb likes to portray themselves as being related to the populist communities of couch surfing and hostels, but I don't see any evidence that they were ever in that space. They certainly aren't now. I was initially an ardent supporter of AirBnb, but their persistently dishonest PR positioning has really turned me off lately; that includes their persistent and annoying efforts at positioning themselves as some sort of populist revolution. When's the last time AirBnb ever marketed themselves as "find a place, meet cool hosts, go adventuring with your hosts/fellow guests"? Because that's a fundamentally core part of the hosteling and couch surfing ethos. AFAIK this has never been an AirBnb angle. In fact, if you look at the featured properties (curated by AirBnb themselves) you will see a dramatic dominance in luxury properties, not cute little bungalows where you're likely to hang out with a cool host. The descriptions are also always strictly about the property, not the host, and the photographs are also strictly of the property, not the host. The host is a small-print detail in the AirBnb model, which makes it almost entirely antithetical to hosteling or couch surfing.

NathanKP 13y ago

I guess the issue then is that its hard to balance trying to be nice to the person and being honest in your review. Personally I don't have a problem calling out issues in my reviews because I feel like I owe it to future people who want to find a place on Airbnb to leave accurate reviews. But yeah I agree that its not easy to leave a bad review sometimes. Usually there is a way you can word it that isn't mean or bad, but which lets future potential guests know what to expect.

potatolicious 13y ago
> "Usually there is a way you can word it that isn't mean or bad, but which lets future potential guests know what to expect." Sure, and I did actually go back afterwards to see if I was just too thick to read between the lines. Couldn't find anything definitive, maybe some oblique hints. Either way though, judiciously worded faux-reviews seem like they make the problem worse, not better. It forces the system into a state where only the power users know WTF is actually going on, and for everyone else the information is pure noise. You spend less time reading what's on the page and more time reading what isn't. Funnily enough, this reminds me of the rental market in NYC, where it's all between-the-lines parsing and the system has invented a whole 'nother vocabulary to avoid saying what's what (see: "flex" 2-bedrooms). This is one of the fundamental problems. I have no compunctions about leaving a hotel a bad review, because I know that they can afford it in the short run, and that as a stimulus mechanism for them to correct themselves, it's likely to work. In this case though, I don't think these landlords could afford a bad review, and they are not in a position where a bad review is a correcting mechanism - it's more likely to sink them entirely instead.
- NathanKP 13y ago
  I guess in a traditional hotel you don't care about the hotel owner and you are one of numerous faceless people passing through on a daily basis so leaving bad reviews is easy. In the Airbnb system not only have you met the host face to face and in some cases spent some time with them, and what's more it really isn't even possible to leave an anonymous review because the host can pretty easily tell who left the review based on the timing of its appearance. The thing is Airbnb originates from the couch surfing and hostel ecosystem which has considerably less controls and reviews but also a guest base who in general are willing to put up with less than savory conditions. Airbnb kind of tames that wild west of couch surfing by providing a review system and a more legitimate system of paying and getting paid. But it doesn't reach the full legitimacy of a corporate hotel. Some of my friends ask me whether or not they should try Airbnb, and based on their personalities I will sometimes tell them no, because I know some of my friends just can't deal with it and need a real hotel. Others are more adventurous and I'll tell them to go for it. For that subset of people who would be willing to try couch surfing on staying in a hostel Airbnb is like a luxury service and has all the key benefits of meeting interesting people and living like a local when traveling. But for people who wouldn't dare try couch surfing and find hostels unsavory then Airbnb is kind of on the edge. They might like it because it is a step above couch surfing and hostels, but most of the time they won't like Airbnb either.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    I disagree. Don't take me as a "hurrr corporations" person, I am not - hotels, even chain hotels, are at the end of the day run by real people. Your local Best Western is likely run by a family, not suited, faceless corporate officers. The difference between reviewing them and reviewing an AirBnb isn't how faceless they are, it's how much they can afford it, and how much they can actually use the review as an impetus to improve. That review does no good if it simply means the business folds. > "The thing is Airbnb originates from the couch surfing and hostel ecosystem" Ehhhh... I'm not sure if I buy that line of argument. Couchsurfing.org originates from the couch surfing and hostel ecosystems, where the focus is on experience with the host/guests instead of a plainly quid pro quo exchange. AirBnb has no real focus on this experiential exchange and instead has always been very firmly in the "make money on your place" camp. AirBnb likes to portray themselves as being related to the populist communities of couch surfing and hostels, but I don't see any evidence that they were ever in that space. They certainly aren't now. I was initially an ardent supporter of AirBnb, but their persistently dishonest PR positioning has really turned me off lately; that includes their persistent and annoying efforts at positioning themselves as some sort of populist revolution. When's the last time AirBnb ever marketed themselves as "find a place, meet cool hosts, go adventuring with your hosts/fellow guests"? Because that's a fundamentally core part of the hosteling and couch surfing ethos. AFAIK this has never been an AirBnb angle. In fact, if you look at the featured properties (curated by AirBnb themselves) you will see a dramatic dominance in luxury properties, not cute little bungalows where you're likely to hang out with a cool host. The descriptions are also always strictly about the property, not the host, and the photographs are also strictly of the property, not the host. The host is a small-print detail in the AirBnb model, which makes it almost entirely antithetical to hosteling or couch surfing.