from Hacker News

What Took Down Airbnb

by mattm on 10/7/23, 9:38 PM with 76 comments

  • by bigyikes on 10/7/23, 10:26 PM

    What took down Airbnb for me personally wasn't the government, nor was it the housing crisis, but rather the poor experience it offered. Years ago, staying at an Airbnb was a fun novelty and often I could save a buck. Now the novelty has worn off and the predatory fee structures make me weary.

    There aren't many things an Airbnb does in a place like NYC that a hotel can't do better. Hotels are ubiquitous and uniform. You generally always know what you're getting into, and if something is amiss you can usually get it corrected by staff on-site or migrate to a nearby competitor. With Airbnb, you'll be lucky if you can reach a human to help with what will inevitably go wrong. Instead of full-time housekeeping, you'll have to put up with the shoddy resetting that a bottom-rate contractor cleaner does between visits, and Airbnb will happily mark up prices for the privilege.

    I'll check out Airbnb again if I ever get the itch for an "experience," but otherwise... hotels, despite their flaws, are just a better product.

    Good riddance.

  • by tomohelix on 10/7/23, 11:19 PM

    Airbnb strayed from its original purpose. It was meant to be a side gig for homeowners to get a bit of extra income when they have to be away. Now it became a full on business with all the auxiliary jobs around it. People make a living by become airbnb cleaner, airbnb property manager, airbnb landlord, airbnb supplier, etc.

    For once, scaling up made it more expensive. All these people and jobs want to be paid a living wage. And so costs stack up and it became no better than a hotel. In some cases, worse than hotel because at least a hotel is a mature and professional service. People involved in this airbnb "gig" aren't guaranteed to be.

  • by IAmGraydon on 10/7/23, 11:51 PM

    This article is primarily about AirBNB in NYC, and how they think it’s been “taken down” is a complete mystery to me. Their 12 month revenue reported in June 2023 was $9 Billion, an increase of 23% over 2022. The increase from 2021 to 2022 was over 40%. It’s a service that presents great value in many locations.

    I’ve used it to stay everywhere from DC to the Appalachians to the Carribean and it’s been an outstanding experience every time. You just have to know how to filter and choose the right rental. If you’re looking for a hotel in NYC, get a hotel room.

  • by cramjabsyn on 10/7/23, 11:01 PM

    If they just would cap the fees it would be viable. But I’m not paying a $200+ cleaning fee on top of the nightly rate and other fees.

  • by AYBABTME on 10/7/23, 11:52 PM

    If it's just me passing by: hotel. If I'm going somewhere for a few days or with family and friends: AirBnB.

    Hotels are "I just want a bed to sleep and get out and about".

    AirBnBs are when you need more privacy because of imperfections like kids, or when you'll be somewhere for a while and you need a chill-out place, and you need some more normal house-like amenities.

    In recent years my pendulum pushed back toward hotels, from almost exclusively AirBnB, but I still book AirBnBs about 50-70% of the time.

  • by arwhatever on 10/7/23, 10:55 PM

    If hotels were to explicitly promise “home-grade” Internet service then they would seal the deal for me.

    They’ve improved a lot in recent years but I’d still want to have that explicit guarantee.

  • by averageRoyalty on 10/13/23, 10:33 PM

    > The share of Black residents dropped from 60 percent to 40 percent; the share of white residents increased from 15 percent to 33 percent. The neighborhood became less socioeconomically diverse

    Doesn't this mean the neighbourhood became more socioeconomically diverse? In the US especially, socioeconomics are often tied to race, and the dominant race reduced by 20%, a minority race increased by 18%, and I assume another race increased by 2%.

  • by Bellend on 10/8/23, 12:10 AM

    Airbnb was so good and I don't want to mention the year because I will get it wrong. I went with my friend that year for literally hardly any money and we seen 8 European countries. It wasn't just Airbnb but Wimdu (We are UK).

    In the space of a year, prices doubled, and then there was fees not included in the price so when I accepted those prices and fees and went to book, there was more fees under the "checkout" section.

    That might have been 7 years ago when good quality hotels were parity to the final price. Obviously I haven't been back on any of these since but it was definitely amazing at one point.

  • by jononomo on 10/7/23, 11:48 PM

    Airbnb was awesome for several years and then it just became shit. I guess they make more money, somehow, by being shit, but I wish people would care about something other than making money and becoming shit.

  • by sharts on 10/7/23, 11:11 PM

    Having used airbnb in multiple countries I have never seen the appeal over hotels, except for location/neighborhoods.

    I also don’t understand the appeal of Kardashians

  • by TRiG_Ireland on 10/8/23, 12:09 AM

    Why do people always discuss AirBnB v hotels, rather than AirBnB v real B&Bs? Is that not a better comparison?

  • by CraigRo on 10/8/23, 2:49 AM

    NYC has applied draconian rules on tenancies, and crazy restrictions on hotel construction. These units are not coming back, because the owners risk losing too much money. We'll just have knockoff Airbnb copies which will be worse for both sides

  • by badrabbit on 10/7/23, 11:55 PM

    Is there any evidence that it has been "taken down". It's its own industry. Hotels with their tiny rooms, shitty appliances, nickle and diming every part of the experience (e.g.:minibars, wifi,tv) and having to interact with staff (good and bad) are not worth it. Plus you can find airbnb close to any destination, you don't have to plan around hotel locations. Vrbo was already there before airbnb i think.

    The experience is not that bad except when you inevitably get a shit!y renter but that's on the renter.

    I feel like it is only people who were satisfied by hotels, taxis, cable companies for whatever reason that keep expecting/hoping airbnb,uber,neflix and the like to go under. If anything, I fully support tax payer money bailing out these companies instead of banks or subsidizing them instead if oil companies. Their value to the average person's quality of life is immense.

  • by otteromkram on 10/8/23, 5:57 AM

    Who cares? Stop posting articles about this corrupt company that takes advantage of travelers at every chance, robbing them of money and potentially putting them in harms way.

    It's a middleman that needs to go extinct.

  • by mschuster91 on 10/7/23, 10:58 PM

  • by theironhammer on 10/8/23, 1:29 AM

    Greed!

  • by Simulacra on 10/7/23, 11:22 PM

    Government.

  • by kbos87 on 10/7/23, 11:34 PM

    The most fascinating thing about the “takedown of Airbnb” is how disconnected this narrative is from reality.

    This one article is mostly about NYC (and forward looking) but it’s part of a larger tapestry of “Airbnb is dead”, “nobody uses Airbnb anymore” articles and social content (particularly on TikTok) that might lead you to think Airbnb and its hosts are in freefall.

    The problem is that the reality looks to be totally different. Airbnb keeps putting up record quarters, and while the economics are changing for hosts (many markets are definitely becoming saturated) the platform and the model appear to not have actually lost much if any strength over the 12-18 months that this has been a popular narrative.