by thomasjudge on 5/13/25, 7:17 PM with 551 comments
by thomasjudge on 5/13/25, 7:18 PM
by levocardia on 5/14/25, 3:52 AM
People say hotels are as cheap, but they never have the same amenities, and the location in town is often worse. An AirBnb with a kitchen is essentially $20-30 cheaper per day than a hotel without one. Add to that laundry, more privacy, and other perks and it's not really a fair comparison. It does seem like there are more hotel resellers and leasing companies using it as a stopgap between tenants, which I understand, but hate.
I get why they want to be an "everything app" (rich people have more money to spend on "experiences"), but other commenters are spot-on regarding the dangers of taking their eye off the ball. Seems like a better use of company attention would be to really boost and reward the genuine hosts that put their heart into it, and at least put in a modest amount of friction to slow down the corporate resellers with barebones apartments in half-remodeled buildings.
by dreamcompiler on 5/14/25, 2:59 AM
Not to mention that hotel websites are typically easier to navigate and contain a lot less React-sludge that makes every click take forever to respond.
by jen729w on 5/14/25, 4:23 AM
Online reviews are totally broken. I recently spent a week at an Airbnb in the Gold Coast, Australia. The property was rated 5* but was tired and worn. The photos must have been 5 years old before a soul set foot in the place.
I rated it 3*. Shortly after, I got a phone call from the owner. He had my number because I'd had to call him because one of the two toilets in a five-bedroom 14-guest 'villa' was blocked. As in, overflowing with fecal matter blocked.
He essentially tried to bribe me to raise my review. I refused. The house is currently listed as 4.9* with those same photos. A preposterous exaggeration of its quality.
by monster_truck on 5/14/25, 3:11 AM
People listing mcmansions they cant sell in a state of disrepair, lies about amenities and internet. Had to relocate several people repeatedly in the middle of the pandemic lockdown and it took months for the refunds to process.
Had another host try to pressure me into a cash deal and then claim damages to extract fees when I turned it down. After supplying their text messages and proof that the place was fine I had to wait 18 months for a refund and was locked out of renting a safer place.
I can't imagine trusting them for anything else. I now exclusively use craigslist and other sites that allow you to directly deal with property owners and have been really impressed.
by pembrook on 5/14/25, 8:17 AM
Or run a hospitality business without doing any real hospitality.
Yes, a marketplace is a dream business from a profitability perspective, but it’s too easy to forget the marketplace is not the actual product that people come to the marketplace for.
It doesn’t matter if you have 5000 overpaid developers building the slickest software, the end product is not the Airbnb software, it’s the actual hospitality experience.
by standardUser on 5/14/25, 5:27 AM
The CEO knows exactly what the problem is because he spells it out in the article...
> Chesky explains that historically, people used Airbnb only once or twice a year, so its design had to be exceptionally simple.
It's true! I've probably averaged no more than 1-2 AirBnB stays per year for a lot of years. But the average host is probably handling 50+ guests per year. That means the host is the AirBnB customer, not me. I'm about as important to them as their cleaning service. The hosts and the execs are all just trying to make some money, and my dumb ass is in their way asking for extra towels and late checkout. Hotels are essentially just as hostile, except they are good at it. And since the cost savings have essentially disappeared I'm inclined to go with the pros and only look at AirBnB when the location or context give me some reason to choose the complicated option.
by BrenBarn on 5/14/25, 3:36 AM
I reserved an AirBnB months ahead of time to see the eclipse in Dallas last year, and the host canceled it the day before I was to arrive, with no communication (even when I tried to message them). I got a refund, but that's pretty cold comfort. Without any disincentive to do this, it's pretty easy for hosts to screw people over.
by neya on 5/14/25, 7:36 AM
by speedbird on 5/14/25, 3:13 AM
by margorczynski on 5/14/25, 7:44 AM
by bcoates on 5/14/25, 3:33 AM
Quote
“I don’t know if I want to call it a social network, because of the stigma associated with it,” says Ari Balogh, Airbnb’s CTO. So they employ a fuzzier term. “We think of it as a connection platform,” he says. “You’re going to see us build a lot more stuff on top of it, although we’re not an advertising system, thank goodness.” (My own observation is that any for-profit company that can host advertising will, but whatever.)
End quote
Launching a communications tool in 2025 that isn't one of the two overly trod spaces (the advertising-hyperengagement loop of instagram, etc. or the people-you-already-know of whatsapp) is a genuine moonshot in a way that "what if airbnb but for manicures" isn't, and it's something that an incumbent like Airbnb could do that would be impractical for anyone else.
by seydor on 5/14/25, 6:25 AM
They are bringing more "amateur professionals" along with the hosts by adding all those services. this is a big, unruly crowd of half-assed servicepeople
by iambateman on 5/14/25, 2:22 AM
They’re kind of like Uber, in that way. But where Uber has become faceless and quiet, Airbnb wants to be a leader, and I respect that. Certainly there’s lots of cool things that _could_ happen with experiences, and I hope they do.
by bsimpson on 5/14/25, 2:14 AM
With personal services, they're risking having that problem at a lot bigger scale: are you willing to pay your barber or masseuse 18% extra to cover Airbnb's commission? I suspect a lot of people would use Airbnb to find a reputable provider, and then make contact off-platform.
by futurecat on 5/14/25, 2:25 AM
by jrowen on 5/14/25, 3:42 AM
by jenkins6g on 5/14/25, 1:51 AM
by twelve40 on 5/14/25, 3:25 AM
by cosbgn on 5/14/25, 8:20 AM
Airbnb complementary destroyed some great places and rural cities around the world, because of them:
- Food/Restaurant prices go up
- Food/Restaurant quality goes down
- Real estate price goes up
- Dirtiness goes up
- Bugs and other animals thrive
- Quality of shops goes down, everything is disposable
- Quality of building/materials goes down, why install a wooden window if it's for an airbnb?
You could argue that it's not because of Airbnb but because of tourism, but I don't think so, Hotels are heavily regulated, they have strict cleaning rules, max occupancy and are built to host a certain amount of people, mass tourism wouldn't be possible without Airbnb.
by ricardobeat on 5/14/25, 10:00 AM
Oh, the disconnect. Your average person rarely hires services like this, maybe a handful of times over a lifetime.
by Animats on 5/14/25, 3:40 AM
Can AirBnB find a second niche they can start to take over?
by Xenoamorphous on 5/14/25, 7:24 AM
by dbg31415 on 5/14/25, 1:44 AM
Even more troubling are the widespread privacy violations. Thousands of guests have reported hidden cameras in their rentals -- some even found in bedrooms and bathrooms. Airbnb didn't ban indoor cameras until March 2024, after more than a decade of complaints and several high-profile criminal cases. Combined with fake photos, misleading descriptions, and little accountability for bad hosts, it's clear the trust that once defined the platform has eroded. Airbnb didn't just lose its shine -- it actively neglected the safety and transparency that made it appealing in the first place.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/nationwide-fake-host-scam-on...
by bsimpson on 5/14/25, 3:47 AM
Are they abandoning NYC as a market since rentals are restricted there, or did they just not put enough effort into recruiting before launch?
by borroka on 5/14/25, 8:11 AM
I am not a particular fan of Airbnb--nobody is a fan of real estate agents, they are intermediaries that provide a service, facilitate discovery, etc.--but I am currently staying in an apartment I booked on Airbnb, and I am spending $2k a month for it. Decent space, a kitchen I can use, space for my clothes, a washing machine, a big fridge. If I had to book a hotel room, I would spend at least $8k a month for it.
“Book a hotel room” sounds like when a former university instructor told a student to "just install Linux" when they had some authorization issues on their Windows computer. The use cases are different.
by digianarchist on 5/14/25, 3:07 AM
Owner of the unit did nothing and as did AirBnB.
Luckily it was only a few nights a year - there's no mechanism to eject a guest like this. They create new accounts if they are banned from the platform.
by sershe on 5/14/25, 9:13 PM
Contrary to other comments I wish they'd actually focus on both the agent and the random host scenarios...
But personally my favorite things are weird places that are a bedroom in a house.
The mild form is when they have a dog you get to pet/play with. The less mild is staying with people who are weird in a non dangerous way.
My only bad experience was also with dogs, a place where when you step out to the bathroom at night two formerly friendly large dogs shadow you, growling cause, a rando walking around at night! Really helps the bowel movement.
And the weirdest experience I had was 2 girls roommates who advertised their open floor plan living room as a "separate bedroom" (it was not instant book and I'm very obviously a dude). With a cat that slept at my feet, and a dog that woke me up in the morning (they did offer to lock up both). Then when I was talking to one of them in the kitchen she told me without any context that they were not lesbians. I am in a relationship and it was pretty awkward so I didn't develop the subject further, but I am still wondering.
by dangus on 5/15/25, 5:03 AM
Just like with Groupon where the idea was so novel for the time but quickly faded away as irrelevant, a diluted shell of its former self.
When you really think about it, Airbnb offers you nothing that a normal travel booking site by the giant incumbents like Expedia group offer, and unlike Airbnb, Expedia group sites can compare rentals by owner alongside real hotels, too.
So basically when you go to Airbnb you're going to a partial travel site and it's also a travel site without any extra travel functionality like rental cars, hotels, and other vacation packages.
I wonder if Airbnb's pivot toward local experiences is a much bigger mistake than using their momentum to make a real attempt at competing more directly with Expedia/Priceline. Why didn't Airbnb start working with hotels and other traditional travel industry players?
by Quarrelsome on 5/14/25, 4:27 AM
> Despite never meeting Jobs, “I feel like I know him deeply, professionally, in a way that few people ever did
As opposed to all the people that did actually met him, or worked for him?
This is such a painfully gushing puff piece and this sentence is peak cringe that just makes the man sound mentally ill.
by theGnuMe on 5/14/25, 12:36 AM
by stdbrouw on 5/14/25, 9:09 AM
by incomingpain on 5/14/25, 11:24 AM
BUT then came the growing pains caused by investors and speculators. Both of which clashed with governments who were manipulating their housing markets.
This isnt a place you want your business competing; the governments will come take you out.
Toronto for example, airbnbs can only be your principal residence. You have to register and license. there's a 4% airbnb tax.
This wipes out the investors and speculators. toronto's housing pricing is down 5% across the board. There's now people selling and losing ~$400,000. We're at record highs for number of units unsold. # of Sales are down 20%
There has to be a correction, but how that doesnt pop the housing bubbles, i dunno. doesnt help that toronto's unemployment is at 10% which is worse than the financial crisis. Toronto's also losing their film industry shortly. Auto industry is suspended if not moving.
by bilsbie on 5/14/25, 12:47 PM
Also do they let your search by final price now or do they still hide a bunch of fees?
Why even allow fees? Make the owners set a price that includes what they need for cleaning, etc.
by CuriousRose on 5/14/25, 1:37 AM
- Paginated results that reset and call an API for new results when the map is moved (even to a subset of the initial call such as in a zoom).
- Inability to change pagination size.
- Inability to hide listings you aren't interested in.
- Map only displaying listings on the current page, which change dramatically per page.
- Page changes (the thing you do more of than comparing options), take way too long.
Maybe it's a real-estate website related issue as the two main property sites in Australia (Domain and RealEstate) as also garbage. I have a feeling it's also designed this way to prevent scraping.
Can someone at AirBnB please sort these basic QoL things out.
by spicyusername on 5/13/25, 8:22 PM
reinvention of Airbnb
AirBnB provides an amazing service, the ability to painlessly book hotels that feel like houses.
I guarantee you they are not going to be the next Apple or Microsoft, they're instead just going to dilute the value of their core business chasing things that aren't going to work, instead of focusing on their core service, and then in so many years time they will become irrelevant rather than inevitable.
by wodenokoto on 5/14/25, 7:31 AM
Manage rides -> manage deliveries -> manage booking with places that are already in network -> expand bookings from restaurants to other services -> expand bookings to hotels -> vacation homes.
But honestly going the other way around isn’t that crazy.
by awaythrow999 on 5/14/25, 5:57 AM
The reason I should have uninstalled it much longer is because it's toxic for rent prices. I now pay more for hotels and sleep well.
I got rid of Uber for the same reason.
by legitster on 5/14/25, 3:52 AM
The worst part is we had their support on the line for hours. And he told that they didn't even have a way to escalate technical issues. His job was to stall on the phone and be yelled at until hosts gave up.
Unfortunately it's just the latest example of awful experiences with the company. As a host you are liable for everything. The only way to get them to hold up their end of the bargain is small claims court. They collect their fees for doing nearly nothing for either party.
You will not find a way to contact any individual at Airbnb. It's an impressively seamless anti-human design. They have built a wall and kicked down the ladder.
by SV_BubbleTime on 5/14/25, 4:10 AM
Not even Uber wants to be the Uber of Whatever anymore
For an actual thought… I absolutely love that the era of free money is on pause!
by some_random on 5/14/25, 1:56 PM
by 9283409232 on 5/14/25, 2:06 AM
by meekaaku on 5/14/25, 9:02 AM
booking.com also offers apartments too, and has far better pay upon arrival and pay nothing right now features.
by dkobia on 5/14/25, 1:40 PM
by tharmas on 5/14/25, 1:03 PM
by hankchinaski on 5/14/25, 9:01 AM
by mmmBacon on 5/14/25, 2:27 AM
Additionally there’s a creep factor in the number of cameras on the property. Hotels have lots of cameras but you don’t get the same sense that you’re being policed. I realize some of this is necessary but it can still be off-putting; usually everyone in the rental comments on the cameras.
Airbnb could normalize the value by enforcing standards and capping certain unreasonable charges in particular cleaning fees. A uniform cancellation policy would also help.
Additionally there are no rewards for booking Airbnb and no perks at all for repeat customers.
I’ve moved from Airbnb to Marriot and I get 4pm late check out, upgrades to suites, free breakfast, priority booking etc… and I don’t have to take the garbage out, bundle up sheets, do the dishes, etc…
by jeffhwang on 5/14/25, 7:01 AM
by ookblah on 5/14/25, 5:11 AM
with some chain hotel at least i know what to relatively expect in terms of service and amenities and have someone to complain to to make it right.
by ChrisArchitect on 5/14/25, 5:18 AM
by SirMaster on 5/14/25, 7:32 PM
by shah_akshat on 5/15/25, 3:47 AM
by SwtCyber on 5/14/25, 8:54 AM
by spaceman_2020 on 5/14/25, 7:47 AM
Only time it makes sense is if you're traveling with a large group of people
by nektro on 5/15/25, 3:09 AM
by bionhoward on 5/14/25, 1:05 PM
by courseofaction on 5/14/25, 7:29 AM
by arisAlexis on 5/15/25, 5:23 PM
by mfld on 5/14/25, 9:28 AM
by casenmgreen on 5/14/25, 8:50 AM
One luggage, no permanent home, been fifteen years.
I used to use AirBnB all the time.
They gradually become more and more, well, "large company".
I used to still look at AirBnB (until very recently, when one of the founders joined DOGE), but I saw that their fee continually rose over time, and became like 10% or 15%, and there's in many places (Paris, Amsterdam, New York, London...) no meaningful listings (which is due to State bans).
I was in Paris last couple of months. There was nothing viable on AirBnB, unless you wanted to pay several thousand a month. There was a set of listings which I concluded was a scam, the same very dodgy letting agency, who had lots of apartments, all with no ratings, but very bad reviews on-line elsewhere. I think they were continually deleting and remaking their lets on AirBnB, to get rid of negative reviews.
AirBnB itself (and here we see "large company") became unreliable as a service, in that I never knew, when I came to us it, if log-in would still work.
I recall the first time log-in failed for no obvious reason, and the and the only option was "email support and we'll contact you in a few days" - and I was looking to move in about two weeks time, and had of course no reason to have confidence in the boilerplate estimate of "few days".
After that, I put up my own HTTPS proxy, which I now use whenever I use AirBnB, to avoid AirBnB when I log in suspending my account, which I then have to have support fix, which of course means the account cannot be used until support get back to me, and assuming they actually do unblock the account, and given how variable support is, this is not a given.
I also recall one episode about ten years ago where I had to phone support. It was a three hour long screaming nightmare of hell and madness, which was eventually resolved by dint of the new process AirBnB had imposed on users (something about ID and account photos, IIRC) actually not working properly, so in the end it turned out Support (some poor Indian woman working from home) and I were able to circumvent the problem.
I've also been reading people write about AirBnB blocking their valid negative reviews on spurious grounds. That undermines all reviews on all properties; you're looking at reviews wondering if there were valid bad reviews you're not seeing because AirBnB has been blocking them.
To summarize, fees are now rather high, when it comes to Support my response is Jesus please God anything but Support, I had to backdoor my own HTTPS traffic to use the service, I'm now uncertain about the veracity of reviews, and no viable apartments in quite a lot of locations.
So, for me, AirBnB was great, but now it's really not.
Then, recently, one of the founders (his role now is only on the board) came out as pro-MAGA and joined DOGE, and that was the end of AirBnB for me.
The one and critical thing AirBnB got right was building into their platform the expectation owners would offer discounts for stays over a week, or over a month.
I don't see this on other platforms, and it makes pricing on other platforms crazy. If I come and stay for three months, I expect a discount for giving full occupancy over that time. If you don't offer that, you're off the menu.
by prinny_ on 5/21/25, 4:23 PM
A disappointing and soulless comparison.
by 1x00 on 5/14/25, 11:12 PM
by xyst on 5/14/25, 3:35 AM
Note they have a fucking ridiculous interview process of at least _6 rounds_. Absolutely bonkers.
I was tempted to go for it but fortunately have many other companies in my pipeline with much saner interview processes.
Good luck to whoever gets those positions. Seems they pay quite well, but the question is whether ABB push to expand will pay off and become self sustaining.
by olelele on 5/14/25, 8:43 PM
This app based disruption shit that was fed by zero interest rate policies can go somewhere very far away as far as I’m concerned. Like Mars.
by alias_neo on 5/14/25, 8:57 AM
On two separate occasions this year I've had issues with them.
First, my wife had booked a lodge in the lakes with lots of outdoor space for us to go with the kids and hopefully see the stars, and give them room to roam outdoors; for months our children had been looking forward to it, and a mere 4 days before, the host contacted us saying they'd have to cancel because the power was out; clearly bullshit, no apology, they'd obviously gotten a better price elsewhere because it just happened the weather was looking better than expected that weekend; and I don't see how it would take 4 days to get the power back on; it wasn't remote.
On a separate occasion, 2 friends and I had booked an AirBnB in Wales to attend a wedding together in the area, the host cancelled days later because they'd accidentally double booked; we booked another, they cancelled, no excuse; half a dozen cancellations later, we currently have a booking, and we'll find out in a couple of weeks how that goes.
I don't have the time or the patience for this kind of game-playing bullshit from hosts, and I certainly don't like disappointing my children; I would choose a hotel at a higher cost but they're not always able to provide the experience you're aiming for; it's not always just a room to stay in.
We've used AirBnB in other parts of the world without issues, but we'd usually book those for a few days into a trip, and start with a hotel, so you're not arriving somewhere and immediately have problems when something goes wrong.
One country in particular; my wife and I travelled with two friends who were travelling to arrange their wedding in said (European) country, booked two double rooms, we arrive and we knock at the address we're given, since we've been given no further details; the "host" says to come with him; first tries to put us all up in a box room in some lady's house, with two bunk beds with an adjacent toilet that was flooded and pouring in to the room; when we decline, he takes us to another place where an old man was looking to rent a room, he seemed like a nice man, but my wife was uncomfortable because his living area had a window into the shared shower room, no thanks; the old man was quite upset that we'd declined, he probably needed the money and we felt a little guilty about that; after a couple more examples of this wandering around the town with this guy, it had become apparent, he was taking bookings for rooms that didn't exist and trying to put people up in random peoples homes; I suspect he also wasn't paying them near what he was taking for these bookings.
It was a disgrace, and when we became irritated after so much time wondering around with our cases in the heat we suggested we'll book rooms at the Hilton we had passed while wandering and deal with AirBnB after our break, he managed to find us something suitable; both "almost" to the standard we had booked, and both places he had the keys to in his pocket.
We reported it to AirBnB, but they of course did nothing.
by notpushkin on 5/14/25, 3:56 AM
by blinded on 5/14/25, 3:50 AM
by pyaamb on 5/14/25, 2:07 AM
by JohnMakin on 5/14/25, 2:15 AM
by majestik on 5/15/25, 12:41 PM
by internet_points on 5/14/25, 7:56 AM