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Comment by malechimp | Hacker News Reader

Being a regular customer in a very hot market (Dublin) I can attest that most of the places I've been to were grossly overpriced and let's not speak about the quality.

Back in the fat cows era (up until a few months ago) it seemed that Airbnb was synonymous to "if you have a spare doghouse in a hot overpriced market then you can make very good money out of it". Not to mention how airbnb was contributing to such markets to get even more overpriced by causing shortages.

And now they are urging customers to sponsor hosts...

Yup. Definitely someone there must have lost it entirely.

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They must be so disconnected that they feel their hosts and guests are actually having a meaningful connection. Most of my Airbnb interactions don't go beyond the exchange of keys (or not even that with the key boxes).

I have no sympathy for landlords or Airbnb, they are just going to have to deal with the market like everyone else.

Not only does one actually meet one's host much rarely these days compared to AirBnB's early years, but the cases where one indeed interacts with the host are often pretty tiresome, think lonely elderly people who just keep talking after you have tried to make it clear that you are tired and want to be alone. Sadly, this doesn't get mentioned much in reviews for fear of upsetting the host or the forced-positivity corporation that is AirBnB, so it is very hard to avoid these awkward encounters completely.

I know your comment is for the majority but I have had meaningful connections with my hosts. Some I am still in touch years later.

If the host reached out to me on their own, I would probably help them. But to have Airbnb guilt trip people into donating is beyond me as well.

I think we are mistaking Airbnb for couchsurf.

Even in the cases when I met my hosts the transaction was 100% monetary one. Not one of them, ever, offered me to stay some more free of charge - just because we got along well. And I did get along well with all of them. On the contrary, I have slept on the floor at a friends house a few nights because some of these hosts hanged me at the last moment (e.g. when they realized that my flight was coming in too late for them).

Don't take me wrong. I'm not venting here. It took me a while to realize it myself, that Airbnb is not couchsurfing. It is a market. And a hard one at that. That's fine by me but donations are not part of such markets.

It is possible to have a decent caring relationship on top of a commercial one. I have restaurant owners who I have a really warm relationship with. I know about their family, they enquire about mine. They will not give me a free meal and neither do I expect one. Same with some shops that I frequent.

Airbnb is certainly a market. So are restaurants. You do see people supporting their local restaurants in this crisis don't you?

> Airbnb is certainly a market. So are restaurants. You do see people supporting their local restaurants in this crisis don't you?

Yes, people are patrons of restaurants, because restaurants are still providing food.

If you were a "regular customer", the places were not "overpriced".

If it lets it's not overpriced.

We often make value judgements on these things but the reality is that as long as someone is willing to pay it is not 'overpriced'.

If it lets if it's not overpriced it doesn't need support when it doesn't let.

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