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Comment by Telemakhos | Hacker News Reader

The last few times I went to Europe, my Europe-based GF made arrangements for our accommodations, and it was always AirBNB that she booked without knowing that she was doing so; many European AirBNB hosts apparently also book through other sites with "hotel" in the name. Regardless, they were far superior in quality to the hotel rooms we had shared, superior also in location, and equal if not superior in price. That makes me wonder why hotels offer much smaller rooms with fewer amenities for the same price. AirBNB only works because of that discrepancy—if hotels gave better value for the same price, people would prefer hotels.

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I once stayed in a AirBnB in one of the largest international cities in the world. Every room in the apartment was converted into an AirBnB rental, and the listing didn't make it apparent that this was the living arrangement at all.

There were 12+ people staying there in an apartment meant for 2 - 4 people at most. And that was just one apartment in the building, I assume more apartments were converted in a similar fashion because that's easy money.

They certainly weren't up to fire code. There weren't any emergency lights that would go on during an emergency and mark the fire exits, because there were no fire exits. In the event of a fire, panicked people would fall all over themselves in the dark as they all scrambled to the only exit, and the mass of people would most likely block it.

That's how they're able to give "better value" for the same price or less.

Even smaller ones are not immune. I found myself in the same situation in Cambridge and Venice. Cambridge one was very, very sketchy.

Hotel prices have regulations included. Most airbnbs save on this. Some also mange to even avoid taxes, directly or by hiring illegal workers.

Zoning laws. Airbnb only works because it is a workaround for allowing “hotels” to be in non-commercial areas.

Not just zoning, AirBnBs (at least in the US, and I would assume the same is true elsewhere) often evade taxes, facility safety requirements, and other requirements generally applicable to commercial short-term rentals. As a result, on the things outside of those requirements, they can offer more at the same price.

I think zoning, especially single-use zoning, is much less common outside of the US. So I don't think it accounts for the global success of AirBnB.

Superior location? That’s a new one for me. That’s what I always compromised on knowing that there was more space, cheaper etc. Lucky you!

This ^ I haven't booked a single hotel in the last 7 years. I only travel using airbnb because it's:

* cheaper

* better location

* feels more like home / feels cleaner

* more space

* kitchen

It's because Airbnb (ab)use the same kind of hole in the law as Uber does. Hotels have to follow more rules and can't build a room in random buildings that happen to be available but build lots of rooms in huge buildings. The problem isn't hotels but that Airbnb isn't seen as hotels as they should be. Luckily some cities are waking up and stopping the abuse.

I don't know why you are getting downvoted for this. AirBnb's valuation is basically extracted from society by pocketing the difference to anyone needing to follow regulations.

AirBnB does not create value, it extracts it from communities. It's not the kind of startup anyone should be cheering on

I agree that Airbnb is technically breaking the law with almost every rental, but increasing the supply of housing is a MAJOR benefit to society. Zoning laws and business building codes are completely unreasonable in most cases.

Increasing the supply of housing would be a major benefit, but Airbnb does not increase the supply of housing.

Unfortunately a lot of interests are also aligned against increasing the supply of housing, because steadily rising house prices ironically reduces the incentive to build (no rush to build if your return from sitting on the land until a suitable amount of time before you want to exit can get you the same ROI), while a lot of home owners don't get that it is often in their interest too to see prices slowly and steadily drop rather than increase (most of us would love to be able to trade up, and so would benefit from prices dropping at a rate similar to typical mortgage repayment, but a lot of people see their house as an investment and get excited when it goes up - for my part I look at the houses that were GBP 400k when my house was 200k, which are now 800k while my house is 400k, and wish the prices had halved instead of doubled).

It does increase the supply of housing though. Housing that would otherwise could/would not be occupied is now available for rent.

What makes you think these properties could and would not be occupied? They often displace long term rental. And short term rental as an AirBnb is not 'housing' in the ordinary sense - nobody makes it their main residence.

> increasing the supply of housing is a MAJOR benefit to society

Airbnb is doing opposite, it displaces long-term rental by converting flats/apartments into hotels.

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