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Comment by rweba | Hacker News Reader

This might now end up affecting not only Airbnb but also the image of Ycombinator and pg.

Also the important issue here is not just the (terrible) handling of this specific incident by Airbnb but the fact that it puts into question their entire business model: Is it really smart to rent out your personal residence to a complete stranger? Does the potential benefit($$$) outweigh the significant risks(being completely violated)? Yes, they could put in some more checks but will that be enough to make people feel SAFE?

Personally I think the risk is too high and the problem will only become worse as the service tries to expand to more customers and scammers become more aware of it. That nice "guest" may simply be casing the joint, copying your keys and snooping in your mail. Who needs that risk?

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I think the crucial context is even larger than that. There's a lot of anxiety in the tech community about the recent valuations of several startups. First there was the revelation that a lot of Groupon's reported "profits" are products of clever accounting. Then Color implodes after a ridiculously disproportionate funding round. And now AirBNB, the poster child of internet disintermediation of old, hidebound industries, is caught totally unprepared for a business model threatening crisis that everyone should have seen coming.

I suspect I'm not the only one that thinks that there's a lot of willful ignorance underlying this boom we're all enjoying.

Since LinkedIn everyone behaves like 2001, every buzz company is trying to get an IPO.

Facebook, Groupon, AirBnB, Twitter and Zynga. All of them without a clean history. My feeling is they all try to go public as fast as possible as long as the Buzz is still there and don't try to create a sustainable business. All of them have bad finances or questionable business models. I would trust Zynga financially the most, but i assume they make their big bucks from people with compulsive gambling disorders.

I think all these people involved know about this and they try to cash out as fast as possible. This is why everyone is so stressed.

"a business model threatening crisis that everyone should have seen coming"

Airbnb did see it coming and were careful to cover it in their TOS section 1.2 and 1.4. They have, however, been marketing their service very differently. They've now taken down the FAQ answer about security that had only a joke about grand pianos, but it shows that they were deliberately trying to obfuscate security issues in order to make more sales.

That makes it even more amazing that they had no PR or operational plan in place to deal with the inevitable criminal user.

> This might now end up affecting not only Airbnb but also the image of Ycombinator and pg.

That is already happening:

http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-ransackgate-paul-graha...

I dont't think this puts their business model into question at all. In fact you just described what they might do to improve, by making risk mitigation part of their model (offering to sell insurance of some kind, options for getting verified or pre-screened etc.)

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