I'm realizing I'm confused about what value airbnb is offering.
If they don't vet people on either end, are they really just a craigslist with payment processing?
If they don't vet people on either end, are they really just a craigslist with payment processing?
Edit: Except for to Airbnb.
Exactly this. The first blogger to go public with a report of a place being trashed by an Airbnb guest pointed out that with Craigslist, it is EASIER to contact the guest individually beforehand. Airbnb subtracts value from the typical transaction that would be arranged on Craigslist. That's because Craigslist makes its money from help-wanted ads and a few other ad categories, and doesn't need to monetize transactions for short-term stays in people's homes to keep right on making money.
Airbnb claims to be a force for disintermediating the short-term rental industry, but it desires to be market-leading intermediary. It isn't offering a market-leading level of customer service after a problem happens. Nor is Airbnb doing as much to prevent problems as other startup companies in the same space--several of those companies take much greater care to verify guest identities before setting up the transaction. What Airbnb appears to want, compared to other market participants, is to be paid as an intermediary without providing any particular value as an intermediary. That's nice work if you can get it, but that's a business model that is ripe for disruption and not a business model that I would invest in.
After edit: I hope everyone is reading the newly submitted article here for the details of what the Airbnb autoresponder message replying to the "urgent" help email address at Airbnb looked like not long ago. As the host thought after his place was trashed, "This freaked me out when I was frazzled. Hundreds of millions in venture financing, millions of dollars in fees, and no 24-hour help desk for emergencies? What am I paying them the exorbitant fees for?"
And, the components of a potential solution – costly one-time background checks, longer reputation histories, insurance pooling, deep experience with all abuse variants – all benefit from scale. Participant fear enhances the winner-take-all nature of the market... if the leader can best assuage that fear.
Background checks are a one-time cost per new participant.
It may be costly (in money or time) to set up your initial account, and acquire a positive reputation via a long history of mutual reviews... but then you're part of a large pre-vetted community.
Do you then want to go through that procedure many times with every new upstart? Or just once with the largest market?
But yeah, they are essentially just middlemen. They benefit from keeping the buyer and seller apart until the deal is done and they get their cut.
This would allow users to contact and vet each other before agreeing on a sale while still having some profit streams.
Basically AirBnb would become a specialized Craigslist on steroids, but it can only be done if the founders want to build a long term business netting them a few million each year rather than a VC darling to be flipped for a couple of billion dollars.
That's mostly what it is, which isn't a bad idea. It also has a strong couch surfer element that CL doesn't.
And what is the problem with that? Some comments seem to be suggestion that - because that evil money thing is involved - they should be required to be in other businesses simultaneously. Perhaps there are things they can do better, but existing system was already quite clear to me (renter; would have to think seriously before hosting).
A quote from http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/new - "Airbnb lets you make money renting out your place. Your apartment will pay for itself!"
That is the antithesis of a 'unused low marginal cost asset'.