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Comment by danhak | Hacker News Reader

I love Airbnb and have booked dozens of stays through them.

I listened in on the earnings call yesterday and heard lots of good things. But as a prospective investor my main concern is how they plan to deal with increasing circumvention of the platform.

There's professional short-term property management services in every market now, and they don't want to give Airbnb a cut.

I am literally typing this comment from a cabin that I discovered on Airbnb but booked direct to save money. The listing contained text inviting you to visit their website to book direct and avoid fees.

I've also re-booked properties I've stayed at in the past by contacting hosts directly, and received offers from hosts via Airbnb message to book outside of Airbnb for a discount.

So a major problem for Airbnb is that they don't really own the relationship between hosts and guests.

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Really? That's interesting, I often use Airbnb instead of these other platforms or direct relationships because having them as a guarantor is usually worth the premium that they demand, especially in foreign countries. Maybe this is a larger issue as they move towards longer stays but at least for short to midterm (e.g. under 3 months) I'm usually happy to use Airbnb and they're reasonable for booking more than a month at a time

I found lodging on Google Maps with a 5 star rating. The host told you to message him on WhatsApp to book. Turns out he has a couple rooms listed on Airbnb and a couple only available directly.

On checkin day, I carried my cumbersome luggage for like a mile from the ferry terminal to his building, and no one was there to greet me. He had misunderstood the days I requested, and was now full for the night I requested. I ended up sitting in that hallway for hours trying to find another place to stay with immediate checkin. I ended up walking across town at midnight to pay twice as much money to stay at a shitty hotel above the train tracks in the shittiest part of town. It was perhaps literally the last room available in the whole city.

Airbnb's fees are expensive (and poorly presented in the UI), but there's certainly value in having a formal booking system and an external complaints/support process.

I host on Airbnb, and won’t take direct bookings, for pretty much the same reason you describe - they verify ID and all that, so I don’t have to, and if something goes badly wrong, my insurance would provide cover - whereas with a direct booking, they’d have far more surface area to say why this was a foreseeable risk that I failed to adequately treat.

Airbnb has had this problem since their founding, and they've obviously dealt with it fine. I'm not thrilled with paying Airbnb's fees as a traveler, but I know I'm getting value for them, and that if I go outside the platform I have no recourse and there is a good chance I'll get scammed.

The short-term rental market is much more mature now than it was at Airbnb's founding. There are reputable management companies all over now with their own platforms, payment gateways, reviews etc.

There were tons of reputable management companies all over a decade ago as well. VRBO was founded in the late 90s.

Literally all of the lodging management sites that take a cut of transaction have this potential issue, and they've all figured out how to deal with it. It's a solved problem.

> It's a solved problem.

I'm curious how Airbnb specifically is solving it. I can think of four bookings off the top of my head--expensive ones--where they've missed out on my money because the hosts solicited offers to circumvent the platform. It's worked out fine for me each time.

"It's a solved problem" does not mean that it never happens. It means it's easily a manageable cost of doing business. Again, ALL rental listing platforms have this issue and they're doing fine.

First, AirBnB will kick hosts off the platform if they find out.

Second, as another commenter mentioned, many customers appreciate the support and guarantees paying through AirBnB gives them. All it takes is one shitty experience or getting scammed for folks to think twice about going off the platform.

> I'm getting value for them

Given the amount of scams few years ago, awful website and fluffy (mutual censorship) reviews…?

If I like an Airbnb property listed by a business, I often look them up to see if they offer a better deal on their website. Airbnb is a fantastic distribution for such listings. I recently discovered a startup (Limehome) through Airbnb - it offers consistent home-like stays in multiple cities in Europe. If I were traveling for a short vacation or for business, I would probably prefer something like this over an independent host.

If Airbnb intends to have zero control over the end user experience, I think they will eventually lose out to a player which offers consistent hotel-like convenience with home-like comfort/experience.

> So a major problem for Airbnb is that they don't really own the relationship between hosts and guests.

I don't see how this is a "major" problem.

Well, Airbnb's business model is to make a market and take a cut of each transaction.

If hosts and guests discover one another on the platform but cut Airbnb out of the transaction then Airbnb is losing money.

Losing money is a major problem for a business that seeks to make money.

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