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Comment by dreamcompiler | Hacker News Reader

Airbnb made the same mistake Google did: They screwed up their core service. I used to be a steady ABB customer but now hotels are almost always cheaper, offer better service, and are more predictable.

Not to mention that hotel websites are typically easier to navigate and contain a lot less React-sludge that makes every click take forever to respond.

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I had this experience too. Booked on AirBnb with someone who was about the same price as the hotels. Turns out the hosts were just employees of some letting company. They wanted photo ID, a deposit, and sign a second contract in a _separate website_, which I declined. Contacting AirBnb support they said this was fully allowed and I should have read the description harder. I did get a full refund but was told it was only because it was "my first time" and I've never had other issues.

I'm glad I turned around and booked with a hotel. It was very personable, good value, and better than what I would've gotten for the same price on AirBnb for that city.

> They wanted photo ID, a deposit, and sign a second contract in a _separate website_

Yup my average airbnb experience in eg Spain is: dealing with an agent, asked to submit all my personal data to some random third party, all other communication done via WhatsApp, and often my number is given to third parties without my consent who spam me with things like offers of experiences/day trips etc

Just note that in a lot of countries, like Spain, the rental or hotel establishments are required by law to collect a lot of your information. It feels totally intrusive, but it's the law unfortunately.

Sure, but I expect AirBnB to handle this. (At least clearly communicate the requirement, cite the relevant statutes, link them, explain them, and help both parties be compliant while respecting users' privacy and hosts' time.)

Also, in places where there are such requirements, someone not following them and requesting the information could be a significant red flag. What other ordinances are they ignoring that could affect your safety or just your enjoyment?

I had some random folks in hostel reception taking full photo with their private smartphone of my id document "for the police", despite I clearly said I do not consent to have a copy of my document taken. Spanish hosts are absolutely shady and sloppy privacy wise.

EDIT. Spaniards don't take it personally. There is a war at the EU borders and there are waves of scams and various predatory behaviours, plus usual organised scams from Balkans, China, and India. Visitors will not be happy about their documents being scanned.

Where it’s the law for the lodging provides to have a copy of ID, you either consent to have them make a copy of your ID or you don’t get a place to stay. You don’t get to not consent and also get a place to stay.

Look up "spanish hotel/hostel fined for copying guest id". They certainly are not allowed to copy documents of EU citizens.

They were fined because they weren’t using the third-party online service that GGGGP is complaining about: https://spanishnewstoday.com/tourism-sector-wages-war-as-new...

They were probably telling the truth. It’s pretty common to have to register hotel/hostel stays with the authorities, and it’s increasingly uncommon to own a flatbed scanner - so what did you expect them to do, pull out a DSLR?

I'd expect them to get the right equipment for them to operate their business instead of having people use their private cell phones to save my photo id to their personal iCloud account and God knows where else.

It's like you're arguing banks should be absolved of using tls because it's just so tricky.

If your business requires you to handle PII I expect you to have the right equipment and processes to handle it.

Identify the guest and write down the details read from the document, that's what most in Europe outside of Spain are doing.

I stayed with a friend in a Balkan country a couple years back and she had to take my passport and that of a couple of relatives down to the police station.

There are too many shady middlemen in the vacation rentals space. I refuse to rent any place that has a separate lease, but they're no longer unheard of.

To some degree, I understand the businessification of rentals - it's uncomfortable for both parties if you're trying to get a grandma to meet you to exchange keys after a late flight. But also, that person-to-person charm is a big part of why people chose Airbnbs in the first place. If it's just an IKEA flip of an old apartment, why bother?

I've actually noticed that my taste in interior design has been impacted. The "pastel and sculpted veneer" aesthetic that took over Airbnb, "modern" coffee shops, and supposedly adult furniture brands like West Elm disgusts me now. I suspect it would have appealed to me if it hadn't been badly copied with shitty materials so many times. Now, I associate it with hollow experiences, poor craftsmanship, and attempts to get me to pay more for a "quality" I won't receive.

Here in Italy the law say that it’s mandatory to meet in person to give you the keys and to do identification, so the grandma should meet you anyway

Of course there are people that still ignore this, but the government has started to crackdown on this a bit, for example some months ago they started removing key boxes on the walls in the street

What city was this booking for?

Not OP but something similar to me has happened in Berlin, but in my understanding this is more due to local regulation which effectively makes "true" Airbnb's illegal and the places that remain on the platform are basically apartment letting businesses

Not the OP, but happened to me in London.

This was in Manchester, UK

any chance this was the "sonder" brand? They have weirdly invasive identity requirements.

Nope, this was CEFAS

I disagree. In the long run there was never a way for individual hosts to compete with hotels on price. Hotels have economy of scale so of course they are going to be better bang for the buck in places where both are options.

I think airbnb is still the better option in many situations - such as when you are willing to pay a premium to be in nature or you going on vacation with 6+ people.

I don't really see how better tech would ever prevent this outcome. Perhaps this disappointing in terms of continual growth, but I think it was inevitable and still provides a good path for the company to be uniquely useful.

The only way to compete against the economy of scale was the original thesis of AirBnB. People were renting out their primary homes to bring in an extra stream of income. It was never going to be mainstream profitable to buy a normal apartment and rent it out on AirBnB.

> It was never going to be mainstream profitable to buy a normal apartment and rent it out on AirBnB.

It was never meant to be. It definitely has been though. Lots of people making much more money renting out AirBnBs rather than using their property for long term leasing. Which has obviously compounded the housing issues most cities are currently experiencing.

Cities ossified to unimaginably bad levels, which clamped down demand for large-scale construction, which significantly contributed to the productivity of said industry stagnating since "forever".

Compared to these structural problems short term tourist rentals are a complete red herring.

I don't think this is material to the user?

Say I own a house and I just rent it out a few weeks a year. Even if it's not a source of income I am still going to price it to the highest amount that people are willing to pay.

> there was never a way for individual hosts to compete with hotels on price.

That way was to skirt laws around obtaining hotel permits and zoning and paying all the relevant hotel taxes and business insurance.

Exactly. Airbnb was much cheaper than hotels when it started because of this.

And better. It was all around a better experience, analogous to Uber vs taxi. But while Uber is still more convenient than taxi, I haven't even considered using AirBnB in years.

agreeing (strongly) that uber is better than taxi, and yet again on price it is because uber skirts the law-- drivers typically do not have commercial insurance etc and also uber subsidized rides for a long time with VC money.

That does not seem to be true:

https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/insurance/?city=portland

>When you earn with a transportation network company (TNC), referred to here as ridesharing, most states require extra—and costly—insurance.

>Uber maintains this commercial insurance on your behalf. What’s covered depends on factors such as who was at fault; whether you were offline, online, en route, or on-trip; and your personal insurance policy. Learn more about the commercial insurance coverage Uber maintains on your behalf below.

This is a very good point.

But I still think it was inevitable that cities caught up, either by restricting AirBNB units or giving in and allowing more hotel construction. There was no path for Airbnb to grow for 30 years without it ending up with basic econmics.

They shouldn’t be competing. Renting out space on AirBnB was supposed to be an occasional thing and not a full time business.

Here in Europe there are a lot of local websites for this kind of group accomodations in nature etc. and often the hosts there are much much more approachable and friendly, plus it's often cheaper than Airbnb.

One big example is Gites de France [1] with 55k listings, which is a 70 year old guide. Most of these aren't anywhere else. It doesn't make sense to look elsewhere when travelling in France. Other countries often have something similar, maybe in a smaller scale. For example there are holiday homes websites in the Netherlands, with close to 1000 listings [2].

[1] https://www.gites-de-france.com/en [2] https://www.vakantieadressen.nl/

> I disagree. In the long run there was never a way for individual hosts to compete with hotels on price. Hotels have economy of scale so of course they are going to be better bang for the buck in places where both are options.

Reminder that airbnb was supposed to be about renting your place when you were out of town, not buying 5 buildings to become an hotel chain yourself...

At least hotels don't ask you to clean the dishes, switch of the fridge and do the laundry before you leave

Shouldn’t it expected that a hotel would be able to provide a better service considering they are doing it in bulk and specialise in it. Vs a bunch of individual untrained hosts.

Seems more like Airbnb ran out of money to burn and hotels lifted their game.

I think it's mostly the fact that AirBnB stopped being outside the law. Once municipalities started regulating them, hosts started paying taxes etc.. they lost the price edge.

In corporate lingo, I think their “core business” is any vacation rental? Partnering with hotels could perhaps have been a viable path for them to grow that and still fit with their business acumen. But I use other platforms for that service now.

What kind of partnership with hotels could they have made that would have set them apart from the dozen options I already have for booking hotels?

There's no need to be super different. AirBnB has a huge userbase, cashflow, reputation, etc... they ought to provide a good search and booking service to users. (And there's all the potential for adding more and more upsell points and value-added services. From flights, insurance, car rental, local activities, museum and national park tickets to ... whatever they are now fucking around with, like fitness and food.)

No, AirBnB just became much more expensive. And it's disguised as processing fees, cleaning fees, etc.

So if I ever take the risk of getting an Airbnb instead of a hotel, then I know the next time I book I'll pay cash directly with the host because it will be that much cheaper.

It's like uber: the bait and switch to a service that becomes less good and more expensive is costing them because the competition survived the first wave.

Also, the regulations caught up with them.

Basically, they wanted to win by scummy means, like a lot of American startup that calls doing illegal or immoral stuff "growth hacks".

Still worked well, they are a leader, but not enough to kill the game, and now they have to fight.

Good.

> ...the next time I book I'll pay cash directly with the host because it will be that much cheaper.

This probably won't work for you. It specifically violates Airbnb's TOS to attempt this, and Airbnb scans all messages between you and the host to ensure that you are not attempting this.

As for arranging it with a F2F conversation with the host, it's been years since I've rented an Airbnb and met a host F2F. That doesn't happen much any more.

The next ones I'll do it and I know it will work because I've been doing it regularly for years. I always get the personal phone number of the host, AirBnB can't do jack about it.

In fact, it's not legal for AirBnB to prevent it in my country.

Between loyalty programs, clearer pricing, and just not having to stress about cleaning rules or weird checkout times, they’ve quietly caught up while Airbnb got distracted

>same mistake Google did

This made me realize that their original strategy was to extract the promise from the fat long tail of their respective supply ("unique experience" for abnb, "relevant search results" for goog). But then the Septembers are apt to become eternal if you can't keep it at a level manageable by humans, like a dang-or-2

From TFA

>I want to be a luchador!” he tells me, then immediately regrets it.

(dang is probably quite great at minimizing regrets a la Jeff, the insta ones most of all)

>Leave it to the subconscious to highlight what matters.

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