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Comment by sholanozie | Hacker News Reader

I feel this way about AirBnB as well.

I'd wager that most AirBnB stays are one-offs on vacation. Home cleaning is recurring, making it more vulnerable to the "here's my phone number" weakness.

Agreed, but also I want a business with a name worth protecting to be on the hook when I have a room booked, not just some homeowner.

AirBnB's that business now. They used to claim they were only a matchmaking service and any risks were to be worked out between the homeowner and renter, but after some really bad publicity c. 2011, they've really doubled-down on customer service and insurance. Everyone I've known whose had a bad experience with AirBnB lately has had it turned into a good experience.

"Everyone I've known whose had a bad experience with AirBnB lately has had it turned into a good experience."

Minor nitpick on this... it's doubtful that it 'turned into a good experience', as much as "AirBnB was able to compensate, monetarily or otherwise, for the bad experience (which still exists)".

The difference with AirBnB is its usually a one-off situation rather than an ongoing relationship.

If you use AirBnB to visit NYC once every 3-4 years, its a very different situation than someone coming to clean every 2 weeks.

AirBnB goes to a lot of lengths to make sure you at least have to book through them the first time. They filter out phone numbers and email addresses in messaging, even if you try and get clever (like spelling out phone numbers).

You can split them into two numbers which look like zip codes (in the US anyways).

555-123-1234 would become

"55512

part 2

31234"

I've done this to get around the issue when trying to get in touch with the property owner.

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