logoalt Hacker News

blululu • today at 1:21 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

You really take your chances with AirBnb. I have so many stories where I got burned by Airbnb. As a customer they are pretty lousy about handling snafus. From Airbnb’s perspective they are a marketplace so their users and both the buyers and sellers. These two groups interests naturally conflict. They need to balance this tension and they don’t want to burn the renter who make the platform work. That said they do a lousy job of building trust. You can never be sure a listing will have what you think it will and Airbnb does very little to investigate what a property offers. Having a kitchen and decent WiFi is nice, but hotels win in terms of reliability and service and often price.


Replies

SOLAR_FIELDS • today at 1:38 AM

You hit the nail on the head with the problem. It’s not actually that interesting of a problem, it’s classic incentive misalignment. Airbnb is going to continue to not give a fuck as long as it makes them money. And why wouldn’t they? It’s the American way

➕ show 2 replies