What happened to Airbnb?

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 159 points –
What happened to Airbnb?
vox.com

What happened to Airbnb?::Financially, the Airbnb is thriving, but guests, hosts, and cities have had enough.

65

You are viewing a single comment

I do still look for Airbnbs every time we travel because we're a family of 5. Not a lot of hotels will accommodate 5 to a room and separate rooms means twice the price. Airbnb offers a lot more options for a family with the added benefits of a full kitchen and having a place that can actually be a short term home rather than a room with a bed.

Here's the last one we rented: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/794199620391731129

I get that Airbnbs take some homes off the market and in some areas (like mine), that sucks because demand is high and supply is low. But they aren't going to be the reason for a housing crunch. Here in Portland, Maine, we're a small city on the ocean, thrive on tourists, have great restaurants, and are an easy drive to Boston or to ski resorts or Acadia. The housing market has been bonkers for YEARS and it isn't going to change if we ban short term rentals.

False dichotomy. You can rent a villa, summer home, or any other non hotel accommodation outside of Airbnb. We used Booking.com for our last holiday, and the same place we rented was listed on Airbnb but more expensive by about a quarter of the price.

Many of these places list on more than one site, the business is the same, the effects are the same

Of course you can, but those are still short term rentals, so I'm not quite sure what your point is. Mine was that short term rentals are good for some people and probably aren't responsible for housing market problems.

Do hotels not provide an extra cot anymore?

Fire regulations for almost every hotel limits the room to 4. They'll give you a crib but not another bed.

Ahhh, that sucks. I never realized just how tailored everything is to the 'nuclear family'

There are places where we can all squeeze into a room, and we do. It all depends on the trip and what we're looking to get out of it. We don't mind sharing beds and putting someone on a sofa, but it's harder as the kids are all getting into teen years.

“AirBNB is good because I had a bunch of kids but I don’t like paying a bunch of kid prices.”

OP was saying Airbnb still works for some people today despite the many complaints outlined in the article for users.

Maybe 'a family of 5' is two grandparents, two parents and one child. Or another combination. Why are you assuming it's three or more children?

Maybe a big family vacation being a little cheaper for this poster is still a lesser priority to people having homes to own? We can just focus on the part where they want things cheaper for just them and not the makeup of the family.

That's not relevant to what I was saying, which was there's no reason to assume someone has a bunch of kids just because they're traveling with five family members.