Hacker News Reader

There are already plenty of companies in the UK at least that rent furniture and home electrical goods to people who can't afford it

We have those in the states too. The interesting thing is that their business model isn't renting furniture and appliances, their business model is providing credit. They are more like banks than they are rental stores.

We've seen the replacement of a globally fragmented sector with a well funded and executed global technology-heavy upstart before. What did airbnb bring that was new to the party? UX and a marketing budget.

I think they're going for the convenience factor of full delivery/setup, which I think is more or less a distinguishing factor.