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Comment by shock-value | Hacker News Reader

Can someone explain what if any differentiators or advantages AirBnB has over its actual or potential competitors? What's their moat?

I recently rented a house for a weekend which was listed on both AirBnB and VRBO. I looked at both listings to get a more thorough feel for reviews etc. After a few days of contemplating whether to select this particular property, I ended up booking it on VRBO and I don't think there was even a reason why I picked one site over the other. If a butterfly had flapped its wings in China I'd have picked AirBnB.

I don't recall the user experience being much different on either site, and it seems like any property these days gets listed everywhere, so why is this particular market and AirBnB in particular such a darling?

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Airbnb has more places because Airbnb has more people because Airbnb has more places (and so on). It's basically the same moat as Facebook. It works better than Uber, I think, because Airbnb is much more travel-oriented so it's hard to have a local competitor (who wants to install an app for every city you visit?)

VRBO can theoretically compete by being cheaper but comparison shopping between apps is a pain (there's no kayak or google maps aggregator).

I was looking into this as well. The main difference between the two is user acquisition. Airbnb is doing no marketing right now and vrbo is doing lots. Also 46% more of their users go directly to Airbnb.com versus Vrbo. So you can run the exact same business but if one doesn't need to advertise and the other does it can make huge differences to the financials.

It’s the same moat that Coca Cola has over a Panda Cola, Virgin Cola and supermarket colas. It’s everywhere, it has name recognition and for many people they have used it and it worked for them, so why risk using another option?

Also even though I know Airbnb isn’t perfect, I understand at least some of its weaknesses and how I can mitigate some of the risks. With a new service I’d be starting from scratch.

The trust network? You have a rating history of the renters, not just the merchants. It wouldn't be the same if people starting renting at these properties via Booking. If you never rented before (I'm guessing this is true for you?), it's still the case that you will establish a history and that you would be incentivized to behave differently because of it.

I've always found this bizarre. In my anecdotal experience, and that of almost everyone I know, most people agree you cannot trust AirBnB and it's very obvious they have a financial motivation to lie to you. Their reviews have similar issues of misaligned incentives as Yelp, Glassdoor, Amazon, etcetera.

https://qz.com/410264/you-should-never-trust-an-airbnb-revie...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-host-...

As a product I prefer everything about AirBnB to hotels except for the fact that I don't trust AirBnB at all, so I never use AirBnB unless I have to.

I agree there are reasons to not trust these reviews at face value, but to say you don't trust it all seems extreme. You're saying reviews have no value whatsoever?

On AirBnB I don't trust them at all. I've personally seen bad reviews removed, "good" reviews edited, and pressure tactics to increase "good" reviews. And unlike Amazon, Glassdoor, Yelp, there aren't enough reviews overall that I can try to figure out which ones are real and unedited.

Ratings are all worthless because they are not anonymous. Nearly every rating is 5-star; anything less makes the reviewer a target for harassment.

AirBnB won because they made a slicker website, advertised more with their VC money, ignored the law, and spammed Craigslist until they built up a larger network.

> If a butterfly had flapped its wings in China I'd have picked AirBnB.

Some theories think that sequence of events and experiences that led to your decision, along with all states of all butterflies in the wold at the moment, that sequence was predetermined at the moment of the big bang (and likely before it too), just like position of billiard balls after the strike is predetermined before the strike if all forces and angles of the strike are known.

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