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Comment by rchaud | Hacker News Reader

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rchaud

What's missing in this article is that Airbnb is actually profitable now. Operating income, last 3 years[0]:

2019 - $(0.5b) (loss)

2020 - $(3.5bn) (loss)

2021 - $0.4bn (profit)

2022 - $1.8bn (profit)

Like with Uber and WeWork, these startups only look good next to market leaders when they have billions in VC capital to undercut their competitors with. Once they IPO, they're on their own, and their business practices start looking suspiciously similar to the bloated, bureaucratic incumbents they once threatened to replace.

[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ABNB/financials/

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They grow like crazy at a loss and then take advantage of their market dominance to strong-arm the prices back up. To be honest I'm more shocked that hotels are still having trouble beating AirBNB prices. When we went to Hawaii we wanted to go to a hotel but the prices for the same view were so much cheaper with AirBNB.

That may be because Hawaii is small as tourist locations go, so hotels may be booked solid already. In many larger tourist destinations, I've found hotels to be cheaper. Not by much, but I will always take hotels over Airbnb.

It probably depends on location, but over Western Europe I'd generally say that if you just want a bed hotels are in the same price range as AirBnB while being much more predictable and reliable, and are available on short notice (booking the room at 11pm in the same night you want to sleep there isn't an issue, neither is checking in at 3am). AirBnB shines when you want more than a bed and a table, or when you want something more unique in local style.

hotels aren't really competing with Airbnb. it might appear that way, but they aren't interested in the same customers, and those customers will get scammed by an airbnb and go back to hotels anyways.

airbnb is for people who haven't learned the lesson about airbnb yet. Hotels aren't interested in competing on price with airbnb because they dont have to.

Most everywhere I travel I've found hotels to be cheaper. If I was willing to go with somewhat seedy motels, much cheaper. This may have to do with me mostly traveling to larger cities, though.

Mind you I need 2 rooms for my family. 2 hotel rooms vs 1 airbnb. I've never seen the hotel option being cheaper for comparable quality.

Marginally less than hotels. We were looking to book a condo in Hawaii for a month this year and the cost was 12-15k for a 1 bedroom with a pullout couch. This ends up being marginally cheaper than a hotel, but generally with a much worse property.

Typical accounting formatting represents losses in parens eg `$(5b)` and profits without, eg `$5b`. So you profit/loss annotations are redundant and your 2022 is confusing.

I've edited it to show the correct formatting.

Airbnb's growth is pretty interesting when put into context of discussions I see about it in my own life and online. The company has gone from adored to reviled, and I myself have fallen back on classic hotels.

However, it seems that their bookings are up 20% year over year, so there must be a disconnect somewhere.

More people using it means not disgruntled people.

The last quarter's results reflect the impact of post-vaccination increases in travel and tourism. 20% up from a Covid-impacted landscape is not that great.

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