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Comment by Scarblac | Hacker News Reader

But it will come at least somewhat at the expense of their core business, surely? An Airbnb with ads looks a lot less trustworthy than one without, I think.

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I already don't trust airbnb because of their random fees they keep applying after actually putting in my information. And their general unreliability when it comes to supporting hosts and costumers.

One tip you may appreciate is to use the Australian version of airbnb (.au), their regulators require them to show the true cost of the rental, including all fees in the headline price.

It operates exactly the same as your regional airbnb once you switch the location and currency. For example, switching to USD and searching for apartments in California

That's an incredibly useful tip. Recommend you post it as an article in its own right.

Depends on how relevant are the ads. I think it augments the business because now businesses are monetizing majority of visitors in some way. It's sustainable for long term if the ads are relevant enough for users to not drop off. Ads and trust are inversely correlated agreed, though looking at Uber and Amazon, I am not sure if that is true for every case. I might be an outlier, but amazon ads after I search for a product are actually quite useful. And probably why advertisers get a good ROI (evident in growth) and users aren't turned off by it (evident in sales revenue). Relevance score for any ad would matter for the company.

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