Airbnb is broken, CEO says – His plans to fix it | Hacker News Reader

Airbnb is broken, CEO says – His plans to fix it

bloomberg.com

41 pointschollida174 comments

I’ve grown to appreciate Airbnb for big family trips (access to kitchens being a big plus).

It’s still very funny to me that the site and app look very good and I constantly see Airbnb design writeups but are UX nightmares. I constantly struggle to change certain fields, find my booking information, figure out what page I was looking at… every year there’s some new redesign that theoretically makes things better but I still walk away thinking I would love the website to just work like a faster booking.com or something (booking.com has its own issues, mainly speed, but at least it’s a list of things)

I agree on Airbnb for big groups. If it's just me or me + a few others, I think regular hotels work best!

It doesn't have to be wild parties but even groups of friends looking for a weekend get-away where they maybe cook a meal or two and hang-out don't necessarily find long-term stay hotels ideal.

The inability to filter by bed types is frustrating. If you're traveling with a group that needs 3 or 4 king size beds, good luck sorting through it all.

I have yet to find a conventional hotel search engine that can do anything of this sort either. Want a 1-bedroom suite? Good luck.

> booking.com has its own issues

Don't get me started on Booking.com!

I booked a hotel last minute, grabbed a pizza, then when I went back to the app to check the hotel's address was greeted with a message that the room was no longer available. As it turns out because I was the one who had booked it, but leading me to think that the booking had somehow failed, despite being previously confirmed.

I booked the next available room (at a higher cost), and headed to the hotel.

When I went to check in, I was told that I had two rooms, but that I couldn't cancel one because it was past the cancellation window, and to contact Booking.com. Booking.com said it was up to the hotel, despite the double booking being caused by their shitty app UX. Wise.com (who I love for transfers, but shouldn't have used for this card payment) were powerless to help.

tl;dr Don't use Booking.com. I'm just glad it was only a one-night stay!

1. Sounds like you went to the hotel's listing page to grab the address, rather than your bookings page. If this is the case, I'm not really sure how this is bookings.com's fault.

2. Even if this is booking.com's issue, if you already have a confirmed booking and then made another one, shouldn't you at least double check that the first one was indeed canceled? Was that done?

Booking.com has been working amazing for me. For single room, 1-2 people, it's been flawless over probably 100 bookings or more over the last few years.

Short term I always use booking since it's less hassle than AirBnB.

Having a kitchen on vacation has been such a life-changer for me! Cooking meals is a big part of how I relax.

People differ I guess. I cook at home all the time. If I'm on vacation, I'm eating out.

....or even small family trips.

Maybe you have a baby and don't want to spend a week giving them pre-made purees. Plus you want a real sink so you can wash bottles. Maybe you have a toddler and don't want to spend a ton of money in restaurants only to find they won't eat anything. Maybe you just have kids and don't want to be spending a ton of money eating out every single meal for a week.

If you want a kitchen, Airbnb is often the only option.

If you want to do laundry, Airbnb is often the only option. Laundromats are few and far between in many areas and hotels charge extortionate amounts.

Or if you just want three beds because you don't fancy your oldest kid sleeping on a cot or a couch for two weeks.

If you're visiting family in a typical residential suburb, instead of some work or tourist destination, Airbnb is often the only option within miles.

> If you want a kitchen, Airbnb is often the only option.

I’m not sure about that.

Large hotel chains will offer predictable apartment-style lodging (I.e. Residence Inn) if you cough up whole-home AirBnB money. I’m looking at one right now in off-season that goes for about 390CAD per night in Downtown Halifax.

University residences also offer suite-style lodging during the summer, and cater to cost-sensitive individuals.

This was a thing for ages before AirBnB went mainstream, who are now trying to convince the populace that it’s their way or the highway.

Residence Inn isn't really the equivalent of a house for a larger group--even if I like it for one or two persons myself. There is a soft-of kitchen but you do have predictability at least even at the cost of more interesting, if less predictable, options. (Which is fine for me in a lot of situations.)

Not all universities around the world do that. Not all destinations are anywhere close to a university.

Hotels that offer a full kitchen, and not just a kitchenette are rare and severely limit your options. I visited Surprise, Arizona, earlier this year. There is a single option with a full kitchen: a Residence Inn. But the only options are a studio or a 1-bedroom. Hope you're not traveling with kids. It does come with a fold-out couch. Yay? The next closest option is another Residence Inn 12 kilometers away...but that one doesn't even have a fold-out couch so for more than 2 people you need to rent 2 rooms. I can't even find an extended stay place in the greater Phoenix area that offers two bedrooms.

Not to mention Residence Inn has 0 hotels in Asia. I live in Asia and apartment-style lodging from large hotel chains is not common. I don't think your experience in America generalises to the rest of the world very well.

In the UX community it is indeed very funny to see AirBNB talk so much about their amazing UX, yet the app is very hard to use compared to something ugly and simple like booking.com. It looks good but it is a nightmare to use.

They change things around a lot, and sometimes they fix one issue, but then add another issue for no reason. I've ended up booking the wrong thing so many times - and even once would be too much for a good user interface design.

My latest pet peeve is that while you can filter by "instant book only" there is no indication anywhere on the UI whether or not a location is instant book. I always book last minute, and places that don't instantly book are basically useless to me - too much drama as to whether or not the host accepts my booking. 24 hour period where I have no idea if I have a place to stay - but I already paid and my money is locked up.

It seems it would be important to know. And they used to have an instant book icon on listings that offered it.

The wording on the booking button is also ambiguous. It says "reserve now" - sometimes this means you can make a booking, other times it means AirBnB will take the cash off your card but you will have to wait 24 hours before you know whether or not you actually reserved anything.

And there's other things also... the UI is dirt poor and we only use it because for long stays when I want a washing machine and so on, sometimes these AirBnBs are literally 10x better than a comparable hotel - it works, in other words, thanks to amazing hosts - no thanks to the poor software.

For family trips it is unbeatable. Big drama and big $$$ to book 2 connecting rooms in a normal hotel, and the experience is much worse than just getting a nice apartment with kitchen, 2 or 3 rooms, washing machine, etc.

IDK how people traveled with families before.

I've always had a few issues with Airbnb -- never knowing if the place I've booked actually exists, the hard-to-navigate app and broken login system, and that one time the "host" kidnapped my wife and Airbnb support told her on the phone that if the police broke the door down she'd have to pay for it. (They did; she didn't. We used the eventual compensation credit to book an Airbnb in NYC which turned out to have not only a repossession bill on the front door, but also a condemned building notice.)

But. I did a work trip last month and stayed in apartments with my colleague. Half of the hotels (even airport hotels!) on booking.com wanted damage deposits up to $500, often in cash. So we exclusively used Airbnb and it was... perfect. The places were exactly as described, no bizarre demands, and the access/lockbox instructions and wifi codes were all in-app. The hosts were clearly all pros, and it showed.

I have unfortunately learned the hard way to exclusively book with "super hosts" unless the listing is very convincing.

That said, it's a great way to find awesome stays in little, out-of-the-way places (my wife and I rarely vacation in large cities or super touristy areas. It is SO MUCH BETTER than staying in hotels- cleaner, quieter, usually with laundry and a full kitchen, and cheaper than a motel.

If we had little kids it might be a different story- through them in a pool is a great way to tucker them out, and a hot tub is probably the only thing I actually miss.

I've had the repossession notice situation (was some apartment building in Seattle and the host had clearly leased out the entire floor and just Airbnb'd the individual units out. He said ignore the eviction notice). Never had anyone kidnap me, thankfully. Can you say what city that happened in? If it weren't for shady hosts trying to just make a quick buck (landlord, but worse), I don't feel like it would be all too bad.

Central London, and a particularly nice bit too. No red flags, until it got all Stephen King.

> kidnapped my wife

So like, what's the full story here?

It's not my story to share the full details, but suffice to say it was wild and makes extremely good dinner party conversation. At the time though, definitely something out of a horror movie.

just a guess from what he said, sounds like she was locked in the apt (what/why she would have to pay for) and that's why the police knocked down the door, and "kidnapping" and/or "involuntarily holding someone (hostage for some material reason?)" might fall under the same law.

Wowah! Never had those sort of 'adventures' on ABnB, mostly very good experiences, though a few places that weren't ready for for a stay (Recently, one I stayed at had a broken shower... I got some compensation, but ti wasn't my favorite experience to deal with). ABnB is still one of my favorite ways to travel, even with its rough spots.

Is there anywhere I can ready about this ABnB host who kidnapped your wife? I am so glad that she made it out safely! Sounds wild, I would think ABnB would be very concerned with this host, not worried about the damages from a police intervention!

> Is there anywhere I can ready about this ABnB host who kidnapped your wife?

No, we've never spoken publicly of it, though I don't remember her signing anything.

> I am so glad that she made it out safely! Sounds wild, I would think ABnB would be very concerned with this host, not worried about the damages from a police intervention!

That was a bit of a surprise too. In retrospect, it's maddening: the gravity of the situation only dawned on us slowly, and no doubt it could have made someone else wait longer to call the emergency services and then... who knows.

AirBnBs are still my preferred travel stay. There’s a lot of negative comments here from people who never used or no longer use it. Here’s why I choose it:

1. Immediate access without having to talk to a human gatekeeper.

My introvert-side loves this, especially after a long day.

2. Beds are great.

There’s a number of standard amenities now for most AirBnBs which is helpful, but I find the beds to be almost as good or as good as my one at home.

3. I can eat at home.

This is a major one for me. I can order the food that makes sense for me, I can cook, and it’s all manageable with an easy kitchen. I’m surprised so many people like hotels given they trap you with no place to store food for yourself & charge you for junk food. This one alone is worth it to me.

4. Hosts are generally responsive to requests for accommodation or addressing issues.

Not every AirBnB is perfect and I rate/review for other travels, in as fair a way to the host as I can. While I’ve certainly had my fair share of places that suck, they were all in cities that were AirBnB hostile. RIP NYC & LA.

Like ordering off Amazon or picking a restaurant off Google reviews, it helps to develop a radar for what a quality AirBnB looks like and how it presents itself. Unlike those sites, I’ve found the reviews to be accurate and helpful in finding the right ones.

While I think the article is fair in its assessment of Chesney’s approach to hyping minor product upgrades, the platform has come a very long way in reliable quality.

Yes. I love AirBnB and the service it offers.

I just like to make fun of the app now and then, because it is overhyped and relatively poor at doing its job. But yeah it could be worse, I would give that app 7 stars out of 10, even though it's driving me crazy at times, and I've cursed it for making me wait 24 hours for the host to accept a booking when I booked for the next day.... thanks to instant book being obscured and not shown on the UI.

Throwing house parties in Airbnb rentals violates the platform’s policies, yet remains a common issue for hosts. “We’ve used machine learning techniques to look at the last billion and a half guest arrivals and see which yielded a party and which didn’t,” Chesky says. “If you try to do this through a human eye, you might not notice any patterns, but AI can look through over a billion data points, find a lot of similarities and create a rule set.

My readings suggest there are human hosts that cancel based upon the high likelihood of undesired guests for reasons not allowed by the platform.

Unless there is a way to guarantee that a full refund is given to the guest (plus 10% for every day before 48-72 hours) I am not interested.

If I was a host - I would like to know that someone would be responsible - apart from "home owners insurance" for any damages resulting from a party.

I personally have never used the service. I do not intend to either because I know at the hotels I do not have to take out the trash or get the last minute cancellation.

For larger groups and families I have used other services where I can communicate directly with the owner. I fail to see the use of a middle-man that has no direct interest beyond service fees.

I've arrived at a hotel to discover that they are over booked and they don't have a room for me. Sure they put me in a taxi/Uber to another hotel, but not the one that I booked, not where I wanted to be, no recourse other than suck it up. This isn't only an Airbnb problem

I'm sure it happens (especially with smaller/cheaper properies) but haven't had this problem with hotels/B&Bs over many hundreds of nights over the past decade.

Where? I have never encountered this over several hundred of hotel stays?

Based on the many dozens of hotels and Airbnbs I’ve stayed in, this is a much bigger problem for Airbnb.

I've had this happen exactly once in I don't know how many hundreds of nights of hotel stays. Yes, it can happen, but it's incredibly rare and not something I worry about.

Something similar happened to me at the Luxor in Las Vegas a few years ago. The only reason anyone would want to stay at that hotel is because of the pyramid, and I specifically booked a room in the pyramid, before which I didn't even know they also had some plain towers next to it. I go to check in, and they inform me that I'm staying in one of the plain towers. When I told them I was only staying there because of the pyramid, they informed me that "we put people in the towers all the time, you're lucky because sometimes we don't even have any rooms at all and send people to another property." And that was the last time I will ever stay at the Luxor.

TL;DR: Fuck the Luxor in Las Vegas.

> For larger groups and families I have used other services where I can communicate directly with the owner

Which are those services and how do they differ from Airbnb?

We almost exclusively use VRBO in the US. We’ve rented places in San Diego every year, and many years places around Arizona for the past 7 or 8 years.

In general, we’ve found VRBO cheaper than Airbnb. In fact we only used them for the first time this year because we went to another country and Airbnb seemed like the best option. Airbnb’s chat interface seemed better than anything VRBO offers, but other than that the experience wasn’t significantly different.

We’ve only had one issue that I can recall. An owner ghosted us on our way to San Francisco and we had to scramble to find a place on our way there (we had a few days as we visited Sequoia and Yosemite). Not having the place we expected in the city meant we had to drive into town to do touristy things when we expected to have our car in a secure garage. Of course our car then got broken into, which is exactly why we wanted a place with secure parking in walking distance to the touristy stuff.

Same with zero problems.

One host asked us to let us know when we would arrive. I didn't respond as it wasn't any of their business and after check in.

Incredible attitude.

Really? I have looked on VRBO several times and never found anything close to what I could find on ABnB, perhaps it is the location or price range I was looking at wasn't as popular on VRBO. I suppose I will have to check them out again some time.

On Airbnb you do communicate directly with the owner? Or maybe directly means something different to you.

Also, I've stayed in many, and only rarely been asked to take out the rubbish. Also...not a big deal.

Phone number. Personal email.

When you confirm an airbnb reservation, you get the host's phone number. One caveat: As long as the host is actually a person and not a property management company.

If someone messages me and asks for my phone number to discuss a possible stay, I'd be happy to provide it.

I'm an airbnb (super)host.

Without the intention of starting a flame war, all the issues I've read so far in this thread seem to be US bound.

I've booked AirBnB's in 5 different countries (Spain mostly, but also Germany, Poland, Thailand and Argentina).

Thailand was 5 years ago, thought, so your mileage might vary nowadays.

Biggest issue we ever had - family trip, mind you - was a booking in Granada last year that was very obviously double booked (We got to it and there were suitcases and clothes everywhere).

One phone call later we were upgraded to a a better apartment in the same building, and the host apologized profusely.

We (GF and I) are AirBnB host ourselves in Buenos Aires, and we strive to provide the best service possible.

Competition has been fierce here as well for the past 12 months or so (Even thought after a little market research I managed to maximize our returns).

Here if you don't provide a good service you're gone. There are no second chances.

Regarding the whole AirBnB matter I think also one of their biggest problems right now is that booking.com is giving them a run for their money.

Customer support is mentioned only once, in passing, in this article.

But imo customer support is a huge problem for the platform. If you have a trip planned around staying somewhere and there's some major disaster, you need to be able to reach a reasonable human being who has the power to help you in some way, immediately.

AI is not going to fix that.

I can’t speak for others but I avoid Airbnb at all costs now. Hosts expecting people to be out at 10 am, check in at 4 pm and clean the place like a maid? No thank you. Cleaning fee? No thank you. It was ruined by unchecked greed, it really isn’t that complicated. I vacation to feel special and hotels make me feel special instead of like some second class citizen/servant staying in someone’s house.

Amen.

Anecdotally, I have mostly stopped using AirBnB because I find hotels to be better now for most situations.

AirBnB hosts who fit the original archetype, people who are renting out their own homes for some extra money, tend to be great. But the ones who use it as a source of real estate revenue tend to be awful.

> But the ones who use it as a source of real estate revenue tend to be awful.

The worst are the ones who have to AirBnB the place because they otherwise couldn't pay the mortgage when they bought it.

Yup, turning home into hotels should never have been allowed. Homes are for people not profit machines.

Renting out a room in a place u live in is all AirBnB should've been for.

Where I live (British Columbia) the legislature just banned short term rentals except for in your primary residence which seems to be a pretty good compromise which most people were ok with outside of slumlords trying to operate 10 airbnbs as a source of income.

You aren’t being made a servant when you’re asked to clean after yourself. If you want a hotel then go to one.

When you pay a several hundred dollar “cleaning fee”, it tends to make you feel a little put out when you read instructions asking you to empty all the trash cans, strip the beds, do the dishes etc…

Ehhh. I’ve seen some pretty egregious cleaning instructions. Obviously it’s wildly subjective, but there’s a line.

I’m totally happy to take out the trash on my way out, or strip the linens and leave them in the laundry area!

Scrubbing toilets and showers, or hand-washing all the dishes I used (both real requirements I have personally seen)? And then charging a multi-hundred dollar cleaning fee? Yeaaaaah, that’s a little ridiculous.

If something is being presented as the equivalent of a B&B, charged a cleaning fee, and being asked to do a full cleaning--yes, I think that's ridiculous. AirBnB isn't presented as couchsurfing or spending a weekend at a relative's house.

The cleaning and cleaning fee issue came to a head and went off a cliff after Covid. To maintain their business, AirBNB wanted to guarantee guests that places had been disinfected. Hosts didn't want to pay for that out of their end, so fees were added.

I moved cross country and around for a time in that period and I ended up staying in many many airbnb's. I was asked to clean up after myself, and I was paying a hefty cleaning fee, and ... and I would walk barefoot in my AirBNB for 5 minutes and get filthy feet, so the place wasn't ever actually being cleaned at all.

I switched to hotels, which were a complete bargain during Covid anyway. Also, if you're living free-n-easy, extending your hotel stay is generally easy; extending your airbnb because you are liking the location, if it's a nice airbnb, nope, somebody else rented it for the weekend.

Also, the whole "5 star rating system" (and this goes way beyond airbnb) where the host gets punished for ratings imperfection, puts a lot of pressure on calling out a grubby but really nice host elderly couple. These rating systems should always be on a curve, 5 out of 10 means average and most of what you are offered is 5 out of 10, pay more to get more, or something.

I remember some the earlier days of airbnb which were days of innocence, friendliness, and unique experiences.

Go on any Airbnb host forum(Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, pick your poison), search “cleaning” or “cleaning fee” then come back to this comment.

Those people extort with cleaning fees, and laugh about it

Hotels are way better stays in most cases.

I'm sure there are some cases where Airbnb is a good solution. I've never really understood where a hotel isn't a much easier option for most. Plus many HOAs have banned short term leases like Airbnb.

I hate HOAs so I'd prefer the city just zone them out of existence. It's ridiculous to live in a neighborhood and have to deal with hotel behavior.

How? You need a legal entity that manages the property and all the governance, financial, and operational issues that go with that.

For me, I almost always pick Airbnb. Basically because it is more interesting. I like meeting locals, I like to experience a different house or apartment or whatever. Hotels are uniformly boring and staffed by, well, boring people.

I've stayed in quite a few shit hotels. I don't think I've ever really stayed in a shit Airbnb, and I'm usually going for the budget options.

For us, it’s a combo of having a kitchen and being pet-friendly. Plus having a bit more living space if we’re staying a few days.

Hotels do a terrible job of catering to families. If you need more than one room, there's no way of telling if the rooms are joined, on the same floor, or if you an get two rooms with an adjoining door.

I've only had one negative Airbnb experience, out of maybe four dozen stays across the country.. The window air conditioning unit was in the closet instead of the window, no big deal, I just put it in the window. Otherwise, I've never had any of the problems described by others.

I like Airbnb, because the places are nicer, and I don't just feel like another brick in the wall as I do at hotels. I also enjoy the diversity of the types of places that I can stay at. From tiny houses to big houses.

I still find Airbnbs useful. My most two recent were: at the low-end (~$50/night) for a room for weekend for my HS reunion; and the high-end - a big, beautiful cabin with a view for a surprise birthday party for my GF with 20 friends. ($450/night). The high-end will vet you thoroughly - as I would expect and would do so myself if I were a host.

They just got hit with a massive funds confiscation in Italy (779 million euros) on account of (allegedly) unpaid taxes. I'm not sure if that was part of the determination of how broken AirBnB is but if it wasn't then they probably should fix that too.

I recently released an AirBnB search engine optimised for large monitors.

Take a look: https://stay100.app

They knowingly facilitate short term rentals in buildings where they are prohibited, until they fix that I don't really care what else they do.

The first time I used Airbnb, I stayed on a living room couch in Hull, Québec for $20/night and this old drunk Québecer, the roommate of host, sat in the living room with us until 4am (despite not really being invited) telling us about anything from his experience working in an Albertan sulfur mine at 15, to his favourite local working girls.

Now when I use Airbnb, it costs $80/night and there are no creepy French people to keep me company. So I would definitely agree that Airbnb is broken.

Airbnb is a blight on neighborhoods and the housing market and the second it's legislated out of existence the better. Fuck these assholes, fuck people who buy houses just to airbnb them, fuck people who rent airbnbs and are noisy and disruptive. We can't turn the mansion into a multifamily house, but we can rent it out to assholes a few days at a time.

I don't want to see hungover strangers making half-assed attempts to cleanup a house they don't give a fuck about when I'm walking my dogs Sunday morning. Fuck off, neighborhoods are for living and for community, not this bullshit.

After being stranded because the lockbox to an airbnb wasn't working late at night and the host wasn't answering their phone I'm sticking to hotels. At least with a hotel you can show up when you want and know there will be someone to let you into your room.

Not in all countries. I stayed at a hotel in Paris and they lock the doors at night. You have to wake someone up if you want to go out. Then hope they are still awake and didn't lock the doors behind you and go to sleep.

The original was in early October and it seems HN hasn't cared at all until now...

Airbnb Is Fundamentally Broken, Its CEO Says https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38007056 (October 24, 2023 — 1 points, 0 comments)

Airbnb Is Broken https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37927536 (October 18, 2023 — 3 points, 1 comments)

Airbnb Is Broken, Its CEO Says. Here Are His Plans to Fix It https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37770529 (October 4, 2023 — 3 points, 0 comments)

Airbnb Is Fundamentally Broken, Its CEO Says. He Plans to Fix It https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37747173 (October 2, 2023 — 2 points, 4 comments)

Airbnb Is Fundamentally Broken, Its CEO Says. He Plans to Fix It https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37736226 (October 2, 2023 — 4 points, 1 comments)

What changed? Any recent news?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com