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What's wrong with Airbnb?

2023-10-04 18:56:49Biznes SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
What's wrong with Airbnb?
What's wrong with Airbnb?

By Kate Lindsay – The Atlantic

After the wedding in Vermont the next day, my friends were relaxing in a hot tub while I struggled with the trash can. And I cleaned the kitchen floor.

Everyone was chilling at the hotel before heading back to New York, except me and my boyfriend, who opted for Airbnb.

Despite the $95 cleaning fee, we were forced to complete a mind-boggling list of chores before departure.

Something has changed with Airbnb. Those looking for a home to stay in are faced with high prices, additional costs, mandatory works and untrue photos or descriptions on the platform. You risk being stuck like I was in Vermont, in a house that looked nothing like the one advertised.

Not only are customers pissed off, venting their anger on social media, but so are cities. Earlier this month, New York enacted a drastic new law that effectively bans most short-term rentals, resulting in the disappearance of 15,000 Airbnb listings.

The problems of this market increased as it grew. The Airbnb platform was launched in 2008 and is now an industry in its own right. There are managers and thousands of property companies that list their properties there. The rapid increase in quantity has sidelined quantity. Like any tech company, Airbnb has been chasing growth, and it was bigger than it bargained for.

Airbnb's premise seems simple and obvious now, but at first it was a revelation: What if you could make money from that spare room that no one uses, or the empty apartment above your garage? On the other hand, travelers can have a low-cost stay with a manager who can provide a uniquely personalized travel experience. That's not to say that staying overnight on a stranger's couch was ever what Airbnb intended. By 2011, an app originally based in the founders' apartment had reached 1 million nights booked.

Soon, Airbnb became so big that everyone wanted to be a part of it. Initially, people with holiday homes were put on the platform.

Then people started buying properties with the sole purpose of listing on Airbnb. It was obvious; Airbnb turned into a corporation. Since 2015, the number of listings on the platform in the US alone went from 150 thousand to 1.5 million. Now there are Airbnbs that are for specific functions; bachelorette party, photos for Instagram or other topics.

In short, the difference between Airbnb and hotels is becoming more and more invisible. The 'traditional' Airbnb managers are disappearing and are now just companies that have dozens of properties.

So Airbnb looks like a serious and safe business. Those who list properties already have a full time job and contracts with insurance and cleaning companies.

Airbnb's boom has resulted not only in disputes between hosts and guests, but also in broader regulatory challenges. Airbnbs are now functionally more similar to hotels, but they are not subject to the same legal and licensing requirements that dictate everything from cleanliness to coffee machines. In addition to New York City's crackdown, Washington, DC, implemented its own restrictions last year, requiring a short-term rental license and banning licenses for second homes. Los Angeles and San Francisco also require registration, and other cities have imposed other types of restrictions, such as prohibiting managers from listing multiple properties or limiting the number of days a year a property can be rented.

Airbnb is not 'broken'. You can still find a place cheaper and better than a hotel room – especially for families and large groups. Airbnb averages $60 per person, compared to $89 per person for a hotel. But the company seems to understand that something has changed.

In May, Airbnb introduced a switch that allows users to set their search to show the total price of a listing, including fees before taxes, in order to get a clearer picture. And it has also launched Airbnb Rooms, an update to the original "rent a room" model that emphasizes affordability. "We are focused on building new tools that ensure our platform offers stays at competitive prices," the spokesperson said.

What happened between where Airbnb started and where it might end up is a familiar story. It's the same thing that every company that started with 'ideals' and became gigantic has done. "Whenever there's a sector that's potentially profitable, any entity with greater resources can say, 'Aha, I can take advantage of that,'" Erin Hatton, a sociologist at the University at Buffalo who has studied short-lived economies, told me. (gig economy). These events are all signs of an economy that may just fall apart, not because of some CEO decision, but because companies that find success by framing themselves as an alternative outside the mainstream can grow and become just what they wanted to replace. Sin begins when you think you can do both.


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