News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Ahead of IPO, Airbnb achieves profitability for second year in a row. Parent comment

Re:Ahead of IPO, Airbnb achieves profitability for second ye... by xiphias2 on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @06:15PM (#18916635)
Peter Thiel was specifically talking about people thinking that the businesses are similar, while they're not. AirBnB has a much higher network effect, because there's a huge difference in the listings, while I don't usually care which taxi company I use.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ahead of IPO, Airbnb achieves profitability for second ye... by paulddraper on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @12:00AM (#18918354)
Not really.

AirBnB has renters and listings. Uber has riders and drivers.

As long as you have enough of the two sides, you can have a rival.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ahead of IPO, Airbnb achieves profitability for second ye... by puranjay on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @01:56AM (#18918803)
But as a customer, your approach to both marketplaces is very different. With Airbnb, I'm far more discerning because a bad host can ruin a long planned vacation.

With Uber, a bad driver means an uncomfortable 45 minutes. Uber can tolerate bad actors more than Airbnb

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ahead of IPO, Airbnb achieves profitability for second ye... by paulddraper on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @11:12AM (#18922042)
That's true, but that just means you the consumer can be more discriminating on other factors, like price.
[ Parent | on HN ]