I feel the same way. Some of my fondest travel memories are staying in airbnbs.

But in the past few years, at a seemingly accelerating pace, what an airbnb is has changed.

In the last few years when I've used them, not all but almost all of them have simply been unlicensed hotels run by investor-landlords who aren't present and at best will pay someone else to come meet you with a key, but usually just leave it in a lock box.

Everything feels cheap, and sketchy. There is no personality. You're not meeting anyone, getting local knowledge, living with a local. On the contrary, you're sometimes sharing the same apartment with other tourists.

If I don't get any of the good sides, all I'm left with is the downsides - unpredictability, suspicion from other residents in the building, the plethora of random ways things can go wrong when your host isn't available to help you out 24/7.

I'd honestly rather just pay the extra 20% or so for a basic hotel room to get the same thing but without those downsides. Booking.com or Hotels.com are now the places I go first, before Airbnb.

I'm not at all sure that Airbnb care about this to be honest. They obviously must be aware of it, yet it continues getting more like that, not less. I guess the growth and the numbers from running a cheap unlicensed hotel rooms service is just better than they could get from their original vision. Wish them well, but also wish the old Airbnb was back!

The problem is the old airbnb that you describe would probably cap at a few billion $ market cap. The one with investor-landlords optimizing everything and squeezing out every last bit of profit gets airbnb closer to that juicy $35B exit that their investors are looking for.

Oh I agree, sure. Actually put that in the last paragraph. I don't blame them, business is business, and perhaps there's an argument that the growth enables the marketplace to exist at all because otherwise it wouldn't large enough to be self-sustaining. Perhaps the earlier model just wasn't, was subsidised by VC money, they realised that and just pushed on with what could work.

I've listened to a few podcasts from years ago with the founders and you can hear the excitement in their voices talking about the early vision and what it could be. And it was like that, years ago. It had its own problems, but it really was something truly great that wasn't really easily accessible before at any kind of scale.

I just imagine the founders coming with me to some of the places I've ended up staying, and imagining what they'd think, how disappointed they'd be at what it's become. How different it is from their original vision. They're probably not disappointed with how their business is doing, but for sure, the vision has evaporated along the way to enable this.

In some ways I actually prefer the cheap-investor Airbnb experience.

I recently stayed with a very kind lady at a low rate. I didn’t dislike her at all but I was staying in her house with her and it was just an odd experience for me.

Usually when I get an Airbnb it’s because I know the hotels/motels in the area are a racket and I want somewhere that is cheaper, bigger, and in a better location than the hotels. It’s especially useful and cheap when traveling in a group of 3+. I actually would prefer not to stay with a host who is present because it gives me anxiety.

I feel the same way as you, but Airbnb lets you filter for this when searching ("whole apartment", "one room", etc.). I've been in one where the owner lived in a different apartment upstairs, but there was no sound travel or anything.

The weird cheap investor units I've been in never had the owner around, but there was a lot of noise leakage between guests in different units because the units were low-quality industrial "pods" retrofitted into some warehouse space or something.

> I am a big time traveler.

Awesome example of a major semantic difference depending where you place a hyphen.

Yeah, I had to reread that several times.

In the touristy parts of colorado, hotels and formal condo rentals are pretty much cheaper across the board than AirBnb this year, and it's primarily due to cleaning (followed by service) fees that are often double the cost of a 1- or 2-base night rate that is already often more expensive than the nightly of a hotel. It reminds of purchasing things on eBay back in the 2000s, where the shipping cost would be triple the purchase cost.

How many of these pet peeves are held by the average AirBnB user?

I would guess "none". These are the kinds of complaints that "power users" have because they use websites like tools. Average users don't. My mother would look at the first three reviews and consider that in-depth research. The next time she uses AirBnB, she won't notice re-listings, or removed reviews.

In short, I don't think these kinds of issues are going to hurt their business.

You're probably right about that. I think the average consumer also has fairly low tolerance for mishaps with novel experiences. If they have a bad time in the first one or two stays, the next discussion at Thanksgiving dinner will be about how Airbnb is dangerous and they much prefer hotels and others should too lest they put themselves at risk.

You don’t have to be a power user to want to read reviews chronologically; your mother isn’t the average user either.

This is something I noticed as a first time user.

You don't think removal of negative reviews is a problem?

I usually read the description and judge the personality of the host based on that; I stayed with some fantastic hosts recently, and when they asked me why I booked (it was their first), I told them: great, personal description. Had worked for me as a good filter in addition to reviews.

It didn't seem like the OP was making any kind of claim about those pet peeves being held by an average AirBnB user. In any case, it seems like a bold strategy to fight anecdata with anecdata. To that end, it doesn't look like booking.com has had any noticeable difference in google trends relative to AirBnB.

[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

>It didn't seem like the OP was making any kind of claim about those pet peeves being held by an average AirBnB user.

Definitely not. They made valid points and I was sharing some thoughts of my own.

>In any case, it seems like a bold strategy to fight anecdata with anecdata.

I don't have evidence as strong as anecdata. I am making assumptions.

I almost always prefer hotels over AirBnB-style accomodations, but when I do want a house or something, I use VRBO rather than AirBnB. At least within the US, I find it more to my liking both in terms of booking experience and quality/selection of properties. No idea how it compares outside the US, as I always book hotels when traveling abroad.

And as someone who has lived in a building infested by Airbnbs, honestly, screw Airbnb.

VRBO sometimes lists the same places as AirBnB but cheaper. I suppose that their fees are lower.

> To the point that I prefer booking.com again these days. I would have never expected that to happen.

Interesting. A friend and I were looking for places this weekend and I kept posting airbnb listings, while he kept posting booking.com ones. I absolutely can't stand booking.com's website and we ended up with an airbnb one.

I can't recall many listings I avoided because of reviews. I might just be lucky, but pictures and words usually match reality

> By the way, anybody here using something other then AirBnB or booking.com? Would love to hear if there are other good options to consider.

I usually go with hostelworld.com. I was a bit anxious in the beginning but in the last 3 years I've stayed in more than a dozen hostels and overall had a good experience. For example, there are two lovely small hostels in the Bay Area, one in Marin Headlands and one in Pigeon Point.

>I am a big time traveler.

So who wins in 2020?

We're all time travelers; most of us travel forward at a rate of about 1 second per second.