So, PG is a good salesman, and he hit the nail on the head with this comment:

Just wait till all the 10-room pensiones in Rome discover this site.

If you ever read a Rick Steves guide (which are not exactly the scariest guidebooks on the planet -- they're fairly comfortable middle-class NPR stuff) or tour around Europe in backpacker mode you will become familiar with the pension, aka the German zimmer or the English B&B. These are rooms. In pubs, or very tiny hotels, or people's homes. Which get rented out. They are very common, they have been a tradition forever, and they aren't very formal. Maybe you call ahead. Sometimes that doesn't even work. Sometimes you call ahead but then the landlord forgets your reservation. But ultimately you turn up, meet the landlord, get taken to the room, you look around for two minutes, you say "si" or "no" and fork over a night's rent, and there you go. It's not like buying a house or getting married or anything.

Yes, it's a bit more subtle to rent a room than to deal in used books. But it's not that subtle.

Why I think the people on Airbnb are 'cool' is that its a small population that has a lot in common (young or young-at-heart, singles and couples without kids, internet natives, own a macbook, would love to hitchhike Europe while submitting correspond reports for the NYTimes). As it grows, I'm worried that everyone's not going to find everyone else 'cool' on Airbnb.

I wasn't around for the early days of Craigslist, but I imagine it was easy to like people you found on Craigslist because they were probably very similar people to be on Craigslist so early. But now, after scale and popularity, that's gone.

I wonder if Airbnb might lose the 'cool' people edge after scaling.

also money talks in this case. As has been brought up elsewhere in this thread, there is a huge market here for unused space that AirBnB is exploiting. Even cool people like saving/making money.

About the only downside Iv'e experienced so far is that I have to wash sheets all the time (most people stay with us for 2-3 days and since we now have between 70%-100% occupancy thats a lot of sheet washing.

I'm also about to go to Paris and the value proposition of airbnb there is even better (try hipmunk's hotel search in Paris). We are staying in a private entire apartment on the seine with a view of the eiffel tower for about $130 a night.

Lastly, we can have the room available for our friends and family when they come and visit (which is the point of having a guest room in the first place). My parent stay there (for free, of course) about 2 nights a month.

Here in my neighborhood, in Chicago, one can find a room for about $40/night; 15 nights and I already have half my rent. So yes, having a roommate might be less work (but that depends on what you consider "work") but I can make more money renting a room out by the night.

I stayed in like 4 airbn places in SV and learned: 1) That it certainly not for everyone, some ppl just dont need all this fun and pretty happy with avg hotel room. 2) If you think that its not for you, still please give it a try, there is a very serious chance that you will absolutely love it. (I was super skeptical too) 3) I dont pay Airbnb fee on second stay and just contact my 'paid friends' directly. They need to consider this and if its a problem in scale. 4) I absolutely love it and will only stay in hotel in worst case scenario if all my "paid friends" in area cant host me.

That's a really good point. A common theme in Paul's argument is that "AirBnB could be the next eBay." But eBay's worst nightmare is buyers and sellers communicating directly, saving each other money while cutting the company out of the revenue loop.

AirBnB is almost more like a dating service than a marketplace... a 'buyer' and 'seller' who prove compatible with each other will never need to use the service again, at least not in the same city.

I've been out of the travel/hotel game for about 4 years now, but I worked in it on and off from ~'97 through to '07.

It's an industry ripe for a new player to do a Paypal style end run around the traditional banking/creditcard industry.

I don't know whether Airbnb are that player (I'm 100% sure pg and Fred are _much_ better judges of that then I am), but I'm also at least 99% sure that it _won't_ be any of the existing big players (Sabre, Gallileo, Pegasus, MyFideleo, Worldres were the large players I worked with) that revolutionise the hotel booking business.

I'm not saying I wouldn't check hotel deals, but reading honest reviews from people who really stayed in each room, and sometimes getting to half off a hotel works great for me. They are definitely moving into 'high on my list' for travel, personal and business. I'm guessing I'm not alone here.

writing on the wall: https://skitch.com/webwright/rieyj/airbnb-search

Note the # of entire home/apt entries. My guess is that these (with B&Bs, inns, and eventually hotels) will dominate the listings.

ABNB has a challenge with positioning moving forward-- a LOT of people think they are all about renting a room in a stranger's house, sharing a common area, etc. But their growth speaks for itself.

I opted for ABNB literally 5 out of 6 times this past February. All successful.

1. The collective level: are there enough people who trust strangers that Airbnb can make tons of money, and help out those people? It looks like the answer is yes.

2. The individual level: are you okay with trusting some random strangers from the internet? I think you probably should be -- people tend toward decency, overall -- and it's possible to change the way you feel about something with a little effort.