Is anyone else bearish on the future of Airbnb?

Airbnb could kill it if they offered an insurance to book you a hotel if the appartment is no good.

My fear in using Airbnb is prebooking in locations that sell out (skiing for example) so that if the landlord cancels or the place is bad you are stuck having paid all the other costs and there is no where else to stay or it is insanely expensive.

AirBNB landlord are probably more ordinary people with lives, not professional hospitality operators so I get a bit nervous.

As a solo traveller (mostly in europe) Airbnb isn't that cheap anymore. I still use it because, the booking experience is far superior to any hotel or aggregator website. But the price and the risk are making that decision harder and harder.

Plus I hate what Airbnb did to my city and I loath using it.

The problem with services such as Uber and Airbnb is that the providers adjust the pricing and the level of service to those of established alternatives. Uber and AirBnB are as expensive as Taxis and hotels, without some of the same benefits.

I don't think you can be bearish on account of the price. The price is set by supply and demand dynamics. If people were choosing hotels over Airbnbs then hosts would have to reduce prices to compete.

I was a power user of Airbnb 10 years ago and used it frequently while working remote. My experience with Airbnb has always been good. I can only assume a lot of the issues people report come from over optimising for price. If you're a little less price sensitive and look at reviews then you can find great places quite easily.

For me though it's not about price. Airbnb offers a different product to a hotel. Hotels are great for short city breaks, but for longer stays (especially if I'm going to be working) Airbnb offers a superior product.

That said, these days I love finding small B&Bs over both hotels and Airbnbs. Hosts are great, rooms are always clean, and breakfast is included for an affordable price.

It should just die. It is one of the biggest causes of gentrification in the cities.

I dislike airbnb so much that I would pay money to make them fail faster.

It used to be great, now it's awful. The cleaning fees are inexcusable and the effect they have on search, making it unusable, is even more inexcusable. Our politicians are awful for not stepping in and forcing airbnb to knock off the poor behavior.

I love the idea of on demand rental of a fully furnished apartment, but the state of airbnb now is just worse than a hotel.

I had a couple quite fantastic experiences in the past, but now they are just awful. I don't even look at them as an option anymore.

I would tolerate 90% of the crap they do, the bad hosts, and the general lack of trust if they allowed searching by total cost/days, but cleaning fees being greater than the per night rate and therefore not part of the cost make it unusable.

It's very expensive whenever I look up. Sure, the apartments/rooms are quite nice and hype and well decorated, but that doesn't compensate the price (nor the fact that anything can go wrong I would be left without accomodation in the last second).

From my experience, Aribnb is still a decent option in Europe. I've never used them in Asia because prices are always significantly higher than hotels, which also offer much higher standards.

Five years ago I noticed all the things you saw and decided to go back to hotels. With hotel chains it’s a consistent experience. With Airbnb it was gambling.

Bigger Pockets created a lot of portfolio renters on Airbnb and created a cult for others to mimic. I briefly had a rental I was sub-leasing from a landlord and in turn renting it out to traveling nurses. Imagine many people doing this with multiple units to sub lease.

tbh I doubt the odd poor experience will kill it. A lot of their experiences are very good. I'm less convinced by their valuation being in excess of distribution players that have more markets, more tech and lot more lockin though. Ultimately AirBNBs moat is only a good brand, and their core market is people that will switch for the same standard of place at a lower price...

(and whenever I've seen AirBNB properties on other platforms, it's been cheaper to book with the other platform)

Whenever I travel, AirBNBs are still much cheaper than comparable hotels.

I suspect it varies greatly between geographies.