I recently wrote a few previous posts on this topics:
... and I thought I'd give an update. This was a message from a host that I used (abridged):
First of all I wanted to thank you for leaving the apartment so clean and tidy, I really appreciate it! I just gave you 5-star rating for everything, and I will be happy to see you back in town! If you need any help or support, you can contact me anytime and I am happy to help! I would be very happy if you could give me a 10-star rating as well, because I am very new to the platform and I need your help as well.
I was cleaning the apartment recently and found 10 euros on the floor. Could it be yours?
So...give me a great review and I'll pay you 10 euros, that's how I read it. We definitely did not leave 10 euros laying around.
AirBnb grew too quickly.
Too many hosts, too many guests = decline in quality
AirBnb was great in 2015 or before Now it's a public company
I use VRBO
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Airbnb has became just a scammy business. It totally lost the connectivity with the locals and I honestly do not use it anymore
Anyway, I wish sites like AirBTC wold be more known and used, but they will probably fell in the same trap.
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Yeah, I hear you. I use AirBnB when necessary, lots of places also post their rooms/apartments on both Booking.com and AirBnB.
I remember the good old days for AirBnB. We had an AirBnB once in London, at least 10 years ago. It was a small, really beautifully restored old houseboat, everything was perfect. The actual owner was there to show us around, his proud family was there, we were only the second people who had rented it out, and we had a good time talking to them, and got real tips on where to go, and what to do.
You NEVER experience that anymore. Almost never do you actually meet the host, there's some kind of self check-in set up, which may or may not work well.
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hopefully there are some alternatives coming up, but it will take time to properly compete
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User generated reviews, in general, have a very interesting dynamic to them.
They will invariably skew negative, perhaps overwhelmingly.
Suppose you manufacture something rather mundane and utilitarian....say a toaster. You sell 1,000,000 of them on Amazon. Because you put lots of attention to your quality, you have a failure rate of only 500 units per million produced, giving you an amazing 99.95% success rate.
Now on Amazon....if your toaster actually toast bread, the average user won't be incentivized to write a glowing review....since how exciting is a toaster that toast bread?
However, a toaster that doesn't work, the user may be very motivated to write a negative review.
So, a 99.95% success rate, may translate to 600 positive reviews and 400 negative reviews....for a very lackluster final review stat
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34 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 12 Jul
They will invariably skew negative, perhaps overwhelmingly.
Airbnb skews positive because both sides are expected to leave a review, everytime. The majority of experiences are good.
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like Uber and Lyft
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