
Airbnb to halt all marketing, most hiring as losses mount - aaronbrethorst
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/airbnb-to-halt-all-marketing-most-hiring-as-losses-mount?pu=hackernewsju49op&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock
======
eric_b
AirBnB started out as a great service for travelers. The quality of the
lodging and the prices were, in the beginning, lower than hotels, and had
nicer amenities. Over the years it has gotten worse, to the point hotels are
almost always a better bet in most locales if you value cleanliness or
convenience. Not to mention the negative effects AirBnB has had on the local
economies it operates in.

I'm sure they were already in a tight situation financially and this is the
nail in the coffin. Personally, I'd be happy to see them go. Seems like an
experiment that isn't worth continuing to me.

~~~
78966hh888
I _hate_ using AirBnB. We used it once during an extended stay in Milan and
the apartment was horribly dusty (I have allergies), the maid practically
worthless and the "host" in no way matched the persona presented on the site
(a pleasant looking woman vs the angry man we actually talked to).

But one thing I don't hear complained about enough: Having to share your home
with AirBnB guests.

We live in a luxury condo in a major metro. A number of the owners in our
building are absentee (probably not even in country) and they AirBnB. Nothing
like paying a small fortune for a home and facilities and then having to share
your pool with a bunch of obnoxious travelers who think they're in a fucking
hotel.

We've tried to work with the company that manages our building but it's nearly
impossible to stop, short of policing all of the residents. And it's _illegal_
where we live! AirBnB doesn't give a shit. The offending owners (technically
our neighbors) don't give a shit.

Honestly, I'd love to see them tank.

~~~
mr_toad
> A number of the owners in our building are absentee (probably not even in
> country) and they AirBnB. Nothing like paying a small fortune for a home and
> facilities and then having to share your pool with a bunch of obnoxious
> travelers who think they're in a fucking hotel.

In many jurisdictions it’s illegal to operate residential properties as hotels
for these and other reasons.

~~~
drjesusphd
So what? If AirBnB or the property owners are not held accountable, the law
doesn't matter.

------
hawkice
It would be good if they expanded their COVID-19 response to more trips booked
in advance of the pandemic. I had something booked way in advance, starting
April 15, and they still want me to be on the hook for a stay in a country no
one can legally enter.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
In fairness, I doubt Booking or any hotel would either.

~~~
beart
Unless booking at a special rate, almost every hotel I've ever been at allows
no-fee cancellations (typically up to 24 hours before). I typically stick to
one or two hotel brands so maybe that's why?

~~~
Carpetsmoker
I once accidentally entered the wrong checkout day when booking a hotel (one
day too many); I immediately emailed and phoned them within minutes: they
could not change the date, and had to pay one day extra.

Work was paying, but don't really like spending other people's money, and what
a terrible service.

~~~
lonelappde
What country? I've never seen that in the US unless you booked through an SEO
scam third-party drop-ship web site.

~~~
Carpetsmoker
Ireland, using the hotel's own website. Jurys Inn in Cork, in case you want to
avoid it :-)

------
dang
Url changed from [https://www.theinformation.com/articles/airbnb-to-halt-
all-m...](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/airbnb-to-halt-all-
marketing-most-hiring-as-losses-mount), which was hard-paywalled, and which
The Information has unlocked for HN readers. Thanks!

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22the%20information%22%20unlock&sort=byDate&type=comment)

------
DavidChouinard
See the full list of which companies are freezing hiring:
[https://candor.co/hiring-freezes](https://candor.co/hiring-freezes)

------
chrisco255
This oncoming economic recession is going to be deep and severe and we'll be
living with the repercussions of shutting down the economy for many, many
years. Lots of domino effects are in play.

~~~
tjr225
Its as if running an economy on margins this thin is unsustainable. Maybe we
should pay the government a little more to put some extra money aside so we
can avoid this in the future.

~~~
votepaunchy
> Maybe we should pay the government a little more to put some extra money
> aside so we can avoid this in the future.

Forget a rainy day fund, we’re $23+ trillion in debt with $100+ trillion in
future obligations.

~~~
sailfast
On the plus side, US revenue / GDP figures are also pretty large so that’s not
too insane of an obligation. One day we’ll get back level, perhaps.

Also on the plus side: at this point money is construct and it doesn’t much
matter how much debt you’re in, provided there is not too much money to be
inflationary (not gonna happen in a depression) and there isn’t so little that
liquidity dries up and there’s a panic to withdraw what’s there. So... queue
the magic money machine for a bit until we can get this sorted.

~~~
mr_toad
> US revenue / GDP figures are also pretty large

They just got a lot smaller, and tax revenues with them.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
For a few years. It also costs the US next to nothing to borrow money at the
moment. Yields on 10 and 30 year t notes are on the same order as long term
inflation targets.

~~~
lonelappde
Are those numbers pre or post pandemic?

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
Post-pandemic. Current yield on the ten year t-note is 0.65%.

------
tim333
Airbnb is a cool website to connect renters and letters but I wonder if they
really need 7,000 people to do that?

------
ijpsud
@aaronbrethorst I think this post was caught in some sort of spam filter.
Might want to post it again (or somehow contact mod?). I asked about it over
here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22707640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22707640)

Edit: Looks like @dang has replied and un-blocked it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=22708065&goto=item%3Fi...](https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=22708065&goto=item%3Fid%3D22707365%2322708065)

------
sershe
That would suck. Airbnb is great if you need housing in a weird location with
no hotels (e.g. walking distance from something in Santa Clara), it's great
for extra privacy (e.g. getting a TH in a quiet area in Europe away from both
your loud hotel-mates and the loud tourists outside), it's great when you just
want a bed on the cheap (everywhere; why pay for a hotel and its overhead when
I need a place to store a backpack, shower and crash 8 hours a day). It's also
great for weird places if that's your thing (I love it when they have a dog
you can play with; sometimes there's house cooked meals; I actually once
stayed in a house where the listing explicitly called out that a cat will
likely come to your room and go into the bed :)). Oh yeah and places with
assigned parking with no obnoxious valet system and parking charges are great
everywhere.

The only inconvenience is usually the key hand-off, but private places usually
have lock boxes these days, and shared ones have people living there.

The secret is never staying in airbnb-s that look like they are run like a
hotel.

------
mlonkibjuyhv
As a part-time host the worst part about AirBnB handling of this is the full
refunds to all guests. They have made it very clear we are in a completely
one-sided relationship, and I can't be alone in my reaction to this.

~~~
lonelappde
There are more guests than hosts, and guests think that's the best parts. If
your hotel is a legal business, you can get a bailout from the government.

------
georgeburdell
What a really amazing turn-around from a few months ago. AirBnB was lauded as
one of the few unicorns that were actually profitable and doing a good job
justifying their valuation. With that said, they were a bad faith actor in
many cities and caused rents to go up significantly [1], so I'm not sad
they're taking it on the chin.

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/garybarker/2020/02/21/the-
airbn...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/garybarker/2020/02/21/the-airbnb-
effect-on-housing-and-rent/#22c2361f2226)

~~~
amiga_500
Many? Can you name a city that they didn't exploit regulations to get an edge?

They just marched in and started setting up illegal mini-hotels. When this
blows up I'd love to know how that came to pass. Did every mayor in every big
city really just decide not to act? There has to have been carrots and sticks
here.

~~~
krrrh
It increased the value of homes, and homeowners have more political power than
non-homeowners in most American cities just by numbers.

~~~
amiga_500
Most home owners hate airbnb in their area, so I disagree.

------
JMTQp8lwXL
This is unfortunate for the folks at AirBNB. As someone who specializes in
front end, I've admired their user interface and it is clear they have
talented people.

~~~
xiphias2
I see the continuous improvement in the frontend as well, but when I'm looking
for a place to rent, trust issues are my #1 problem, not the usability of the
UI.

There are lots of properties with 0 reviews, and I see that multiple
properties are managed probably by the same management company. It's just a
sad situation when a nice owner of a nice apartment hires a bad management
company, and AirBnB can't solve this situation, as I would love to stay in
that place, but I'm scared of the hidden problems.

~~~
nojvek
AirBnb uses a lot of dark patterns. The price you see on the UI can be 50%
lower, because cleaning fees and other taxes add up very fast. You can't even
compare two listing and get an Apple to Apple comparison.

Their customer support is hopeless, I've lost money on two stays where I
wouldn't get a refund because the listing was inaccurate (smelly and bad
hygeine).

They have to learn from Amazon. I know Amazon has terrible practices for it's
workers but as a customer, I can't think of any online company that comes as
close to their customer obsession. I can buy anything with prime label, its
delivered quickly and I can return it if I am not happy for any reason.

This is what I want from AirBnB. A very generous refund policy, and
transparency in its listing + pricing.

~~~
kevindong
> AirBnb uses a lot of dark patterns. The price you see on the UI can be 50%
> lower, because cleaning fees and other taxes add up very fast. You can't
> even compare two listing and get an Apple to Apple comparison.

That's kinda normal even for the various hotel booking sites/chains. They
almost universally display the average pre-tax/fees price per night. The issue
is that taxes and resort fees (which are in of themself very, very bullshitty)
frequently make up a meaningful portion of the total cost (double digit
percentages) so you still get sticker shock when you click through and get to
the checkout screen.

~~~
lonelappde
Most hotels don't have "fees" piled on. A few scammy places have mandatory
amenity/resort fees not in the price. None have "cleaning fees".

Taxes are additional but not vendor specific.

~~~
kevindong
> A few scammy places have mandatory amenity/resort fees not in the price.

I'd argue that most hotels in major metro areas now have resort fees.

\---

But yes I do agree that hotels don't have cleaning fees nor service charges.

------
yalogin
I have tried using Airbnb for accommodations in the last two years and always
found them to be considerably expensive than a decent hotel. So never used it.
I am beginning to think Airbnb could be just for a niche set of users.

------
Digory
I’ll take 4 boxes of Trump cereal and 3 boxes of Biden cereal, please.

~~~
lonelappde
The audience here is too young for that.

~~~
Digory
It was worth it! Though, if the HN crowd doesn't remember that story, I'm not
sure anyone would.

------
FriendlyNormie
AirBnb forces you to agree permanently to automatic withdrawals If you ever
book using PayPal. Yesterday I noticed they had randomly withdrawn over $500
from my PayPal account over the past two weeks. I haven’t booked a stay with
AirBnb for months, and their support refuses to acknowledge that it happened
and doesn’t answer any questions. How convenient that this “mistake” happened
just as they are running out of money. I wonder how many other people have
experienced this “mistake” from AirBnb recently.

~~~
osrec
Wow, that's crazy. Are you still unable to get your money back?

------
sowbug
If I lived in an apartment building and for whatever reason couldn't take a
videoconference in my home, I'd be interested in borrowing a neighbor's clean
and quiet living room for the duration of the meeting. A micro-Airbnb or a
nano-WeWork. With proper precautions, this could probably be done without
risking infection.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
Isn't this Peer Space?

~~~
sowbug
I'm not familiar with that one, but I just heard on the radio about something
called Covid Care, which is more what I had in mind. Of course you wouldn't
want to encourage people to be walking around knocking on doors asking for
random things right now. Online makes more sense. So that might be an
opportunity for an online but only super-local forum for things like help
taking a meeting because your kids are bouncing off the walls.

Maybe that's Nextdoor or Craigslist. But those aren't sufficiently local to
reach only the 100 or so people who live in your apartment building.

Judging from the downvotes, this isn't a need that resonates with many people.
But it does seem that this new situation would be a little more tolerable if
people actually could communicate with the person who lives down the hall. Yet
right now it's not safe to introduce yourself (at least I wouldn't open the
door if someone knocked; I'd just talk through the window, which wouldn't make
those introductions very comfortable).

Edit: looked up Peerspace. That's more formal. This is more like "anyone mind
if I do a videoconference in your living room for 30 minutes? My kids are
doing their schoolwork and we don't have a place to move them" and
broadcasting it to just the couple hundred people who live in your building.
Same idea but residential for WFH rather than B2B.

