
Show HN: A blockchain alternative to Airbnb - Delta0
https://www.cryptocribs.com/?refer=producthunt
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tomhschmidt
Not really a 'blockchain alternative' \-- just a clone of Airbnb that lets you
pay in cryptocurrencies. Kind of a shame when there are other actually
decentralized home sharing platforms like Beetoken, Origin, etc.

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jondubois
The business potential for this one is much greater because people who own
cryptocurrencies are incentivized to use it over alternatives.

If you own shares in a business you're less likely to use a competitor... That
would be like shareholders of Pepsi drinking Coca Cola or Apple shareholders
using Samsung tablets.

That's the reason why cryptocurrency will take over; it lets everyone be a
consumer of the goods and services of their own communities which they have a
stake in.

Every time you buy something with a Cryptocurrency using income you derived
from your fiat day job, you drive up the price... So if you own crypto, buying
stuff using crypto helps to drive up the price. It's a bit like Amway but
everyone is going to be in on it.

~~~
phpnode
> It's a bit like Amway but everyone is going to be in on it.

Is this supposed to be an endorsement?

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jondubois
Well all public companies are a bit like Amway in the sense that they have a
lot of stakeholders which have an incentive to help the company grow. Amway is
a very successful business after all.

I'd say that cryptocurrencies are more ethical than Amway though because they
don't try to make a profit by selling starter kits.

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shafyy
I always ask this for "x in crypto", and I'll ask it again: What important
problem are you solving with this? Or, put differently: Why is this
significantly (i.e. 10x) better than existing solutions?

PS: If my stance is not clear from my comment: I think most crypto-based
startups are not solving a real problem, just adding crypto to an existing
problem.

~~~
yuvalr1
The sole problem crypto currency solves is the problem of centralization.
Regarding the Airbnb case, why would people want to pay the Airbnb commission
when they can have direct payment and bookkeeping using the blockchain?

Of course there are still the (important) issues of disputes, insurance etc.
that are provided by the centralized entity. These might be solved in the
future and might be not.

~~~
adventured
In the absence of a central host, who is hosting the media? In the near future
that's likely to include advances around AR/VR, which will significantly
increase the burden on infrastructure.

Who provides a trusted system of reviews? Who hosts/controls those? What's the
basis of trusting those to be legitimate users/customers? Who foots the bill
for the site (or similar) that enables organized browsing of all listings,
searching, information presentation, et al.? How do you force coordination on
that if it's decentralized? How do you then keep that decision committee from
becoming the central authority all over again? This is the libertarian anarchy
problem, where you will always end up right back with some center power
structure that becomes dominate.

There are a vast number of problems that Airbnb solves that you're leaving
out.

There is no scenario where decentralized wins. The extreme majority of users
do not care about decentralization, it is meaningless to them. They want a
trusted central authority to hold responsible, complain to, sue, whatever.

~~~
janoc
What's even worse, even the payment issue is solved and nobody is forced to go
through Airbnb for that.

There is Paypal, Moneygram, Western Union, there are direct wire transfers, in
many countries you can pay by cheque, you can do a direct deposit ... And all
of these work with your existing cash and credit cards and don't require
knowledge how to set up a Bitcoin (or whatever-coin) wallet and how to use it
and how not to get scammed.

It is literally a solution looking for a problem hoping to cash on the crypto
craze (adding -coin to anything is a sure way to get funded/bought/have your
stock price soar up).

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jitl
Pretty nice looking clone website; very accurate cloning including similar
styling of most widgets. I do like the mono spaced font. Most clones I’ve
checked out really bungle the UX in a lot of ways, so kudos there.

Worked great on my phone.

Nit: Some of the photos didn’t have the Airbnb logo removed.

Are the reviews pulled from Airbnb as well?

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snr
"Our vision is to fully disintermediate vacation rentals and let you explore
the world with low transaction costs."

Do you take a transaction fee? If yes, I don't see how this is any different.
If no, how do you make money?

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akerro
You know there are other CC like ETH, NEO, ARK that have much lower fees or no
fess at all.

~~~
jebeng
I think you misunderstood their comment. They weren't asking about network
fees at all.

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markfer
I feel like you missed a pretty easy name with 'crybs'

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everdev
Just because you can put in on the blockchain, should you?

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nyolfen
it's not even on the blockchain, it's just a different payment method. bubble
hype cash-in.

~~~
Delta0
clogging the ethereum blockchain by putting every little bite on chain doesn't
make any sense

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nyolfen
it also doesn't make sense to call it a blockchain service when it's a web app
with a cryptocurrency escrow service

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rebuilder
How do you deal with disputes and harrassment? Do you offer escrow or support
3rd-party escrow and arbitration?

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brod
on careers page it states: "Competitive salary (paid exclusively in crypto
currencies)".. With that mindset I really hope the actual salary is described
in a fixed dollar amount.

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monochromatic
Nothing better than paying a $20 transaction fee and waiting an hour. When
will credit cards embrace the blockchain benefits?

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icebraining
Is it really a problem to wait an hour or two for renting a place?

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pavel_lishin
Yes, if two people are trying to rent the same place at approximately the same
time. I don't want to wait two hours to find out that someone attempted to
complete a transaction five minutes before I did, and their payment went
through first.

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zubairq
Nice idea. I guess it is appealling to hosts as they don't have to register
with tax and stuff. Is that correct?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _it is appealling to hosts as they don 't have to register with tax_

Fascinating to realise people will go to jail for upgrading a civil dispute (
_e.g._ short-stay and subletting restriction violations) to felony money
laundering and tax fraud.

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bgdkbtv
Really cool looking site! Congrats on the launch!

~~~
Delta0
Thanks man! Lots of haters around today it seems

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equalunique
I am surprised that neither Dash, Monero, nor Zcash are offered as a means of
payment.

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glejhandhesahi
[https://youtu.be/8y1lHRiIS8U](https://youtu.be/8y1lHRiIS8U)

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noomerikal
Is there a need when all the cryptos are yelling hodl.

