

Airbnb (YC W09): The Rise of the One-Room Hotel - robg
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/11/the-rise-of-the-one-room-hotel/66439/

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racecar789
Airbnb does run a risk of pushback by state/local governments. Cities create
residential/business zoning for valid reasons. Airbnb disregards this zoning
and turns every house into a potential hotel.

Nobody likes living next to a rental property.

That said, still a very ingenious idea and I wish them the best.

~~~
spaghetti
Hopefully state/local governments will realize the potential increase in
tourist spending that Airbnb makes possible. I paid $X for a week of lodging
via Airbnb. The equivalent hotel would have cost easily 3X. So now I've saved
2X... and since I'm on vacation I have no problem just spending 1.5X on purely
fun stuff (restaurants etc). Also note that having to pay 3X for a traditional
hotel would strongly discourage me from going on vacation all together.

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robg
Dear esteemed HN Editor,

Why add the YC branding to the title? If anything, the branding adds a weird
reason to read the article. Without, it's simply an interesting idea in which
a YC company is winning. I like the latter much better.

~~~
c2
Don't forget one of the side functions of hacker news is advertising for YC.
There's a reason hacker news is news.ycombinator.com and not it's own separate
domain.

~~~
pg
Actually we originally intended to put the site at startupnews.com (when it
was called Startup News), but the guy who controlled the name wouldn't let us
have it. That turned out to be very fortunate, because if the site had been at
startupnews.com it would have been much harder to change the focus.

~~~
jackowayed
You've had really good luck with people refusing to give you names.

(Viaweb was originally called Webgen, but another business was already using
that name (and had the trademark, I think). They offered the other Webgen
something absurd like 5% of the company to let them keep using that name. They
said no, so they changed to Viaweb. I think Viaweb is a better name, and it
almost certainly wouldn't have made them 5% more successful if they had been
called Webgen.)

~~~
pg
Yes. More generally it's remarkable how often not getting something you wanted
turns out to be for the better. Perhaps because improving your situation often
also constrains your options, and we undervalue lack of constraint because we
underestimate how much things could change in the future (or how mistaken we
could be now).

~~~
jamesteow
I think of it as providing more options. When one doesn't get what they want,
they are usually forced to look into other different options, which
subsequently provides alternate futures that they possibly never predicted
because they were so set on a future dependent on the 'something' that wasn't
acquired.

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SriniK
Really like Airbnb hack for hotel system. I haven't used the service but
following comment from the article makes sense. Does Airbnb have any process
or protection to avoid this?

 _There's always the danger that something bad will happen to someone who
rents a room, touching off a Craiglist-killer-like panic._

~~~
dave1619
I'm also curious what protection or approach is taken to avoid bad things
happening to single females renting a room through Airbnb.

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spaghetti
I'm standing in a beautiful cottage I reserved via Airbnb right now. Using
Airbnb has been a great experience and I've recommended it to about a dozen
people so far. Keep up the good work!!

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makmanalp
The hotels lobbying against airbnb and its likes in NYC comes off as cowardly
to me.

Yes, there are health and security concerns and yes, they can be addressed by
some common sense procedures such as checking ratings before you go and
sending a friend the address of where you're staying, and maybe let them check
in on you by phone if you're that paranoid.

Furthermore, the "craigslist killer" was also suspected to have been involved
in three cases of assault and murder in actual, major hotels: Westin, Mariott
and Holiday Inn based on similar criminal characteristics. Prosecution was
stopped when he committed suicide. Crime can happen anywhere. Also, have you
never heard of bedbug cases in hotels?

Viva creative destruction.

~~~
wait
If you're talking about the bill that makes something like Airbnb illegal,
their founder commented on it during StartUp School. If I remember correctly,
he said that the bill was in response to people who would buy apartment
buildings and use all the rooms to make them into an unlicensed hotel.

They talked with the sponsor of the bill and he said that they wanted to work
with each other, or something to that effect. I haven't looked into it any
more than watching his talk, so I could be wrong.

That's not to disagree with you, though. I find it a cowardly move, as well.

