alt Hacker NewsYou hit the nail on the head with the problem. It’s not actually that interesting of a problem, it’s classic incentive misalignment. Airbnb is going to continue to not give a fuck as long as it makes them money. And why wouldn’t they? It’s the American way
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blululu • today at 2:14 AM
Airbnb has the incentive to not tank their marketplace and they seem to be slowly responding to the increasingly negative sentiment to their brand. I somewhat suspect that their leadership lives in a bubble that insulates them from how lousy their brand is these days. I’m sure they have thought of lots of things but these would all cost money and require them to admit that their product is basically seen as a sketchy black market with a lot of sleazy behavior.
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I'd argue that it is that interesting of a problem because it gives outsiders (us) insight into AirBnB's marketplace dynamics.
It has long been obvious that many scammy hosts exist on the platform, and it ought to be easy to detect such hosts if they bother to try. Yet, that never happened until now.
So what changed? I would bet that until now they have always worried about having enough inventory to sell, and that now they are noticing they have too much inventory. That changes the dynamics from "be extra nice to those who bring the inventory, and even tolerate a little fraud from them" to "be extra nice to those bringing the dollars".
I do wonder if this is an early sign of a coming recession.