Airbnb's struggles go beyond people spending less. It's losing some travelers to hotels.

I stopped doing airbnbs a few years ago. Hidden fees, unreasonable rules and requirements. And now more expensive than most hotels. They just are worse now.

I had a bad experience on AirBnB. Had tickets to see a band downtown Asheville. Labor Day Weekend. Found an airbnb in walking distance at a reasonable rate. Booked in April. Day before the stay, got a notice the host cancelled. No explanation. By that point it was $400 a night before taxes and parking for a hotel room downtown. Wound up not going. Ruined my weekend. Never again.

I’ve stayed at my share of Airbnbs booked by others, but never really enjoyed the feeling of sleeping in some strangers house. Also, disliked the impact of airbnbs on local housing markets. The idea of replacing long term housing with short term housing is completely stupid from a public policy perspective and a great way to ruin a city.

Additionally, I like being a customer, and anonymous. I don’t want to be rated by the host. I don’t want to be judged on whether I put my own towels in the washing machine before I checked out. If I’m paying, that shouldn’t be my damn job.

Also, airbnbs are random. Some are good, some are awful. Some hosts are fine, some are a bit too much. Hotels do vary, but on the whole, the experience is much more consistent.

AirBnb is just a pain in the ass that hardly saves you money anymore. It's often the same.

You want nice clean sheets, fresh linens, and nice amenities that go with it? Get a hotel.

You just absolutely have to have a home or flat vibe? Well be ready to do apartment laundry, sweep and vacuumvand make the beds and clean all the dishes and only enter and exit between these hours because the keypad doesn't recognize you otherwise...

Greedy fucks ruined AirBnB because the company encouraged it and let them do so. And then fucked over the guests too many times. And now I'd rather stay in a reliable location than deal with the absolute hassle of their company or their company's shitty clients.

Good riddance.

That's odd. Do people not want to pay hotel prices and a "cleaning fee" and also clean up the place before they leave? Or is it like they want to show up and the room they booked actually exists?

AirBnB is a great idea that turned to shit because of greed.

Someone wants a platform to rent out...

• Their cottage when they're not using it or lending it to family or friends
• Their home while they're away on vacation
• A room in their home to run as a Bed-N-Breakfast

Great. Marvelous, even.

But then people realized that they could make more money from a property by AirBnBing it out rather than renting it out. So people start kicking out tenants and buying up properties to turn housing into AirBnBs, and often in areas that were already experiencing cost-of-living issues for locals.

From there, I'm guessing that AirBnB started trying to take a bigger slice of the pie, and "Hosts" started passing on the costs to "Guests". At the same time, "Hosts" wanted more money with less work, so "Guests" started getting cleaning lists so the "Hosts" wouldn't have to pay cleaners -- just someone to come by and make sure everything was done, and call a cleaner if it wasn't (and charge the "Guest" for it).

Enshittification hit AirBnB hard...and in turn, living within driving distance of anywhere tourists would want to be also got enshittified.

Good.

That describes my family. We've done Airbnb and VRBO, but now pretty much stick to hotels. You know what you're getting, price is competitive, to bdint have to wash your own bedding, and a lot of hotel workers are unionized. That's all in addition to the awareness that every Airbnb house could be a home for someone who needs it. I won't be sad if the Airbnb model folds and helps the housing market regain a bit of sanity

Airbnb was great when it all began, but now it's overrun by corporate vultures that buy up housing and turn it into illicit hotels. Not to even mention, it costs about the same as a hotel these days and I've never stayed in a hotel that gives you a chore list.

Hotels are pretty nice. They come to make up your room, they have a nice person at the front desk to help you out with any issues, and they will usually have a breakfast option or at least some free coffee.

Airbnb has a lot of potential downsides: from cleaning and fees to broken stuff and hidden cameras. I've been in a few situations that have been weird to put it mildly.

Sometimes weird can be fun, but if I just want a clean bed and a reliable experience, I go to the hotel these days

I was solely airbnb for years, down to literally nothing now. Won't even search the site anymore. Many reasons articulated by others, but just a pure garbage company and garbage "homeowners" who are mostly just vc conglomerates and bs fronts now - last time I looked, I saw a listing that was overpriced, but I was going to do it out of last minute need...

Host was named Miranda and showed profile pic of a smiling younger women. Listing text was written in her voice. I had a specific question that I sent and received an odd, cold form response, not in her same tone. Then looked and saw that Miranda owned most every property in this beachfront area? She looked pretty young, but okay, good for you. Looked further and found that "Miranda" was actually just the name of a property management group. That wasn't her in the profile picture, she didn't exist. She wasn't going to answer my question, she didn't give a shit, because she was... not.

Fuck you in your stupid greedy faces, hotels will do.

Airbnb has been in a race to bring the worst of the tech industry's profit consuming corporatism (no phone number, horrid customer service, lots of rules that nobody follows, privacy nightmares) to an industry that focused on hospitality - by definition a high-touch service - and we are all worse off because of that.

I'm not paying more money to get no-breakfast, and have to do chores, and have a 15% chance of crazy owner, and a non-zero chance of it being a scam, and have AirBNB corporate give me the run around.

Airbnb is a fine example of a sort of variation on enshittification.

The way it works is a new company with a new and notably cost-effective way of doing things comes along and is unsurprisingly wildly successful. And then, inevitably, that leads to them hiring a whole raft of executive parasites who all have to be paid obscene salaries for doing nothing of any real value, which means the company needs to raise prices and cut back on services in order to generate more profit to pay those salaries. And meanwhile, the new executives, with nothing of any note that they actually need to or even can do, but with a need to create some illusion that they're necessary, have pointless meetings in which they propose and wrangle about and eventually approve and implement new policies and new plans that are generally awful.

And pretty quickly and not coincidentally the new company ends up at least as bloated, mismanaged, overpriced and under-performing as the companies they so recently replaced.

See also: Uber, DoorDash and the entire streaming industry.

I stopped looking at ABnB a few years ago. It stopped making financial and quality of life sense. The costs became nearly equal or greater than that of hotels I cross shopped.

The hassle though is what really killed it. The inconvenience of dealing with a host that was not on-site and often not available to deal with issues plus the long list of chores required and the potential penalties of not following them perfectly just made it not worth doing.

Airbnb is expensive. It also is often awkward, I always seem to get places where the owner wants to give me a tour of the place when I show up. Checkout time is always a massive stress, trying to figure out where the outside bin is, how to start the dishwasher, and remembering to return all the furniture to it's original position, lest we break a rule and lose our deposit. You don't get mini bars or room service or daily housekeeping, and you have no idea if the host is secretly keeping tabs on you somehow. It's just so much more work to stay at an Airbnb than a hotel, with none of the cost benefits as a trade off.

The other week we stayed at a Hilton and I checked in and out without speaking to a soul (via the app). It's a no brainer at this point.

they should be paying hotel taxes.

I was only ever interested in these company's services as a way to save money. They are no longer cheaper than a hotel, so I would rather stay at a hotel.

my best stays have been apartments... my worst stays have been in apartments.

you kinda dont know wtf you are going to get, especially on airbnb where the reviews are bs folksiness "the host is amazing, thank you so much" garbage. reviews on booking.com are much more reliable and brutally honest.

hotels maybe meh, but they are far more reliable and you have a better idea of what you are getting. a "serviced apartment" is ideal, but often $$$.

i very much understand that airbnb's sterilise communities and drive up rents. taxing the fuck out of them would remove a lot of the slum lord garbage from the market but keep the option there for ppl really want that.

I don't see the problem honestly.

Sometimes we stay in hotels, sometimes short stay rentals - it depends on whether we want a kitchen really.

I've never encountered a chore list - not one time. I'm sure they exist but they're not the norm here.

The whole point of AirBnB was that they were cheaper than hotels, but you had to clean yourself.

Now it’s just as much as hotels with shittier service.

It's as if people don't want to pay to be personal maids of hosts.

I won't use them again. It's morally questionable to support that business model during a global housing crisis.

It's funny - I'm often in charge of booking the stay for large family get togethers and trips, and I exclusively used AirBnb. However, after using their service for 6+ years, they ended up canceling a reservation I had had for months THE NIGHT BEFORE OUR TRIP. I didn't even realize they had canceled on me til our plane had landed.

Turns out, they suddenly had a problem with a misdemeanor I had been charged with 8 years prior when I was 20 (minor possession of marijuana). They disabled my account and said I couldn't rent through them anymore because of my criminal history. I reached out to them and offered an explanation, as well as reminding them that this was an old conviction of a minor drug possession. I don't have a criminal record beyond that, and had been an avid customer of theirs for many years with raving reviews. They still denied me, and I'm still banned to this day. So yeah, they can go fuck themselves.

The main Airbnb value proposition was trading some of the conveniences you get at a hotel for a significantly cheaper room.

When they are roughly the same price as staying in a hotel, why would you choose it?

An extended stay hotel is predictable and more than good enough. AirBnB has a consistency problem. To include pricing and hidden fees.

it costs more and offers less than hotels, landlord motherfuckers are asking me to do their chores for them plus pay for electricity and tip them for cleaning their own house i am paying for, to share with four other people?

take out your own fucking trash.

and the service fee for paying airbnb directly is almost up to 15%.

no goddam way.

this message brought to you because of the assholes who sent me "so you know" messages about trash days and cleaning products.

I usually travel by car and with my dogs out of necessity.

Airbnb is the most cost-effective when you need a room that allows dogs.

Airbnb in North America is awful. More expensive than hotels, often dirtier, greedy hosts try to offload their own expenses to tenants. Hotels all the way!

Oddly enough though, when my wife and I went to Japan, it was the opposite. All the Airbnbs we stayed at were much more affordable, way cleaner, and the hosts were incredibly kind and respectful. The hotels we stayed at were average. Not sure what’s keeping the service so nice over there, or if we just lucked out at 3 different places

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The new requirements to be verified, even with over a decade of perfect review is astonishingly dump. I just stopped using it.

TBF, almost all of this applies to VRBO too.

Never stayed in one and I never plan to.

AirBNBs are not hotels. I guess that should be obvious, but my sister booked one for her family and me to attend a wedding. They technically did have an iron as claimed, but it was broken and the steam setting didn't work. Oh, and there was no ironing board, which it turns out is pretty key to the process. Every single hotel in the country has this basic amenity... Spent twice as long trying to iron on the top of the dryer, burned my slacks (ruining them), and I look bad in photos.

Airbnb doesn't protect the tenant enough.

I've been charged for a locksmith because the instructions state "leave the key on the table" but the dumbass landlord doesn't have a spare key.

I only find it helpful for renting homes during group trips. Otherwise I'll always go to a hotel.

Similarly, I will always use cabs in NYC, never an Uber.

I dunno. For my family, vrbo/Airbnb offers something I can't get elsewhere. Human living conditions for a family. We need three bedrooms. That is pretty much unheard of. And hotels always go low on bathroom. Sleeps 6, one bathroom. I have ibs, 9ne bathroom just isn't going to cut it. And even if I didn't, jockeying for bathroom time isn't my idea of a vacation. And when we brought the in-laws we needed another. The cost of that in rooms was more than double. And the vrbo had a private pool and a huge living room/kitchen. Now I do wish hotels had family living spaces, but most only do adjoining rooms, which they never guarantee. Hotels being greedy created the short term rental market. Hosts and Airbnb being greedy ruined it. We just can't have nice things.

I never did get into Airbnb: there was always too much room for unpredictability that I don’t want to deal with when traveling. Since then, we have the rise of chore lists and they’ve lost the price advantage in many places, so I don’t really see a point. Even worse, AirBnB has been around long enough that we all probably know someone who had a bad experience