Their customer service is HORRENDOUS. I Think it’s also mostly because they outsource to countries were the people, even though they might mean well, have absolutely no idea what customer service means or have a very different concept of it (which is just to apologies without really practically solving the problem or making things right. Their making things right is just being polite and apologizing).
But AirBnB knows this. They make exorbitant amount of money yet offer shi**y service. Why hasn’t another company taken over yet?
You’re not really an AirBnB customer. You’re a customer of the host. Airbnb is just the middle-man marketplace that provides some protections for both parties. If you want good customer service, stay in hotels.
What kind of protection and is it really worth almost %20?
A lot of the legal and insurance protections I believe. But also, AirBNB is who brings in the people, just like Fiverr charges 20% because they connect the people to your services in a rather seamless platform.
But you are a customer of Airbnb. There’s laws about this in the EU.
That’s why the EU is becoming more and more irrelevant, and very little innovation happens there
The only company I’ve seen really trying something different is https://livekindred.com/
It’s kind of like a really upscale couchsurfing. It’s like a members-only network where you have to be a host too.
It costs a lot more than couchsurfing because you’re getting a whole house and you pay for the cleaning, but since it’s all home swaps there are no “professional hosts” and it still ends up being way cheaper than an Airbnb or a hotel.
What I understand is that Airbnb was profitable from almost the beginning, but they needed extra funding to grow as fast as possible. I agree with the rest that you wrote.