I would much prefer to stay at an AirBnB place than a hotel even at the same price (though getting comparable accommodations for half the price is obviously a plus). I've met a lot of interesting people as hosts that I've gone out with, shared dinners with, etc. that I would've never had at a hotel. I can see how this may change as it gets more popular and mainstream, though.
I've used it quite a bit and have had nothing but good experiences, but I'm rather selective about where I want to stay. That said, I do think there is a problem with not wanting to leave negative feedback for fear of retaliation, and it certainly is going to be one of the biggest problems as they grow.
For reference I've stayed at maybe a dozen places in the last 9 months, mostly in SF, SD, and NoCal.
I don't mean to be snarky but how is rape/murder/theft threat different than your daily life? Someone is going to go overboard and sucker people vs randomly kidnap someone at a Wendys?
I live in a safe place. If I'm going traveling (To likely a more dangerous place), I'd be safer staying in some sort of 'official' establishment, such as a hotel. Rather than staying with random people. They could be irritating, unhinged, dangerous, murderous, thieving, perverted, etc
Random people scare me. Maybe I just assume the worst in random people. How many airbnb rooms have spycams installed in the showers? I'd bet it's more than in hotel rooms :/
It's just the same reason I wouldn't hitch-hike or go in an unlicensed taxi.
They're vetted by the hotel, there's regulation, command structure, security in the hotel, they have an incentive to not do bad things (They'd get fired), they're (hopefully) trained, etc etc
Additionally, if the hotel is a big chain, there's a certain standard of service you can pretty much be sure of across hotels.
So IMHO, people working for a company who are trained and employed to serve the public, are quite different to 'random people'.
Ever heard of Mechthild Bach? Can't find an English link right now.
Everyone's trained not to do bad things (it's called education), HR departments are not able to screen out killers, thiefs, rapists etc. In the end, people working in a hotel are a random selection, too. So whoever downvoted me, please reconsider.
I didn't say there were NO instances of trained employees abusing trust. Obviously there are edge cases everywhere.
If I'm going traveling to some strange dangerous place, a trained employee is going to be safer than a random person off the street.
I expect you were downvoted because you decided to interpret my comments as "trained employees never do anything wrong", rather than what I actually said, "trained employees are safer for you than random people".
I agree with the above but on the other hand, if I was searching for places to stay in a city and found out that an old friend of mine was on Airbnb for that city, I would jump at the chance. I haven't used Airbnb but I would really push an initiative to feature friends on the site via FB connect.
Friends don't generally charge each other money to stay at their place though, right?
Or maybe that's a difference between close friends and acquaintances--and many people have a lot of acquaintances for Facebook friends, so I can see it working out.
Maybe not a 1st degree friend but a friend of a friend or something like this.
A feature that finds out the "shortest chain" friend that rents out an apartment in your destination city would be interesting. But you need a social graph for that.
I've used it quite a bit and have had nothing but good experiences, but I'm rather selective about where I want to stay. That said, I do think there is a problem with not wanting to leave negative feedback for fear of retaliation, and it certainly is going to be one of the biggest problems as they grow.
For reference I've stayed at maybe a dozen places in the last 9 months, mostly in SF, SD, and NoCal.