[alex_c]

Congrats to AirBnB!

The way I understand it, the biggest threat to Airbnb's model are local governments starting to clamp down on this kind of (usually unlicensed?) subletting. I'm curious how the high valuation factors this risk.

Of course, I suspect the high valuation means Airbnb is planning to expand to hotels and travel in general?

[olivercameron]

Isn't the point of Airbnb that you don't stay in a hotel?

Edit: By hotel, I mean generic hotels like Holiday Inn's. I'm just going by their mission statement: "We are a community marketplace for unique spaces".

[waterlesscloud]

No, the point is to rent spaces to people.

When you look at them that way, a billion may be low.

I was confused when I first heard of them, I thought they were just planning to be what they are right now- spare private room rentals to travelers. But then they explicitly stated a desire to directly disrupt the moribund hotel industry by offering services that make hotel room pricing more dynamic. Hotels are dynamic now, you can almost always negotiate the rate lower, but the vast majority of people don't know that, or don't want to try. If airbnb can somehow automate a chunk of that process, there's money for every in the transaction. I think that's a hard problem, but solvable.

If they also move into subletting and temporary event space and so on... Big markets.

[maxwell]

I don't know about the chains, but independent boutique hotels and inns already do this.

[drm237]

I assumed it was to get the best deal on a bed. If it's in a hotel room, fine with me. Some probably do it just for the experience though.

[olivercameron]

I'm just saying that it doesn't sound like their goal is to have rooms in generic hotels, see their mission statement:

"We are a community marketplace for unique spaces."

Of course, they could expand in that direction in the future, but I wouldn't say the Holiday Inn is a unique space.

[wtn]

Lots of unreported personal income as well.