[human]

I find this kind of post very interesting. The key takeaways from my point of view is that none of these projects actually created value. Most of them didn’t solve a problem that other software hadn’t already solved. The most interesting one I think was the appartment notitication one. Especially that today there is such a race if you want to find a good and affordable appartment. It’s just too bad the author wasn’t able to create something simple for this. At the end of the day, you have to try 10 ideas to get one off the ground. But you also have to give them a serious shot, which doesn’t seem to have been the case here. You often will have to invest actual money to get your idea out there and popular. Unless it’s a one in a million that will go viral on its own.

[jjeaff]

Regarding solving a problem. I think there is always room for a better way to solve a problem. Really, there is room for multiple companies to solve the same problem the same way. If I would have been pitched Airbnb in its early days, I likely would not have given it much thought. After all, VRBO has been doing basically what Airbnb does for 25 years.

[brabel]

Airbnb is a good example of "success" by doing nothing new, just pushing past law or other external difficulties that no one else managed before.

Like you say, there had been similar apps for several years. CouchSurf-style websites were common, and the transition to paid accommodation provided by normal people is obvious from there, but no one could get past the difficulty of getting people to pay for something that was commonly done for free, and getting this done without legal issues.

AirBnb, to my knowledge, was likely illegal in most places it worked, but similar to Uber, was on perhaps a gray area that allowed it to continue working until it was so big it cold lobby politicians to acommodate it within the law.

Only a handful of successes can happen this way, and I think all that could, have already happened.