[huevosabio]

PMS as property managements software :).

And yes, I use Airbnb as a guest as well, but I gauge the risk of having a bad host into the decision making.

We also get all type of horror stories from guests that had a bad experience and found themselves trying to find a last minute place to stay.

The problem is that the Airbnb app heavily disincentivizes "professionalization". They have a small cartel of PMS providers that can actually hit their API. I can't build my own systems on top of their API, I have to go through a middle man or use the their crappy app.

Their app is so incredibly obtuse that it puzzles me how people shower Airbnb as a "great product design company". It's a beautiful app sure, but incredibly clunky. It's like a call center phone menu made into an art piece.

[hintklb]

I never even understood why people even think Airbnb is a tech company.

They basically operate a pretty simple website. Most of their busines is about arbitrating issues when they come. This has nothing to do with tech.

I would bet that United Airlines or American Airlines website handles way more queries than Airbnb.

But for some reason they managed to market themselves as a "design driven" "Tech company".

[huevosabio]

It's a tech assisted operations company, similar to Uber and Lyft.

The key distinction between say United Airlines and gig tech companies is that the latter will aggressively avoid owning physical assets and use tech to be a streamlined middle man in a market that actually requires a lot of operations.

They are a tech company, but in the sense that they get their edge from software not that they sell it.