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by hcnews 336 days ago
> Almost nobody sets prices manually. You either use Airbnb's pricing algorithm, or one from a third party. Either way it's set automatically based on local occupancy rates/hotel prices/etc.

This seems pretty undesirable. Very easy for Airbnb/third party to increase prices even without demand just to increase their prices.

We recently saw a similar price fixing lawsuit for renters. Landlords, co-ordinating together, ended up increasing prices of Condos across major American cities (via means of a third party). The consumer ends up paying unnecessarily high prices in an inelastic market.