Musk, Theil, and this guy rely on consumers for their businesses. Why would they risk the affects of boycotts for a “temporary” government power position? They seem to be trading up.
It's a fairly impotent action, of course (the guy's worth about $8B), so perhaps the better thing to do is to point out that he's 5'7" and wears size 7 shoes.
What exactly is this guys qualification besides being rich?? Elon rallies against DEI because he claims it excludes qualified people, then hires a bunch of 18 year old undergrads and anyone as wealthy and out of touch as him
Never contributed a penny to this company. They have done an enormous damage to the social fabric of our cities by taking advantage of weak laws that allowed them to turn low cost rental property into big business run up by faceless multinationals for the mass tourist industry.
It's a shame because the original concept was an interesting one of more access to interesting places(remember Couchsurfing anyone?). But the whole thing got corrupted, perhaps predictably, with the pernicious effect we see now.
It was and it provided a lot of extra income to those with an extra bedroom to spare. Unfortunately it didn't take long for corporations to jump on board.
Can't you continue to do this informally with people that stayed with you in the past, without using Airbnb? I imagine some of them would stay with you again if it was a good experience if they still have your contact info.
The nearest thing you get to it now, I guess is the middle-class, property-owning idea of house exchange. I'm tempted but my home is so full of idiosyncrasies I don't think it's possible..."when it rains you have to place the bucket precisely HERE"
I spent two weeks on a couch in Amsterdam when I was 20, I'm going to let your imagination do the rest but know this : the doors of perception were wide open 😁
My horrific experience with Airbnb helped me realize years ago that predatory people LOVE getting paid to have unsuspecting strangers stay in their home. Never again.
Looks like the same foreign or scammy folks artificially inflating Tesla stock pump money into any company that helps out Trump. Look at the stock price after the announcement.
They won’t be able to keep it inflated if people boycott, just like Target’s stock is tanking.
Well then asking for advice: what would you use instead of air bnb for people with a small budget (and that still need/want a private room, not bunk beds)? If i want to go on holiday, i cannot afford regular hotels :/
So you both usually go only where you have friends or you pay a higher fee at hotels. Friends are a good solution and I'm starting to have more abroad now but i still don't have many where i want to go. Have you ever tried other things? Couch surfing for example?
I stay with friends a lot for short trips to a city (2-3 nights) if I know someone there. I also let a lot of friends stay at my house when they are doing the same. Otherwise I use a hotel. I don't take long vacations.
In the US. The 'top line' cost for AirBnB was lower, but then there's all the fees that got tacked on (making it pricier than a generic business hotel room), and the hotel doesn't get mad at me for moving stuff around so that I can have my phone on the nightstand, plugged into the charger.
Speaking only for myself, I used them twice in 2016 and 2017 and haven’t used them since. Clearly lots of people still use them and thousands deactivating their accounts now is still a good thing.
yeah sorry i was really talking about the comments under your post. it just seems to be a trend now with Tesla, Walmart, Amazon, AirBnB, etc when people have been saying for years that they’re all terrible
I live in Chicago so I can find everything and can walk to lots of bodegas in my neighborhood but I feel for people in rural areas that have already been destroyed by Walmart so they have fewer options. Anyone that can grow food should be planning to grow lots of it.
yeah if you have no other options i don’t fault you at all. I talked about that a lot when ppl started boycotting Target. but a lot of ppl just were blissfully ignorant this whole time somehow
Totally. Food apartheid is so real in so many parts of Chicago. As the planet heats up and our growing season gets longer here, we're going to need hundreds more garden plots everywhere. In the public way - on sidewalks, wherever!
Cool. Hopefully we are entering a time where people will shift as much of their spending into smaller businesses as possible. I had already done that for most things but there’s always room for more change. Particularly with food shopping for me.
People have always been better off just getting a hotel in either case. The rates are better than most Airbnb and you don't have to deal with draconian landlords with their weird ass clean up requirements.
The second and last time I used Airbnb, I was handed a 10 point list of how one can and should interact with their little dog. Dog was fine, but that felt ridiculous.
Brian Chesky (CEO) and Nathan Blecharczyk (CSO) are the other two that need to be sent a message. Stop supporting fascists or you'll take your business elsewhere.
Companies like AirBnB, Tesla, Amazon—have basically ALWAYS been immoral. Y’all start boycotting way too late, after building them up to the powerful position they’re in today.
In July 2022, Gebbia stepped down from his full-time operating role at Airbnb, while remaining on the board of directors in an advisory role. He owns 53% of shares but isn’t the “owner” per se.
They remain a horrible company, and his continued association with them is just one of many reasons no one should use them. Look at what they've done to affordable housing.
That being said I try to book with IHG hotels as much as possible to get the rewards points- however sometimes a cabin in the mountains is much better than a hotel room- and AirbnB is very user friendly.
I’ve also booked extended stays where I pay through the site for the first few days and then give the owner direct payment for the rest. Everyone wins that way. I’m sure this is common.
I definitely am not hating the fact I booked a unique and magical spot in a rural French village last summer. That would not have happened without the site.
I’m not totally disagreeing however the Chinese coming into the real estate market and buying cash for houses is also a real issue. The average working person can’t compete with wildly inflated cash offers!
Ireland used to have this great network of b&bs (not airbnb) and now they're all airbnb. We've all been blended into a corporate homogenization where we have no options except to pay our masters for the right to do or buy anything.
Use VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner) which is owned by Expedia. Their CEO is not down with the fElons. The VRBO app is great. They have listing in many countries.
After I tried to rent from someone who listed on VRBO and AirBnB (which most people do these days, it’s like Uber and Lyft) and got double booked and stranded in an unfamiliar city with nowhere to stay, I think I’m done with the “stay at strangers’ houses” economy.
Hotels are for you, then. I’ve never had a bad experience, but I only rent the whole home for family vacations & only use the app, so you have full legal protection.
Hotels are great, and you can go downstairs any time of the day or night for assistance, instead of being treated like a criminal by an Airbnb host when you alert them that the toilet is broken, or the key doesn't work.
Haven't used AirBnB in years but I logged in today to deactivate my account and it asked for a reason why. "Your CEO joined a group of unelected men dismantling the US government."
The company that turned every major city center into a lucrative investment plan to serve non-residents, while causing prices for housing to soar for regular residents?
Everyone is blaming Airbnb, and everyone is right, but why are we always forgetting that sites like Booking are also renting homes from individuals, just like Airbnb does. I'm sure Booking bosses are very happy that the blame always goes in one direction and never against them
My spouse and I are fortunate enough to have a spare bedroom and we never rent it out. We let friends and family stay there. I have hosted people I knew online and have never met in person until they arrived. Cultivate generosity in your life and people will be generous with you.
My instinct when a friend says they are coming to Chicago is to ask them, "Do you need a place to stay?" Whenever I tell my spouse someone is going to be in town, her first response is, "Do they need a place to stay?" I like my privacy, but we are lucky to have a house and promised it we'd share it.
They have destroyed access to affordable housing all over and he still owns 7% of the company’s stock (and remains on their board). There were tons of reasons to not use them well before this.
I tend to expect billionaires to have bad politics… I’m assuming the biggest shareholders of chevron, Saudi Aramco, McDonald’s, Walmart, etc all have pretty shit politics, but very few make purchasing decisions based on this
Exactly, I don't know where this is going or hoping to achieve, but everyone boycotting, needs to turn off their PC for a start, and presumably start growing their own everything
I actually am quite poor in communicating in general. I have always been stuck trying to explain myself. One of the problems of being an only kid with eyes wide open. Congratulations in being one of the concerned citizens. It at least feels like a safe place. Cheers!
You're good! I almost made a false assumption and stopped myself. Communication doesn't always work the first time, so we all can just keep trying until we understand each other. 😀
From one study by Harvard Business Review: "because of Airbnb, absentee landlords are moving their properties out of the long-term rental and for-sale markets and into the short-term rental market." They are absolutely fucking up the housing market for other working class people when they do this.
Cool. Owners need to shift away from the Airbnb platform. I'm not a landlord but certainly there are other ways to do this that don't empower billionaires and wreck housing for other working people.
That would surely be a lot lower impact than it has become. That's what was happening the two times I used it in '16 and '17, and I didn't love the arrangement but it felt like, 'you get what you pay for' not 'We're destroying the housing market' to make billionaires multi-billionaires.
Years ago it was a fun and worthwhile idea. Now, it’s really bad for consumers. Bad hosts, no customer service, hosts can cancel last minute…$$$$ add on fees…
Weird how the people who has the most to gain with less oversight and regulation are so eager to support DOGE. One would think this is not about ideology but solely about personal enrichment.
We tried AirBNB once in California. I bought the insurance. The house we rented was illegally remodeled. It had no heat & barely hot water. The owner banged drums until 2 a.m. An airbnb rep in Romania told me too bad, no insurance bcz "the listing didn't promise heat or hot water". Fuck airbnb.
fascinating watching them dive one after another from "questionable business that a lot of people tolerate even though they shouldn't" to "participating in the bureaucratic coup"
Samara is his company now. They make ADUs. (Maybe looking to create resettlement housing for war torn countries that US takes over)? https://www.samara.com/
My old landlord ran an illegal Air BnB. I sabotaged his operation by indirectly telling him that I knew it was illegal and I’d be happy to report him to the city that was really cracking down on them. He stopped his operation and left me the fuck alone after that
I have never stayed a one. If I go away, I want a hotel. That is why I am going away. If I wanted to stay at a house, it would be my house, not a stranger's house.
It would be good to see more hotels provide a little extra in the way of cooking potential for guests. If there's a mini fridge I can store stuff in, at the very least, I always pick up stuff from a market so I can control my diet and not eat out three times a day.
STAND UP!
WE'RE HERE FOR THE RUMBLE.
It's a time for fierce compassion. Be fierce, do an activity everyday. It's self care. Be the rain, the howling wind, and the mountainous wave. Be the storm. Be the broken record. Pass it on.
Comments
Ugh...
At this rate I guess all that's missing from their whole Panini sticker album is that Scandi grifter who owns Spotify.
https://pitchfork.com/news/spotify-hosts-trump-inauguration-brunch-and-makes-150000-donation-to-ceremony/
Bonus- You'll find endless amounts of incredible new music and actually support artists.
https://bandcamp.com/
https://www.lalal.ai/blog/how-much-streaming-services-pay-artists-in-2024/
They won’t be able to keep it inflated if people boycott, just like Target’s stock is tanking.
Local boutique hotels 4lyfe 😤
We contacted the owner and he assured me they were probably mine as their cleaning crew was "top notch".
Customer service did nothing to help so 5/5, no notes.
Its as if they discovered traveling
Everything coming from the US is shitty exploitation and corruption
Musk needs to be scares like egg now.
That deserves a follow. 👍
https://skift.com/2022/07/21/airbnb-co-founder-joe-gebbia-to-exit-company-but-remains-on-the-board/
placed me in an AirBnB condo 2.5 years ago when I worked in North Conway, NH in summer 2022.
🙄
Fuck those fascist oligarchs.
So I'll just... 🤬
Didn't charge to clean it up myself after either.
Deleted my AirBnB account today.
Canary Islands and France are preparing, too
Not to mention they absolutely *suck* in terms of ensuring that a property accurately states its accessibility for people with disabilities who travel
https://www.samara.com/
https://texasbusiness.org/2024-inductees/joe-gebbia/
Time for the scandals to finally start in plain sight.
Can I feel a little smug at never having joined them although for slightly different value reasons.....the impact they have on housing shortages
Musk and his neofascists are to be avoided.
This is yet another reason.
STAND UP!
WE'RE HERE FOR THE RUMBLE.
It's a time for fierce compassion. Be fierce, do an activity everyday. It's self care. Be the rain, the howling wind, and the mountainous wave. Be the storm. Be the broken record. Pass it on.
Booking
Google
Apple
Amazon
Expedia/ Vrbo
Apple
Uber
Meta/ FB/ etc
Adobe
MyChart
Microsoft
Sales force
Intel
Oracle
etc
Their $billions end up in tax havens, and/or forgiven by the IRS.