[JHikka]

Originally Posted by casper

I am all for Uber. I had some questionable taxi drivers over the year.

Absolutely. Neither are perfect.

Originally Posted by casper

I think the issue with airbnb is you own an apartment you can potentially make significantly more money running it under that model than renting it out. However running and airbnb is far more labour intensive. If you have to hire someone to clean between rentals and manage handling over keys and inspecting the property it eats in to that profit quite a bit. If the owner is doing it they may or may not value their time.

A lot of the loss in value for Airbnb lately has been property owners shifting that responsibility onto users themselves, by way of things like making people clean the unit, using lockboxes for keys, or an array of other requirements that save the owner from ever having to be present.

In its early days Airbnb really was good. It was an improved couchsurfing, basically staying with people if they had an extra bed or room. Then over the years it shifted more to investment types, renovating new units out of nothing, renting out entire apartments, then buildings...Airbnb went from crashing at a friend's house to becoming a part-time tenant. It went from giving money to a person to giving it to a corp.

I'll be staying at an Airbnb in Germany in a few months and the only way I can really be happy with using it is because i'll be replacing the owner of the unit for two weeks as they will be travelling out of country.

Originally Posted by casper

It is weird. I am usually asked if I want housekeeping or not. Some chain at check in offer to give you extra loyalty points for passing on the cleaning service. It is a clear shift away from daily service just being taken for granted. I know some larger hotels in Victoria (and likely other cities) contract out that maid service to on outside contractor, so likely a way of dealing with labour shortages as well save some money.

I'm personally fine with it as I assume it's more environmentally friendly not to be cleaning the same sheets every day, over and over again. I'm trying to think of the positive of the amount of energy and water and detergent saved on not having cleaning be mandatory every day.