AirBNB.com

[Pangia]

Hi Everyone,

Can you please take 10 seconds to send a request to AirBNB.com asking them to accept Bitcoins as payment?

https://www.airbnb.com/feedback

This company (one of the many new "share economy" companies) ALONE is a billion dollar market.
Bitcoin is the ideal currency for a global market like the short-term global rental market.
Similar to Bitcoin the AirBNB marketplace (and others like it) is a P2P sharing market with AirBNB functioning as the escrow service.  Currently PayPal is used to process payments and many of the hosts don't like the PayPal requirements (mandatory tax reporting over certain amount, fees, etc.).  Bitcoin is the perfect answer for these hosts and the acceptance of Bitcoin as payment on AirBNB would do us all well in terms of price appreciation.

Thanks Everyone.



http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-billion-revenues-2013-1

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[danieldaniel]

No.

[Pangia]

Thanks Daniel. LoL.

[Stephen Gornick]

Can you please take 10 seconds to send a request to AirBNB.com asking them to accept Bitcoins as payment?

Better yet, instead of a hotel book your next stay somewhere through 9Flats and send to AirBNB a copy of your 9Flats receipt (which is processed through BitPay).  Mention how you might have considered booking it through AirBNB but how you now use 9Flats because of the Bitcoin payment method.
 - http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/04/9flats-bitcoin

Nothing gets the message across like seeing profitable business lost to a competitor.

[Pangia]

Excellent idea Stephen.

Here is a quick read on the "share economy". 

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573104-internet-everything-hire-rise-sharing-economy

Bitcoin is the perfect payment solution, the masses just need to learn about it first.

[alexh]

Great idea, will share it right away.

[InspiredEye]

I like your moxy!  Posting a request now.  This could be a BIG help to increase adoption of bitcoin.

[Pangia]

The ability to rent/share things that you own is a great way for an individual to generate extra income.  But under the current setup you have to give up a significant amount of what you earned due to transaction fees, etc.  Bitcoin fixes that issue by having your profits go into your pocket instead of someone else's.

Sorry to go on and on about how great Bitcoin is for the new "share economy", but it's a match made in heaven (Bitcoin & "share economy").

[jago25_98]

9flats is pretty cool. I found it has less listings than AirBNB and as such the competition means it has lacked the cheaper rates that I sometimes see on AirBNB. That said, thanks for letting us know - if I ever run out of fiat it could come in very handy, no?
9flats seems to be better for full apartment rentals which is not what I look for particularly.

A general comment after having used AirBNB twice. Bear in mind that many of the listings (but not all) are not professionals. It takes years to learn how to become a hotellier - it's not easy. You're staying in someone's house. Often it's cheaper than a full BNB but you do sometimes lose out that service. For example I'm used to conducting everything online with emails and backing it up with SMS. But people here expect a call. Nothing wrong with that, but that's the difference.

A great thing to see for Bitcoin.

It's very good to see some of the spaces we have been used efficiently finally. Just think of all the hotel space out there unused with homeless people outside. This isn't a fix but for some the increased competition can go a long way for helping some people out. And allowing Bitcoin means that even the homeless who can't get a bank account could be in with a new chance.

[ninjaboon]

will do.

[cdog]

Bump! Keep requesting BTC as a payment method for both hosts (from AirBnB) and guests (to AirBnB)

[Sukrim]

Nearly every rental contract I've read does NOT allow you to rent your appartment to a third party...

[MPOE-PR]

This company (one of the many new "share economy" companies) ALONE is a billion dollar market.

Hardly.

[codesuela]

use 9flats

[Pangia]

Nearly every rental contract I've read does NOT allow you to rent your appartment to a third party...

And if you own your home, say a 5 bedroom, detached 1 family with 3 bathrooms and a nice basement that's a game room and you'd like to supplement your income by renting 2 of those bedrooms at about $70 a night to visitors from Europe and elsewhere; any contract there to prevent you from doing that?

[Pangia]

This company (one of the many new "share economy" companies) ALONE is a billion dollar market.

Hardly.

Hi MPOE-PR,

The post that you reference there is interesting.

I wasn't aware of this: "The total value of the companies we’ve funded is around 10 billion, give or take a few. But just two companies, Dropbox and Airbnb, account for about three quarters of it."

My one question about this article is about what the author said when he visited the site AirBNB: "Today is December the 20th, I guess not a very good time for vacation arrangements, and the start-up which together with some other accounts for two thirds of ten billion or something counts exactly one visitor : me. I’m not there to rent from them, I’m there to investigate what the fuck is wrong with Graham."

How did he arrive at that number (1 visitor)? Is it from that number "1 guest" that's on the screen-shot of the AirBNB website?

Thanks.

[Sukrim]

Nearly every rental contract I've read does NOT allow you to rent your appartment to a third party...

And if you own your home, say a 5 bedroom, detached 1 family with 3 bathrooms and a nice basement that's a game room and you'd like to supplement your income by renting 2 of those bedrooms at about $70 a night to visitors from Europe and elsewhere; any contract there to prevent you from doing that?

If you own your home, you don't have a rental contract.

However, if you have 5(!?) bedrooms, why would you need a few meager dollars from renting some? Must be some US cultural thing I don't get to build houses with half a dozen bedrooms if you're no millionaire I guess...

You might get problems for operating an illegal hotel without paying taxes etc. though if you do this regularly, so I'd still recommend to see a lawyer before starting to charge money for rooms.

[MPOE-PR]

How did he arrive at that number (1 visitor)? Is it from that number "1 guest" that's on the screen-shot of the AirBNB website?

Probably.

If you own your home, you don't have a rental contract.

However, if you have 5(!?) bedrooms, why would you need a few meager dollars from renting some? Must be some US cultural thing I don't get to build houses with half a dozen bedrooms if you're no millionaire I guess...

You might get problems for operating an illegal hotel without paying taxes etc. though if you do this regularly, so I'd still recommend to see a lawyer before starting to charge money for rooms.

Contracts and common sense be damned, the chitlins are being innovators!

Incidentally, this stuff is what's called the VA freakshow. The Reobek of entrepreneurship.

[Pangia]

How did he arrive at that number (1 visitor)? Is it from that number "1 guest" that's on the screen-shot of the AirBNB website?

Probably.

If he really arrived at that answer from the "1 Guest" in the AirBnB website then hes' a real tool.  "Guest" on the AirBnB website don't refer to visitors to the site. Instead it means "How many people will be booking at a location".  Hosts are the people who rent out their homes/apts/etc and Guests are the one who come to stay in the aforementioned abodes.  So when it said "1 Guest" in that screen shot, it would be up to the visitor to scroll and change it to the number of people that would staying at a desired location.

Didn't mean to stray from the topic, you thought that someone writing something like he did would have more common sense.

The article was interesting though. I didn't know that the AirBnB venture was worth that much.  Thanks for posting it.