What if everyone did Airbnb

First thing, lets google its was my knee jerk reaction today to every questions in the world or lets ask the chatGPT or whatever you prefer to call it. Did you say AI?

The Gen AI is smart (I find the word AI super hollow) even the text prediction systems like LLM which can predict the words together and bring a piece of puzzle that we know as "Bad Bad". Its not the LLM , this information is already there on the internet , books and other forms so my dear friend again LLM is not a genius its the humans that produced huge amounts of work on the detrimental effects of the tech based solutions that is transfixed on occupying every piece of anything that they see is not being utilized. Everything has to be put to work. You may now say then its good for the business well it depends even the LLM does think otherwise (even though it does not think)

Irony is that I am writing all of this while sitting in an Airbnb apartment in Florence. Pity me.

After probably spending like USD 2000 on the Airbnb and paying fees ranging from USD 20 to USD 400 including cleaning fees the money is going to a company that's basically a hosting site that forces users to publish their house photos and reveals the locations and the details of the house post the payment is made to the Airbnb. You can chat to the host before booking but it will constantly show you a message that if you take this chat outside the Airbnb they are not responsible for the losses (What losses? for staying in their apartment or is it the Airbnb loss )

Also you cannot blame the company. There were and still are hotels, guest houses that used to provide these services without any strings attached and then Airbnb. Airbnb said or defined a new way of marketing that we will let you explore others culture and exchange lives but it was just a new way to utilize your unused space in your house so basically making your home a hotel for anyone to come and stay with you sounds nice, since the guests are coming through the website/app. As this guy points out if it's done through the app it must be right or at least it's not illegal. Airbnb filled the vacuum outside the hotels and created this artificial need to know someone else life by staying them for 2 nights ? Is that even possible. If you are a tourist most likely you are going to have a quick chain of travel list.

So every major city you go you have now these Airbnb's , so lets take an example of Buenos Aires it has around 35K listings where 91 % is entire homes that you can stay and only 8% is the shared spaces. What does that tell you? The usual salary according to the official index is around USD 550 per month(converted) now the average night payout from the Airbnb is about USD 79. What does this tell you?

If you are still scratching your head then you didn't really pay attention to anything. Let's not try to over simplify and say this will cause something bizarre. It's definitely making living harder if you are amongst the 3.1 million living in the city area you should go and ask each one of them: “How are they doing when it comes to rent?”

According to the Global Press Journal, the average Buenos Aires resident pays 41% of their income to rent. With rent increasing due to inflation and fewer available properties, it is pushing locals further and further out of the city. In fact, according to Infobae (2022), real estate property values increased more than 60% over the previous year, and much of this increase is reflected in the rising cost of rental units.

Now add to the fact that some and mostly most people are making 550 USD and when you factor the +% of the increase in the rent so where are these people going to go? Also the unreal expectations of the landlords where they think it's really ok to ask unreal rents justifying the inflation and all other economic issues including the argument they can make this much of money while listing their property on the Airbnb.

My question is are we going to create new cities for the residents? Possibly a good answer but then it's a matter of time soon these new cities will be flooded with the new owners looking to exceed income using the same model of the Airbnb. The same phenomena is taking place in entire world such as when you think of some socialist countries like Denmark (Denmark is not a socialist country its a super tight regulated country)

In the famous city of Denmark there are about 21,707 thousands of Airbnb , its kinda trend you make extra income good for the 20 to 30 age group because their income now is being taken away by inflation so no savings hence lets rent out our common space , I don't know if you have ever stayed in Copenhagen , I did and I have seen some really interesting things like the host would give her entire apartment and then shift to her parents for a while you are at their place. (Justified but imagine if they are moving out how about who cannot afford to stay there)

You pay around Euro 100 per night in Copenhagen and then this happens , the link describes how increase in short term rentals even the subsidized housing that is provided by the Danish government in Copenhagen was subject to commercial methods undertaken by the city folks. Then they had to create a law where a restriction was placed to avoid the gentrification and local residents being displaced from their homes. (remember what I said a tightly knit tribe or tightly controlled society)

Let's plug the numbers, you make about say EUR 3000 per month and at the same time things in your neighborhood like bread ,coffee, are now exceeding your bracket of monthly income and on top you have to pay your loans, keep up with the societal pressure to buy a new iPhone even in a country like Denmark where wealth is apparent you cannot keep up now (also there are other reasons , we cannot keep attacking the Airbnb) and you neighborhood keep adding new houses and apartments for strangers to come and stay and gentrify (Danish don't like gentrification of their society no, don't even say that in front of them , everything should be perfect)

Another follow up question?

What are the alternatives?

1. An open source alternative, maintained by a non profit entity or a group of open source enthusiasts who are managing the infrastructure purely on the donations and low fees on just connecting the Host and the Guest.(if you think Airbnb does more than that like just connecting , I would like to hear how don't tell me that they give you insurance and etc)
2. A community run Airbnb instead of a for profit company managing (does this sound bad because then no service but ultimately its the host that does everything)
3. Another novel option would be if Airbnb could also reduce down the fees but they have to answer the shareholders and the money that have borrowed from the investors.

Now, some creativity time:

Post Airbnb times, Imagine a situation where we have now Airbnb cities , where the hosts are sitting somewhere far away (they still do)coordinating the self check in. You unlock a room and you find everything in order and you can think what can go wrong?. Your interactions with the other world or the locals is offf , you wonder everywhere you go no one speaks to you and when you go to a coffee shop everyone looks at you as if you are an outsider. (yes you are go away). They smile at you but it's an artificial smile because these are not real humans these are Airbnb placed robots to please you.

Now, residents of the cities those who used to give services and work for the cities and with the cities are gone these are not normal cities, here only Airbnb guests roam and wander. These guests are just there for few days and to their surprise only thing that they see a diverse group of guests from different parts of the world but no "local" to be found. You don't see a single Italian or Danish or American living in the neighborhood . Sometime you see a person who once lived there and they seems to be looking at you wondering how slowly you uprooted their space and took control of their lives using the app called Airbnb.

Thats its for now, thanks for sticking by. If you like or dislike my writing , I cannot help 🙍‍♂️.