I had been obsessed with Airbnb as a company and product for awhile, but it wasn’t until one month ago that I got to actually test it out. I turned to my roommate, and nonchalantly suggested, “We should rent our room on Airbnb.” Without notifying the rest of my apartment, we had the listing up in 15 minutes with mediocre photos taken from my smart phone. By morning, we had three requests to book, one for a whole week from a young man traveling from Brazil. In a rush, we went to notify the rest of the house but they were sadly not okay with such a short notice for something they had never heard of.
“Airbnb! They let you rent out your free space . . . two million listings, in every country in the world except four, worth 25 billion dollars — more than most hotel chains!” I told them. Not one of my roommates had heard of Airbnb.
This made zero sense to me. The sharing economy was pioneered during our lifetimes, and the comfort these younger generations have shown in riding in strangers’ cars, sharing their tools, and living in each others’ homes has grown tremendously from the start.
I was astounded.
The other software platforms of this era are devaluing the power of a face-to-face connection. Everyone in the technology space is creating incredible platforms, but can only claim to be social. All the interactions are made vis-à-vis a phone screen, and the experience and relationship ends there. No one besides Airbnb is utilizing technology to truly allow people to experience the adventures this world has to offer and create real, human connections. Creating a platform for people to share pictures and videos doesn’t come close to the impact providing free housing to people in areas affected by disaster does.
Comfort and happiness are the two most important things in anyone’s life. That is what Airbnb sells.
Thankfully by the following week I had my roommates convinced and we had our first guest by the weekend. The time between waking up in a dazed shock the morning after listing our bunk-bed college apartment and our first trip taught me a lot, and I want to share these whims with you in hopes more people see the value in the face-to-face connection this platform provides.
And the platform isn’t perfect. Gathering from my personal experiences hosting and from writing these posts, hopefully we can point out the imperfections and better Airbnb as a product and community as well.
Stay tuned for future posts: Technology - What’s Missing? For a company founded by designers . . . did you forget about UX? and What we have learned from hosting.
Thanks for reading! Please do comment or message me directly. I want to hear from anyone and everyone!
