AirBnB is being overrun by “ghost hotels”

AirBnB markets the rooms available for rent on their platform as “unique, authentic places” supported by “local hosts” London, like many places, now has a “90-day rule” designed to protect the city’s character and community. This rule prevents you from renting a premises on AirBnB for more than 90 days in a year – keeping the platform open to those “local hosts” while making it pointless and unprofitable to convert apartment blocks into AirBnB hotels.

But people searching for rooms keep finding listings with identical photos being reviewed by people who don’t seem to exist. By listing the same property under multiple names, companies can get around the 90-day rule. These “ghost hotels” are driving up rental prices, pushing out everyone except short-stay tourists and the very rich.

(Read about the whole scam at Wired.)

This is the power of platforms at scale. It’s unclear whether these consequences were considered by AirBnB when they were designing a website to share that bed in your spare room a decade ago. But unintended consequences at platform scale can have very serious impacts and that’s why we need to design with consideration for the entire life cycle of the product or service.