Should it be mandatory for hosts to display wifi speeds? - follow up to recently locked thread

[Helen3]

Recently a guest made his first post on the forum which he started off claiming that all hosts were dishonest because he didn't feel he had received the wifi speeds he needed to run his business from his STR (even though he hadn't actually checked with the hosts to see what the speeds actually were before he booked) . And that he thought it should be mandatory for all hosts to display wifi speeds as at every single one of the Airbnbs he had stayed at the speeds were lower than he expected.

As experienced hosts a number of us tried to explain to him that it wasn't an effective or practical solution for a number of reasons.

1. Firstly because speeds fluctuate particularly at the moment with Coronavirus where many more are working from/staying at home.

2. Secondly we as hosts have no control over our wifi speeds, so we shouldn't be held accountable for something outside of our control. 

3. Thirdly speeds fluctuate around the world and between states within a country and even within a town or city or street.

I was one of the ones that suggested a simple solution to him, which was to book Airbnb at Work stays and take the simple step of asking the host about their wifi speeds and explaining his need to upload and download huge amounts of data during his stay.

I do appreciate that not all hosts are completely upfront about the quality of their wifi and in some countries/areas you are never going to get decent speeds. But my few is as a guest if an amenity is an absolute essential for your stay such as wifi speeds, that is simply common sense to check what the actually speed is before you book. Sadly the discussion turned into a bit of a slanging match and the discussion was locked.

I was rather surprised to find a  personal message from Matthew  in my inbox today..which said :- 

.."what a nasty person you were in the thread....but ultimately you don't matter."

I thought as adults we had long moved on from the playground and name calling.Matthew if you think it appropriate  to make these sort of remarks to a random stranger on the internet, then have the courage of your convictions and post them publicly, so everyone can see what a delightful individual you are.

@ Nick  would you block this individual from sending me further private messages please.

[Julian1134]

@Debra300 

always best to get the information from the horse's mouth. and here I am....the horse (Julian not Matthew). my honest experience of Airbnb is that the majority of hosts are at best evasive when it comes to transparency over wifi speed.....and at worst dishonest. these are my experiences. do I really need to dress them up to make them palatable? I didn't say 'all' hosts, yet that quickly became the base-level narrative....and from that point on it was just endless abuse. I then discovered the abusers were saying the following to other people,

@ann72 said

I wouldn't like to have to display my wifi speeds, because they are very low!

@helen350 said

"I don't know how to test my wifi speed or take a screenshot'.

Helen3 quoted me saying she was "nasty, but that ultimately she didn't matter". if I had said anything stronger to her than that then don't you think she would have posted that? 

here's what others called me openly, 'douchebag' (you know what that is), hypocrite, arrogant, self-centred, ridiculous, laughable, truly despicable.

they then found out what I do for a living by googling me and then started mocking me for my job, my hobbies and the number of subscribers I have on my YouTube channel.

did this have anything to do with wifi?

[Michelle53]

The thing I don't like about the way listing amenities are presented is that it clearly prioritizes items that Airbnb thinks that guests want, and not what hosts might like to highlight about their own space. 

"Wifi" appears as my first-listed amenity of 5 in column 1, and "laptop friendly workspace" at the top of column 2.    ("Hangers" appearing in column 1, item 2. Really ? Hangers ?)

This might suggest my space is great for a work-related trip.  My wifi is not the greatest, and I state that in the "weaknesses" section of the listing. Which probably appears nowhere readily accessible.

My space is geared towards the weekend traveller, in town for events and festivals, or to visit family. I realize this is not the market Airbnb is specifically trying to target, at the moment, but to massively retool my home Wifi is just not in my budget.

Folks who want to visit for work-related trips generally ask me about the Wifi, at which point I advise them it's not suitable for things like video conferencing, heavy streaming etc., and can be spotty.     Anyone who books more than 4 days with me, I generally mention it, too, in my preapproval communication.

It would be pointless for me to advertise an internet speed on my listing because, in every room of the house, it's going to be different.    While I use range extenders to try and improve connectivity, in its current form, my Wifi is not going to accommodate a heavy Wifi user.   It seems fine for things like streaming Netflix, because I often see those urls in the browser on the connected computer I provide. 

I would dearly love to be able to select which amenities I feel best present my space to the potential guest. So while I appreciate some people need Wifi everywhere, all the time, uninterrupted, blastingly fast, etc etc,  the majority of guests that stay with me really don't, because they are out most of the time. 

So, no - absolutely *not* mandatory to provide Wifi speed. But we need the ability to tailor the amenities list to change the highlighted amenities. 

[Helen3]

Thanks @Michelle53  some really useful points. I agree it would be good to be able tailor amenities.

Like @Huma0  I am lucky enough to live in a large UK city and work from home some of the time.

I regularly have three of us working from here when I have guests and have never had an issue with my broadband/wifi speeds apart from since Covid when our internet has just been appalling . Thankfully it has been getting better in recent weeks.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Helen3 

I was rather surprised to find a  personal message from Matthew  in my inbox today..which said :- 

.."what a nasty person you were in the thread....but ultimately you don't matter."

Helen, that wasn't the full extent of the message was it? For the sake of transparency, would you care to add the point which @Julian1134  also made and the real point of his contact? That is unless you actually received a message from some random and unassociated "Matthew" instead.  My message wasn't from a "Matthew" and did contain other details about the reason for his contact.

[Helen3]

As you know @Ian I was posting about the part of his message that I found offensive.

I didn't find the rest of his rant offensive so there was no need for me to post it.

[Sarah977]

@Helen3 @Nick  I also got a PM from him today- Julien, not Matthew. His first line was telling me I had been nasty to him (I never posted one nasty response to him) and going on to gloat about how he got a message from Airbnb saying they are going to be checking that people have the amenities they list, which he somehow seems to erroneously think means that they are going to force hosts to list their internet speeds, as he is demanding. 

In the PM he pasted a conversation he'd had with CS- and this is part of what he said to CS:

**[Sensitive information removed in line with - Community Center Guidelines]

So he insulted hosts, wouldn't listen to anything anyone tried to explain, kept doubling down on his assertion that because he personally requires high-speed, constant internet, that all hosts need to post their internet speeds- but all of us are ignorant.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Sarah977 

You did use the host insult: "stick to hotels for your travels.", amongst others. Yours after Robbie had already said Hotel WIFI was the worst. I cannot see how therefore, staying in a hotel would benefit any?

And there was a lot of I said / you said going on which never was part of the original complaint. 

You need to give him his due. He didn't buckle and fold under all that bullying. He held his own.

[Sarah977]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  So now you feel the need to stick up for him? Because you were pretty much the only poster who backed him up on what he was demanding hosts do? 

Give him his due for not buckling and folding under all the bullying? He was the bully. All he wanted to hear was that would support his point of view. 

And feeling the need to send insulting, gloating PMs to all the hosts whose responses he didn't like is aggressive, whiney bully baby behavior. 

[Ann489]

@Sarah977    any idea how we can block someone that we would prefer not to engage with? There used to be an ignore feature or something similar. 

[Sarah977]

@Ann489 No, sorry, I don't. Never had to do it before.

[Ann489]

@Sarah977   too bad.   A "block" feature would definitely be handy!    🤔

[Yadira22]

@Helen3, @Ann489  on the DM's you can't block but instead

1. Report the email 

If you press down on the arrow aligned with the Email Subject (top RHS) and then "report as inappropriate" and complete section with relevant detail. 

2. Ignore User

If you press down on the arrow aligned to sender information (top RHS), touch the "ignore user" and they will be unable to send you any further DM's

This worked for me. Thanks

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Sarah977 

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  So now you feel the need to stick up for him? Because you were pretty much the only poster who backed him up on what he was demanding hosts do? 

Exactly. **

Edit: Sorry, Not everybody.

**[Inappropriate content removed - Community Center Guidelines]

[Sarah977]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  You have nothing better to do than go back and comb over my posts to pick out one thing I said which you quoted above completely out of context?

What a wrote was "If you are as entitled and insulting as a guest as you are in your posts, I suggest you stick to hotels for your travels."

The hotel comment had nothing whatsoever to do with Wifi capability in a hotel. Julien was insulting to everyone who didn't agree with him. In fact, many hosts, including me, explained quite straightforwardly, not at all nastily, why hosts posting internet speeds wasn't a great idea for hosts.

Julien said he would be understanding if there was a power outage or something else out of the host's control which affected the Wifi, but given his arrogant and entitled tone, as well as his attitude that hosts needed to post internet speeds simply because that's what he wants, and his compulsion to send us all nasty, gloating, PMs, I have little doubt that if there were an issue out of the host's control regarding the Wifi, he would use the posted internet speed to demand a full refund and leave a bad review.

Did you bother to read Julien's reviews, or the ones he leaves for hosts? One host described him as "demanding".  And here is a quote from a review he left for a host: "the kitchen is ideal for one person to use at any time but there was no microwave oven which was a bit surprising." The host hadn't listed a microwave as an amenity. So why should he be surprised? He then went on to complain about the internet speed. He says in his profile that he likes remote places out in nature, yet somehow he seems to expect them to all come with high speed, continuous Wifi.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Sarah977 

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  You have nothing better to do than go back and comb over my posts to pick out one thing I said which you quoted above completely out of context?

Your second post  indicated an insult you were claiming didn't exist. That's hardly "combing" your posts.

Did you bother to read Julien's reviews, or the ones he leaves for hosts? 

No. 

That's irrelevant to any conversation, but that is combing Julian's profile.

Although you never did this... More than combing Julian's profile is stalking him via google, sharing a link then feeling fit to make comment.