Similar take here!
I am very disappointed with the way AirBnB has been pushing, now almost forcing hosts to use Instant Booking!
I am an occasional host letting out a room in my private, "one-family" home here in New York City when the need for some cost off-setting income and the room availability present itself. I have no desire to run a hotel-style business, maximizing my income with a bottom line of always more growth, always more customers, always more money. That's what AirBnB wants; it's not what I want! And it's not how we were courted by AirBnB in the beginning to become casual hosts.
The right to vet potential guests is a keystone of personal security in one's own private residence and should not be taken away or obscured behind marketing techniques aimed at benefitting, ultimately, the corporation - AirBnB itself - and relegating that right to more of a privelege. Instant Booking is just that type of marketing technique. I have chosen not to use it from the beginning because I prefer, and rightly so(!), to choose whom I let into my house and when. In addition, my schedule is such that I can't simply allow "the machine" to manage my listings, accepting any and all comers based on its own algorithmic criteria. I have many friends and fellow hosts here in NYC who share this style of hosting. This new, almost mandatory turn towards Instant Booking is an offense to us all.
As it was originally set up, IB was a choice for those who are concerned less about personal and privacy issues and wanted convenience and to maximize bookings. That's fine! But that's not why many of us are hosting on AirBnB, especially those of us in single-family, private homes who just want to let out a room occasionally. This is, after all, what AirBnB was set up to do originally, or so it seemed. Now it has become a massive, market driven machine sparking controversy, abuse, legal issues, and helping to foster a change in the face of neighborhoods and rental markets in cities all over the world, certainly in New York and San Francisco, two cities with which I am quite familiar.
However, business and politics aside and more to the point of hosts' rights, why, oh why, have they removed the ability to review profile information, reviews, ratings, photos from requesting guests for those of us not using Instant Booking??? After all, as outlined above, IB was set up as a convenience for those hosts who were not concerned with taking the time to vet potential guests. Now only they have the privelege to do so. The rationale is perplexing to say the least.
I just spent about 20 minutes on the phone with AirBnB customer service asking about this new policy because, not needing to host for the last 6 months, I am only just now receiving requests for a recently opened up calendar and thought that something was wrong with their website when I couldn't click on a potential guest and see their profile. The customer service rep said something to the effect of that it is AirBnB's current view that the ability to view users' profiles/ratings/reviews before accepting their reservation was promoting discrimination. Well, of course! That's what we must do - we discriminate, we distinguish and differentiate between people and decide whom we want to let into our private homes. This is an absolute right. I would discriminate between anyone seeking to sublet, to rent, or indeed even set foot in my door. Why not, then, between the anonymous public seeking short stays in my house? Why have a rating/review system at all if all users/hosts cannot access it and use it as criteria beforehand for accepting guests?? At any rate, the logic in the above representative's response is such that it merely removes the right from all hosts on AirBnB and gives the privilege to discriminate to IB users only. So, there is no "non-discriminatory" righteousness there, AirBnB, only a discriminatory elitism !
The rep also told me that this is something that they are "trying out right now" to see how it "works". So we are, as always, at their mercy. I do hope that they will see the error in their ways and return to a more host-friendly protocol of at least allowing us small-time hosts the ability to choose whom we accept into our homes with their, or anyone's, system. Otherwise, it is hard for it not to seem like AirBnB is turning it's back on the moderate, small business style user in favor of higher volume, developer-minded users and their "hotel-ification" of our neighborhoods and cities.
Perhaps another platform will be the way to go for us little guys...
