I use to think it’s easy money on their part until I found out that they won’t be making a profit until years into the future.
On the delayed payments, I don’t buy that it’s a technical issue.
It’s never a good thing when you make false statements of fact as to why people aren’t being paid. It wasn’t a paypal issue as they were claiming.
Given the monies they are disbursing on any given day, the scale of the delays could have been in the billions of dollars. For Inauguration Day in the DC area alone we are talking over 10 million dollars for one day in cash being processed.
When you consider that they are now not only across the entire United States, but in virtually every country in the world, and the problem was worldwide, the scale begins to become apparent. We are not talking loose change here!
That said I’m glad that they’re back up and running and it is in all our interests that they remain so
Here’s a link on one author’s view about their business model correct or otherwise: New Unicornomy
A quote from the authors’ thoughts on the cash flow side of things:
How does AirBnB make Money via Checking Account Arbitrage
The entire AirBnB business model is based on the premise that most of the travel plans are pre-booked to the tune of 4-6 months we can safely assume that this entire money is lying some where post the payment has been received from the traveller.
It is actually lying with AirBnB. They hold the entire payment of the host untill the guest checks out or 24 hours post check in (which ever is earlier).
This is how AirBnB makes money from investments because this money is invested in debt market securities like money market instruments which have zero risk and flexible maturity.
Disclaimer : All views on AirBnB Business Model & How does AirBnB make Money are of the authors. User discretion is advised.
Hence my earlier comment on why mass Hillary related cancellations could cause an unexpected bump if the Trump bookings don’t adequately compensate.
It’s not about viability, it’s just about short term cash flow!
Airbnb as a business I’m sure are fine