Technology

This 100%.
AirBnB used to be cheaper than a hotel. Then it got so easy to tack on fees and ridiculous requirements that you're basically paying more than a hotel to housekeep your own room. Mix in lots of shady hosts and most of the time I'd rather just stay at the Hilton for the same price.

It can still be useful as a novelty, like book a party house somewhere or as easily cheaper way to house an awful lot of people. But for the most part, I'll pass.

hotels/hostels?

Airbnb turns potential living space into hotel space and thereby helps driving up housing prices. The whole concept is inherently problematic.

Booking.com they also have private hosts on their platform

HomeExchange looks good and is European.

It naturally lacks the depth of listings that Airbnb does but will grow if people use them

VRBO. Idk if it's European.

Gross. I didn't know that. I do occasionally use AirBnB. I'm aware of their impact on the rental market, so I favor hotels most of the time. But there have been a few occasions in recent years where I was traveling in a larger group and an AirBnB made more sense. But no more of that.

I looked in to this a little, and Joe Gebbia is no longer the CEO, but he is still on the board. Still a good enough reason to boycott.

Getting a rocket to the sun is easy. Getting it back is the hard part. Since you dont need the rocket to make it back, it sounds like you're all set for operation "beam em up".

I think it shouldnt be on the consumers but on the lawmaker. Tax airbnbs like real bnbs or like hotels or there are many other levers that can be pulled to make it less profitable than renting to locals

It was a nice concept in the 2010s when it was like an advanced version of Couchsurfing or a digital version of a homestay. Then of course it became an unsustainable business model and went to dogs when it became a money making scheme for finance bros to buy up housing and charge 4-star hotel prices.

partially right, but its usually the corporate real estate companies doing this, they buy up the HOUSES and just air bnb, or rent them forever, without even selling any of the houses.

While Air B&B has done irreperable harm to the housing market, I'm not 100% convinced it should be banned. I propose if a house operates as an enterprise, it be taxed according to commercial rates, not residential. It would go a long way to resolving the inequities.

This. They help destroy housing markets.

i don't think people need to justify Airbnb's, it's a great alternative to a hotel for many reasons including those you listed. What needs to be addressed is the damage the shareholders who are running the company are doing to society. let's not give them too much credit about this choice: they are still sucking up homes from homeowners and removing money from the middle class. they only made this change because someone realized it will make them more money.

Booking is also pretty scummy. There was a blog post a few years ago from a hotel that always showed up as sold out, even it had plenty empty rooms. In the end it was a "feature" where other hotels could "promote" their business in a city so it would show up first, but the competition would also be listed as unavailable to force visitors into the promoted business. The other thing is that booking will show "only one room left" to pressure you into booking right now, but what ot actually means is that a hotel might only allocate 20 of 100 rooms to booking, and still has 81 free rooms if you call them directly.

Hotels have always been better in my experience.

Unless you want something like a fishing cabin on a river, but even then I’ve started to look at resorts because after all the fees, they work out to the same price as an airBNB.