Scale Ruins Everything

I like Airbnb, because it's made staying abroad much cheaper and nicer. I also like being able to rent a taxi on an app in a new town.

For awhile I'd been using AirBnb by reflex, but after a few pretty bad experiences I started indexing it against local hotels before committing, and my experience has been that if you just need a place to be (don't care about kitchen) then AirBnB is not nearly as competitive as it used to be. So yes, AirBnB has made staying places cheaper, but the industry is also catching up. Concrete example is nightly rate for a studio in Paris vs the hotel next to it were +/- euros difference when I was there last year.

That was true like 5+ years ago. By now market prices of housing have gone up to match the tourism profit lure I guess. It seems common nowadays for the owner to own multiple apartments, like 8+, where as in the beginning it was one or two.

I prefer ordinary hotels nowadays. Especially when travelling with children.

I agree and have had similar experiences. But note that the fact hotels have got cheaper/better is also part of AirBnB's influence. Competition makes incumbents up their game.

"Cheaper" is questionable. I usually find that, after fees, I'm paying the same, or more, than I'd pay at a nicer Comfort Inn.

Maybe I'm just unlucky but the last several times I've traveled, staying at an AirBnB simply made no financial sense. Sometimes I feel like I'm crazy, hearing people talk about "cheaper".

Comfort Inn is in the lower middle of hotel levels. Not roach infested, not tiny, but also not very luxury. It is about the cheapest hotel I'll let my family stay in. The rooms work, but they are tiny and everyone stays in the same room. For a similar price I find airBnB which has separate bedrooms for us and each kid, a full kitchen (this saves us a ton of money vs restaurants and is healthier), and generally some other rooms to play in. We don't (rarely) get a pool which the kids miss, but overall it is a much better value. I agree the price is similar though.

I don't like using AirBNB, for all the usual reasons, but every time I travel it's no comparison. To Vancouver a couple years ago, it would be like $400-500/night for a decent hotel in the area I wanted to stay. The apartment we ended up renting through AirBNB was I think $150/night, and that included a fully stocked kitchen & in unit washer/dryer. Similar prices for a trip to San Francisco earlier this year. I don't like the societal effects, but it is massively cheaper for much better service.

Airbnb is great until there is an issue and then it is a nightmare.

I think it will be like Amazons coming doom, death by a thousand cuts. You can have this horrible model that can't handle edge cases and until you burn too many people, it seems to work. But once you have sold fakes, or ruined (or added thousands in expense) vacations to enough people I know, your business is dead to me.