While that's true, short term (vacation) rentals existed well before airbnb, they just weren't so prevalent.

Agreed.

I see people posting questions about life in the 1970s and wonder, "Don't you know any one who was around then?"

They aren't banning Airbnb. They are banning short term rentals. Huge difference. You can do long term rentals on Airbnb, and you can do 2 day rentals on other websites like VRBO. Those other sites have been around for a very long time.

I imagine people are willing to give a cut to Airbnb because they perceive, rightly or wrongly, that Aribnb is taking care of all the details. Insurance, liability, blocking troublemakers, data and time coordination etc.

I use to travel a lot before airbnb existed, and most of it was to uhh, old school bnbs.

Lovely! Amazing! But maybe that was just the areas we were going to were amazing. I wonder how well they'd work in cities and such? All my experiences were in much more rural areas, so you got a lot more room and such.

The problem isn't that AirBnB gets a cut, the problem is that they make such a process more efficient and accessible. Property is a finite resource, especially when talking about a specific area like a city. We don't want to turn cities into amusement parks that the workers have to commute an hour to get to, even if that's what is the most profitable. Housing should be affordable and available for the people who actually use and make the city run daily.

created by tech bros

Neo liberalism is a Boogeyman that means literally nothing thanks to everyone calling everyone else it. The real issue (with Airbnb) is that tech bros decided to create a business solution to something that in all honesty wasn't a problem and now we're here. The same can be said for Uber, and all the other "gig economy" companies.

I don’t know if that’s the absolute norm. Sure, Airbnb might be easier to get a bigger place, but I find they’re usually pricier than hotels, unless you’re with a big group. I personally would rather stay in hotels just because it’s a more consistent experience. Airbnbs vary wildly and each host is different. You also have more responsibilities. I’d rather just be an anonymous customer with zero responsibilities.

Hotels and airbnb killed mom and pop bnbs.

That is far on the norm these days. Many AirBnBs add on a ton of fees like a massive cleaning fee but still require you to clean up so the cost comes out to be more than a hotel and you still have to clean up and there are a ton of house rules. It has only been recently that AirBnB gave you the option of seeing the extra fees while searching but it's still not the default option. Their customer service kind of sucks too. I stayed in a place in LA that had sewage backing up into the sinks and the place itself was pretty gross. They offered a slight discount on the night we stayed and allowed us to cancel the second night. A hotel would have probably comped us a night and given us a decent room.

There are still diamonds in the rough though which are generally people who genuinely have a mother in law unit or room spare and they live in the rest of the place. Most of them are done by corporations though who are simply looking for lower taxation.

You are not entitled to cheap lodging. While locals need homes to live. Cities can only absorb so much tourism before it becomes unlivable and unaffordable for people to live in. Just look at Venice. It’s not only that homes become unaffordable, amenities that serve the locals start to disappear since everything starts to cater tourists.

I used to live in Amsterdam and in a some streets there are just way too many souvenir, stroopwafel and Nutella shops while local grocers are pushed out because of rising rent.