There's an area Airbnb clearly fails for me, and it's the one your describe: short stays in populated areas. It's slightly cheaper than a hotel, but a hotel has

There's an area Airbnb clearly fails for me, and it's the one your describe: short stays in populated areas. It's slightly cheaper than a hotel, but a hotel has a front desk that's staffed 24 hours a day to solve any problem you have, and you can usually cancel at no charge up to 24 hours before arriving. It's worth the small extra every night. That said, I've had good experiences with Airbnb for a very vacation-y vacation: house, middle of nowhere, by the beach sort of thing. I don't know of any sites that come close to the global selection Airbnb has. THAT said, vacation-y vacation rentals are a lot smaller market than short term stays in very populated areas. If I recall, Airbnb launched some business travel capabilities not that long ago and they were not particularly successful. So my general impression is that Airbnb can be a totally successful business, but while it tries to justify a valuation like $31B (rather than focusing on core competencies) it runs the risk of ruining the whole thing.