The interesting part of AirBnB, though (imo, of course), has typically been sort of a couchsurfing where you cover some of the offering party's rent in exchange

The interesting part of AirBnB, though (imo, of course), has typically been sort of a couchsurfing where you cover some of the offering party's rent in exchange for the accommodation. That occupies a kind of awkward niche between fully-free and fully-commercial accommodations, where there is (or was) some kind of expectation of a relationship to cost: you don't stay free like with Couchsurfing, but the other party isn't trying to run a profit-maximizing hotel, either. It's true that it's increasingly converging towards becoming a competitor to standard vacation-rental sites like booking.com and HomeAway, though, which come with different expectations.