[akhunt1002]

Way to level up! I actually think this combined with the new superhost incentives are a very well-considered, combination to elevate the overall quality of the platform overall.

The down side is: it seems like this may alienate new hosts by creating an (overwhelmingly) high bar for a listing. Not everyone is a semi-professional hotelier. How will that be balanced out?

Be careful not make would-be hosts feel too self-conscious to list their space. It's a fine line between building community and alienating it when curation bias turns into a core pillar of a company's identity.

I think discouraging new hosts by setting the bar (and company identity) so high is a net-negative for long-term community building. It makes total sense short-term, and it makes sense for an OTA like Booking. Long-term: it shoots the notion of home-sharing in the foot and without new hosts feeling welcome, a growing market can't sustain the demand.

Personally (I'm obviously biased lol), I'm obsessed with the notion that everyone is a host. Everyone would host someone, and it's a platforms job to help match those people to public listings, homes privately listed (networked via communities / friends), homes that have professional photos, homes that even have no photos (because if you're booking a friend's home, who cares). I'm not saying lower the standards, I'm saying change the frame; it's as a matching game threaded by community.