[davinic]

Because the tech was terrible and they did nothing to facilitate the transaction. There was no trust model -- hosts posted their own reviews, usually from paper guestbooks and guests had to mail checks to untrusted hosts weeks in advance. There was no escrow or arbiter upon arrival. Most picture quality was terrible. Because of the transaction difficulty, the concept couldn't scale down to smaller rentals (rooms, etc) for smaller periods of time.

The only thing technical were that the sites usually had a calendar, but it was impossible to tell when and if it had actually been updated, so you had to be in contact with a dozen property owners to find a place with availability.

These services showed the potential but were little more than a collection of classified ads.