[sokoloff]

I disagree. I think you're thinking primarily of AirBnB's main listing pages.

What about recommendations? What about map or multi-constraint search? What about fraud detection/prevention, activation/reactivation email triggers, an analysis system to help hosts be more financially successful on the platform, building an ecosystem of services where people can make money while helping hosts make money, SEM optimization, the ratings/reviews system, the communications between guests and hosts or guests and support, or 20 other things that are likely going on under the covers? Their mostly static content is likely just the visible tip of the iceberg.

I saw a javascript course the other day that claimed it would teach how to "build a full AirBnB clone in this course". I chuckled.

[venantius]

This is the correct answer. When you search for listings in Airbnb what comes back is heavily personalized.

Of course, that only accounts for one of the various pages you'll see in the checkout flow, and I agree that not everything is as snappy as it could be. But keeping things snappy turns out to be a very hard problem when you're growing as quickly as Airbnb has.