[snowwrestler]

Vacation home rentals have been a thing for decades. As far back as the 1980s my family would book houses for vacation, usually in areas where lots of houses booked out that way.

In vacation destinations there are real estate companies that specialize in this. In the old days you would contact the local chamber of commerce for a referral, or look them up in the phone book. After that, there were websites like VRBO (still around, still works well). Now they put their stock onto AirBnB as well.

AirBnB did not invent short-term rentals. The parent is right that housing supply issues have a much deeper root cause than AirBnB.

[ricardobeat]

Vacation rentals are just as far from what AirBnB (originally) offered as a B&B. Usually handled by a property manager, entire home, nice location / popular holiday destinations and facilities as it is someone's second property. Much higher prices. This is a far cry from an "air bed" in a corner of a standard urban family apartment in São Paulo, which you'd find by the thousands in the early years before regulations caught up.

I think you're underestimating how much AirBnB as a platform opened up this market to the average traveller, including business travel, and yes, absolutely contributed to the housing crisis, though I wasn't even making a point about that.