[octaveguin]

All platforms can be thought of as positioning themselves for rent seeking - that is app stores, linkedin, and yeah airbnb.

Things that require a network effect, after they get it, are in a super leveraged position that they can cash in.

That said, the platforms that choose not to cash in on this tend to not be as successful. Couchsurfing wasn't. Cash and the promise of cash for investors allows a company to spend a great deal to market and secure with insurance this sharing economy. These are important functions to make the public understand and get used to this new weird future.

In the end, we need those rent-seeking-seeming fees to jumpstart this whatever-you-want-to-call-it sharing economy. We don't get an airbnb without a large commission on every renting agreement made.

I believe that once the public is comfortable with 'sharing economy' as an integrated part of our lives, then the race to the bottom platforms might start happening - when companies are competing on price and features. Of course, those incumbents will fight tooth and nail to keep their monopolies and may well succeed. We'll see.

Right now is the golden age for these types of companies.

[Joeboy]

> That said, the platforms that choose not to cash in on this tend to not be as successful. Couchsurfing wasn't.

By what metric? The people I know who use couchsurfing.org seem very enthusiastic about it, which is obviously anecdotal but it's odd to be reading that it's a failure.

[meemoo]

Probably total number of people sleeping at Couchsurfer vs AirBNB places per night. In this sense, AirBNB is introducing more people to the concept.

I have used both, and AirBNB is much easier in cities, where Couchsurfing hosts probably get way too many requests.

[meemoo]

"Live by disruption, die by disruption." - Bruce Sterling