[yokohama11]

"In fact, when we funded Airbnb, we thought it was too crazy. We couldn't believe large numbers of people would want to stay in other people's places"

I don't understand why anyone would have thought this at that time unless they did zero research.

VRBO had been effectively doing that for 13 years by the time Airbnb came along, and was (and is) widely used. Yes, Airbnb's focus is a bit different of a market segment, but clearly their success indicated that large numbers of people were willing to rent someone else's place directly from them in spite of the potential concerns.

[akrymski]

This exactly. VRBO and HomesAway are the businesses that AirBnB is really competing with, and they've been going for ages. Hotels are for shorter stays, and generally are quite price competitive with AirBnB when staying short term anyhow. As a long time AirBnB host and guest, I've only ever used the platform to rent entire places, and I think that 80-90% of AirBnB revenue comes from renting entire homes. The original AirBnB idea of renting a room or couch from a local was just a beachhead and clever marketing trick to get noticed IMO. Like couchsurfing, I struggle to see that becoming a big business and taking on the Hotels.