>Step outside of the software bubble we’re in and I’d guess 80% or more people would prefer a world without Airbnb.
I have, and the ability to travel (affordably) seems fairly important to working class folks. The people I've seen complain about AirBnb are the same sort of people who sneer at Ryanair - definitely not "the masses".
Then again, things may be different in the USA. I've always assumed the 40 year old man who has never seen the ocean is some sort of a ridiculous stereotype, but who knows.
I live in a pretty typical American middle class neighborhood far from any tech centers and Airbnb is almost universally hated around here, for pretty much the usual reasons you hear (disruptive guests, housing availability, etc). Airbnb clientele is heavily skewed towards techies and upper-middle class in my experience. Folks traveling on a limited budget either can't afford Airbnb or can't spare the extra time they take compared to a hotel.
Is that also true if you are (or are traveling with) a woman? I'm not much of a motel person and am mostly working with stereotypes here[1], but a cheap motel does not strike me as the place where a woman can safely return home by herself late in the evening.
I guess, cheap AirBnbs may be at similar locations, but that doesn't seem to be necessarily (or usually) true. And often you can't quite figure out how unsafe the place is ahead of time, so you rent something and roll with it, but that's a discussion for another time.
[1] Then again, so is everyone else. A guy a few comments down presented statistics, which were somehow refuted trough the careful deployment of a stereotype.
> Is that also true if you are (or are traveling with) a woman?
I don't think gender is a factor here. But it depends on the neighborhood you're in, not whether or not it's a motel.
However, that's not pertinent to the point that I was making, which is that Airbnbs are more of a luxury option, not a cost-saving option. The comment I was replying to appears to be asserting that being opposed to Airbnbs is elitist because it's being opposed to affordable options. In my experience in the US, that doesn't track. Airbnbs tend to be more expensive than someone who runs lean is likely to choose.
I have, and the ability to travel (affordably) seems fairly important to working class folks. The people I've seen complain about AirBnb are the same sort of people who sneer at Ryanair - definitely not "the masses".
Then again, things may be different in the USA. I've always assumed the 40 year old man who has never seen the ocean is some sort of a ridiculous stereotype, but who knows.