It’s extremely expensive to be poor. Often you wind up paying a lot more over time because you never accumulate the necessary up-front capital to pick the option that will cost less over the long term. Terry Pratchett had a perfect example of this involving boots, look it up.
In the United States, it used to be that only the poorest people lived paycheck-to-paycheck, but now most people do. This means ever more people are subject to this “poverty trap” at every level of society: They can’t make rational long-term choices because they only have the capital and credit to make rational short-term choices.
Of course, since the least expensive options in most spending categories provide the least value for the money, someone is getting that surplus value—which Wall Street just loves, since it makes numbers go up.
The majority of people aren't living paycheck to paycheck. Consumer surveys that purport to show that conflate those who are actually poor with those who are affluent but choose not to save any money because they prefer to spend it on investments or luxury car leases or private school tuition.
There are better options than airbnb if money is the concern, though - it just seems really dumb. Airbnb is like eating out at restaurants instead of buying from the grocery store and preparing your own food. There's subletting, crashing at friend/relative, sleeping in the car, etc. Personally, I'd choose van life over blowing all my money on over priced accommodation.
Sure, but a lot of poor people get stuck in situations where they pay far more over time because they either can't get good loan terms or can't save up enough money (like rental deposits) to avoid higher-cost rental items. See also: "rent to own", the trailer park industry, payday loans, buy-here/pay-here car lots, etc. Being poor can be very expensive.
