i stay in hotels pretty exclusively now bc i am a grown up but airbnb was awesome like a decade ago. i went to the Bahamas with my now husband for a conference that he somehow had there in 2018. the university was covering his costs but obviously i had to pay my own way. the hotel was $500 a night. i said fuck that and found an airbnb for $70 a night, which all of the other students also booked. it ruled. i saved the university so much money that they let us stay a couple extra days on them. my host picked us up from the airport and when i told her it was my birthday that week she planned a birthday lunch for me. it turned out that the airbnb was just a hobby for her and her husband was one of the head people at Tiger Woods’ resort on the island. she drove us there, got us in, and paid for our meals, which we ate while she got a massage. probably cost more than my entire stay. she also gave us a tour of the island and we got a discount at Atlantis bc we were her friends. i miss you Gloria the love of my life.
Airbnb went from a cheap way to crash in a spare bedroom or rent a vacation house for a weekend and turned into "what if hotels openly hated you and acted like they were doing you a favor by letting you give them hundreds of dollars to stay there, and also it's more expensive"