One luggage, no permanent home, been fifteen years.
I used to use AirBnB all the time.
They gradually become more and more, well, "large company".
Governments gradually made AirBnB illegal or effectively illegal, largely or wholly killing off AirBnB in given cities, or countries.
For example, it used to be about impossible to get into Amsterdam, because of rent control and renting regulations; no supply of places to let. Then AirBnB came along, and everyone and their dog let places on AirBnB. You could get in, and at a good price. Then AirBnB was essentially banned, and now you can't get into Amsterdam.
It was always that there were a lot of people offering places who didn't know how to price what they had; so you'd see a lot of properties, but a lot were crazy money. Still, if there were enough, there would be enough places at sane prices you'd get somewhere.
These days, I still look at AirBnB, but I see that their fees have continually risen over time, and are now like 10% or 15%, and there's just no content. I was in Paris last couple of months. There was nothing viable on AirBnB, unless you wanted to pay several thousand a month. There was one what I concluded was a scam, a very dodgy letting agency, who had lots of apartments, all with no ratings, but very bad reviews on-line. I think they were continually deleting and remaking their lets on AirBnB, to get rid of negative reviews.
Finally, AirBnB itself, regarding "large company", became unreliable as a service, in that I never knew, when I came to us it, if log-in would still work.
I recall the first time log-in failed for no obvious reason, and the and the only option was "email support and we'll contact you in a few days" - and I was looking to move in about two weeks time.
After that, I put up my own HTTPS proxy, which I now use whenever I use AirBnB, to avoid AirBnB suspending my account for a few days, until support get back to me.
I also recall one episode about ten years ago where I had to phone support. It was a three hour long screaming nightmare of hell and madness.
So - fees are now rather high, support don't bother - anything but support - I had to backdoor my own net traffic to use the service, no viable apartments in most locations.
It was great, but now it's really not.
The one and critical thing AirBnB got right was building into their platform the expectation owners would offer discounts for stays over a week, or over a month.
I don't see this on other platforms, and it makes pricing on other platforms crazy. If I come and stay for three months, I expect a discount for giving full occupancy over that time. If you don't offer that, you're off the menu.
