I honestly don’t see what the big deal is here. It’s nothing new that Airbnb allowed users (i.e., hosts) to name the terms of their reservation schemes. We can have a minimum number of nights, and we can have a maximum number of nights. You don’t need to read Wired magazine or tech blogs to figure that out. Just look at the damn website.
One of the biggest differences in price really is the guest’s cost. They don’t need to pay the occupancy excise tax on stays longer then 28 days (it may be longer in some places). That’s well above 3% almost every where.
So what’s the big that we pay a fee to Airbnb? It’s like not they’re going to provide their service for free. C’mom guys, it’s a business, just like you and me. You can complain until the cows come home, but no one is forcing you to use Airbnb as your only means of marketing, calendar, communication, insurance protection, POS merchant, tax collection, and conflict resolution center. Good look resolving a rental dispute or having the occupancy taxes collected and remitted to your local government through craigslist. The staff at craigslist would laugh at you.
The 4 years we’ve been hosting, I’ve had a healthy mix of short-term (<4 nights) and semi-long-term (>28 nights) stays. Until now with COVID-19, it was near impossible to book a stretch of nights longer then 2 weeks at our 2 listings, unless a guest booked months in advance. Even then, I had a 7-night max. on one of our listings.
I think in light of a highly infectious disease like COVID-19 and the fact it will be here for a while, Airbnb is reminding users, both hosts and guests, it can be a booking platform for longer term stays, too. I think this virus will disrupt travel as we know it for a while, and the need for longer term stays may become a more suitable market for some STR hosts. I think it’s smart that Airbnb is sort of re-branding itself from a vacation destination booking platform to more of a housing rental platform, not that that’s really any different then before.
As hosts, I think we need to know what we want to do first and then list our spaces accordingly. Airbnb isn’t forcing you to be a landlord anymore than it did before the roll-out of these features - they already existed. Hosts need to decide for themselves what they want to do, and for some Airbnb might not be the right platform for them.