Airbnb's success story stands out in stark contrast to the struggles of other startups. Unlike Zillow's disastrous attempt at house-flipping, Airbnb has flourished for over a decade. Their revenue skyrocketed, tripling from $3.3 billion to nearly $10 billion. Even more impressive, they flipped profitability, going from annual losses of $4-5 billion to earning the same staggering amount. Perhaps the strongest indicator of their dominance is their resilient stock price. Unlike the post-IPO crashes
Uber was originally marketed as ride-sharing, too. Just an app to find people going the same way. Of course, I’m fairly sure that their current iterations was the plan all along as anyone with enough business sense to start those companies must have predicted that there would be people who take on Uber/AirBnB as a primary source of income. But sharing your house or planning a shared trip is much more palatable than “Landlords but Worse”.
http://couchsurfing.com/ Still exists
But i can’t imagine as many people on there when they can just rent out for money