VRBO did whole-house vacation rentals in the U.S. well before AirBnB. Still around and works well. I’d say we book about half the time through VRBO and half the time through AirBnB.
AirBnB’s differentiator on launch was “rent just one room” in an owner-occupied dwelling. Remember when it was “the sharing economy”? There are still listings like that, but I think most of the money is in whole-dwelling rentals now.
I genuinely love that 'rent just a room' (or even just a bed!) function of Airbnb, and continue to use it till this day. Have met many interesting people (or as I heard another comment on here say "weird in a non-dangerous way" lol), and it's always felt like a safe and quality experience to me (so long as I always do the due diligence and use common sense to stay with hosts that have tons of positive reviews, etc). IIRC Airbnb had a push a few 'releases' ago to revive this core part of their founding purpose, but now it seems they've moved on to 'services'.
AirBnB’s differentiator on launch was “rent just one room” in an owner-occupied dwelling. Remember when it was “the sharing economy”? There are still listings like that, but I think most of the money is in whole-dwelling rentals now.