Airbnb
Founded in August 2008 in San Francisco, California, Airbnb was formed to give folks traveling in for the Industrial Design Conference held by the Industrial Designers Society of America a place to stay outside of the typical hotels booking experience. It allowed for anyone with a spare room or property to make some extra bucks offering temporary lodging solutions for tourists.
Now, the application serves 150 million users with over 6 million active listings worldwide, connecting guests with hosts all over the globe. Hosts usually fork over anywhere from 3%-15% of their booking subtotal to Airbnb, which includes the nightly rate, whatever cleaning fee the host associated with their property, and any other extra guest costs.
Although the application started off as what seemed like a low-cost alternative to hotels for guests looking for cute or charming living situations on their travels, a number of social media users have expressed that the application has become far too expensive, citing unrealistic host expectations of customers and excessive fees have made them cost just as much, if not more, than a traditional hotel.
