There certainly is a small community on AirBnb that has shades of Couchsurfing, but I disagree that it's at all a substantial attribute of the system.
AirBnb has always been angling to be a hotel (or at least Bed & Breakfast) replacement.
Unfortunately AirBnb doesn't have an API, so I did the best thing I could: searched for rooms vs. whole-apartments in a way that would actually give me counts.
In and around Greenwich Village, NYC: 634 whole-apartment listings, 132 private rooms in apartments, 6 shared rooms.
On the Upper East Side: 126, 13, 2
In Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn: 146, 50, 2
In Park Slope, Brooklyn: 559, 196, 5
In Astoria, Queens: 107, 111, 7
Moving away from NYC to SF...
In the Castro: 238, 129, 3
In North Beach: 176, 67, 9
In SOMA: 421, 197, 63
Or another state entirely...
In Capitol Hill, Seattle: 130, 55, 9
In Belltown, Seattle: 96, 16, 6
All of the searches were performed with the default filters, with the additional filters being only geographic bounds and type of listing. Now, I've got experience with all of the neighborhoods listed here, and they're all places where locals actually live. We're not exclusively at, say, Times Square.
I realize you've had good experiences with AirBnb, but I've argued, and still maintain in light of this data, that AirBnb is on the surface property-based, and is also beneath property-based. There seems to be a subcommunity dedicated to the more Couchsurfing type of experiences, but the data is stacked against them. AirBnb likes to borrow and quote heavily from this subcommunity in an effort to appear more populist and grassroots, but in reality the vast majority of listings on AirBnb are dedicated rental properties, not situations where the host is even present.
Thanks for providing some real data behind the assumptions everyone has been making. I remember when AirBnB first started, it was definitely much more about people renting out spare bedrooms, in-laws, etc. but as it became more popular it was very clear to property owners that they could make more taking rental units off the market especially in markets with high nightly hotel rates like New York and San Francisco.
AirBnb has always been angling to be a hotel (or at least Bed & Breakfast) replacement.
Unfortunately AirBnb doesn't have an API, so I did the best thing I could: searched for rooms vs. whole-apartments in a way that would actually give me counts.
In and around Greenwich Village, NYC: 634 whole-apartment listings, 132 private rooms in apartments, 6 shared rooms.
On the Upper East Side: 126, 13, 2
In Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn: 146, 50, 2
In Park Slope, Brooklyn: 559, 196, 5
In Astoria, Queens: 107, 111, 7
Moving away from NYC to SF...
In the Castro: 238, 129, 3
In North Beach: 176, 67, 9
In SOMA: 421, 197, 63
Or another state entirely...
In Capitol Hill, Seattle: 130, 55, 9
In Belltown, Seattle: 96, 16, 6
All of the searches were performed with the default filters, with the additional filters being only geographic bounds and type of listing. Now, I've got experience with all of the neighborhoods listed here, and they're all places where locals actually live. We're not exclusively at, say, Times Square.
I realize you've had good experiences with AirBnb, but I've argued, and still maintain in light of this data, that AirBnb is on the surface property-based, and is also beneath property-based. There seems to be a subcommunity dedicated to the more Couchsurfing type of experiences, but the data is stacked against them. AirBnb likes to borrow and quote heavily from this subcommunity in an effort to appear more populist and grassroots, but in reality the vast majority of listings on AirBnb are dedicated rental properties, not situations where the host is even present.