by
Tim O'Reilly
WTF? Without owning a single room, Airbnb has more rooms on offer than some of the largest hotel groups in the world. Airbnb has under 3,000 employees, while Hilton has 152,000. New forms of corporate organization are outcompeting businesses based on best practices that we’ve followed for the lifetimes of most business leaders.
It's worth thinking more on why this is ... it's literally just outsourcing. The work of receptionists has been outsourced to the people who own/rent the dwellings (or sometimes the people who are paid commission/salary to manage it for them...); people who clean these places do so gig-work-style instead of full-time; don't need hotel restaurants cus people eat at local restaurants ... etc. It would be a good thing if it weren't for the way Airbnb takes such a huge cut despite not having the need to (merely because it can)