Thanks for your trenchant comments, Steve and Dawn. I too am dismayed and alarmed by Airbnb's rather sudden plunge into an abyss of host-hurting policy changes and no support service whatsoever. Have they out-sourced everything including policy-making to a hovel of Stone Age peasants in Outer Mongolia?
As others have reported, my requests and inquiries have suddenly plunged from DAILY requests to ZERO for the entire last month. I don't know what is going on with guests, but I suspect many are turned off by the flophouse atmosphere created by the combo of IB and the disappearance of descriptive titles for the listings. When I recently tried to search a European city with hundreds of listings, it was a HOPELESS task with nothing but a picture to guide my choices.
As a host, I am dismayed by the sudden onslaught of:
1) Compulsory IB -- implemented in the most sneaky, manipulative way, so that many hosts did not even realize for a while that their listings had disappeared.
2) Compulsory accepting infants for free ( I do it as a courtesy, but no one should be forced to make this concession).
3) The disappearance of descriptive titles which strip out what is unique and valuable about your place. In my case, I am next door to a world-famous Music School at IU, but all that appears is "private room in Bloomington" like every other place, so now I just look overpriced!
4) Aggressive downward pressure on prices, via having created a glut of hosts in most places, and then telling everyone to lower their prices.
It's no wonder all the quality, savvy hosts are desperately seeking alternatives. Get it together, Airbnb, or you will crash and burn!