@Kay61 Very interesting endevour.
As with anything else, badges of distinction usually are 'watered down' once people learn how to gain them too easily, or are allowed to. And when that happens then two things follow: because they become to common then they loose all 'value' (i.e. like in some sports where everyone gets a trophy). Secondly, when they become too common, oftentimes a company simply adds a new 'badge' (aka Airbnb Plus program) because they have given up on fixing the problems of the bastarization of first badge.
To me, Airbnb made one big mistake with the Superhost program; only ten (10) guests giving 5-stars are required to qualify. Excellent hosting should be exemplified by a host getting great reviews on a consistent level and over time. Had they gone this way, a Superhost would come across as the best odds for a guest to have a great stay and thus have an advantage for hosts with it; and secondly, it would have protected a Superhost from the occational 'lunatic' guest who tries to sabotage a host's 'Superhost' status because their impact would have been practically cancelled out by virtue of being averaged by a larger number of past guests. Airbnb is now going to 4.8 level (vs.4.7) to ~try~ to countervail the Superhost inflation, but yet not changed the minimum (still 10 guests).
Which brings me to Airbnb Plus..
This program, could have been made an extension of Superhost, the next level, with even more stringent standards of guest satisfaction, not one to compete with it in parallel, since after all, what is best for Airbnb is ~guest satisfaction~ at any and all economic levels (aka value). This program has some confusing criterias, which are hard to figure, or determined where exactly they came from. It appears to foremost put emphasis on 'style' and 'image' to give an illusion of 'quality', a very shallow idea, that someone at Airbnb thought was most important, rather than from the collective satisfaction of guests, which is what will always serve Airbnb best.
