@Kittie-and-Chris0 I am quite certain that if Airbnb had called me to be in the 'Select' (Plus) program (which wasn't going to happen - I live in a little beach community on the Oregon Coast) I would have been very interested and possibly would have accepted, depending on how I felt about meeting their specific requirements / expectations. Not having any clue as to all the changes Airbnb would be rolling out (as announced by Brian C. 2/22/18), I could not possibly have understood the impact this would have on the entire 'system', (our community), i.e., how non-Plus hosts would be affected / impacted - Super Hosts, as well as 'traditional' hosts (private rooms in homes, common, shared space, etc). And I am sure I would have felt surprised and hurt, like you, when reading certain 'Plus'-related comments here. It is understandable.
I wrote a post several weeks ago entitled, "Are Traditional Hosts No Longer Valued By Airbnb?" I am not sure what led me to write it, but it seems rather prescient now, given all that has happened since 2/22 with Airbnb's platform. While I will likely not be negatively impacted by these changes ('Plus' is unlikely to ever get to my area, and if it did, I am already running my place like a 'Plus' home, with more amenities than most 'Plus' homes offer) I am aware of many, many hosts who ARE being negatively impacted by these changes, and rather drastically, particularly if they are listed in one of the 13 Cities 'Plus' is in. One host in Los Angeles wrote a rather anguished post recently - They had worked very, very hard to get established, invested a lot into their Airbnb (start-up costs), made Super Host early on, were receiving up to 4 booking requests / IBs a day, and then the new 'Plus' platform / website was rolled out 2/22 and they have not had one booking since. Not one. I am sure that you can well imagine how that might feel, given your own hard work and success as a Super Host.
The fact is, Airbnb is taking a different direction, one that is in alignment with the demands that go along with pursuing a well-publicized impending IPO. If Airbnb had gone about this 'Plus' roll-out differently, I don't think there would be as many negative things being said. For example, Airbnb could have announced that ALL Super-hosts now have a chance to become a 'Plus' listing by meeting certain standards and criteria. But this would not have met the needs of the IPO-train; they needed to make a drastic platform shift to capture people / sources of revenue that currently is going to hotels / boutique hotels / property managed vacation homes, etc, and they had to do it very quickly. So 13 cities were selected, and Super Hosts (or boutique hotels or property managed rentals) were invited to become part of the 'Plus' program. Understandable, and efficient on Airbnb's part. But there are consequences from choosing such a strategy - and one of those is that many people are feeling confused, angry, left behind, and upset, especially as they see their bookings suddenly go down as a direct consequence of this 'Plus' roll-out.
As for me, I assumed after Brian C's emphasizing the value of Super Hosts 2/22 that the 'Stay With A Super Host' selection would be featured somewhere within the same geographical region as the 'Plus' homes. I have already shared elsewhere my great surprise and disappointment to find that the critical top section of Airbnb's new home page is basically a gigantic billboard for Airbnb Plus. I had to scroll past no less than 7 other selections ('Homes Around The World', 'Experiences', 'Concerts', etc) before I could find the 'Stay With A Super Host' filter. We were near to dead last. And that told me all I needed to know about my value and importance as a Super Host on Airbnb.
Lastly, some in the Airbnb Community are feeling distressed as they see their incomes threatened by all of these changes that they never saw coming. It is quite evident, at least to me, that a 'culling' of traditional hosts appears to be occurring via revised standards and policies as Airbnb heads toward their IPO. We are being pressured to be more and more like hotels, and less and less visible and personal as hosts. We are being asked to be more like impersonal, invisible property managers versus caring human beings, as @Robin4 has previously mentioned. Some of us will be able to adapt and do well within this new drastically different framework and continue to experience success on the Airbnb platform, and some of us won't. And people are going to need time and space to process all of this and adjust to the new reality that is unfolding before them, a reality that was completely unexpected. And some of that processing is happening here in the Community Center, and this is likely going to go on for a long time as hosts begin to realize that the train that they were riding has suddenly left the station without them. Because it seems that AIrbnb is not for everybody, after all.
