@Ute42
Hi Ute,
I've just seen your post here, and 8d like to comment.
First, while I'm intimately familiar with the "culting of brands" (and fully agree that Airbnb is a good example of that), I'd like to clear up a few of your points as it pertains to my listing.
First, aspiring to night ratings in our case, isn't because Airbnb has somehow brainwashed me into believing it. It's simply good business, whether Airbnb says so or not.
If I listened to Airbnb, I'd be charging 1/3 the price, and nowadays, be stuck with far more undesirable guests. The strategy I'm using isn't perfect, but it keeps us booked at rates we shouldn't be able to get, considering our location.
Second, your example of search results is a bit flawed. If you simply do a random search for anything in Mallorca, with no dates, no number of persons, you'll get some pretty random results.
Now, we're struggling to get bookings like a tone else, and we're a bit pricier than others, so we're not fully booked for the summer, but we're pretty well booked into August. We won't show up in most random searches.
So, I tried it. "Incognito" As you suggested. But I put in dates of 20-27 August (we're available) and 6 adults 2 children. And you're right, we don't show up on page 1 or 2. We show up on page 3 (of 30). Although on another day with a slightly different (relevant) search, we'll show up on page 1 or 2 ... Or 3..
Conversely, if you search on VRBO where we have no status or ratings, you'll probably get bored and give up before you find our listing. Really.
Now, again, I don't care whether it's super host status or star ratings that puts us there, all I know is that it's just good business. And there's plenty of evidence that it makes a difference on Airbnb, VRBO, or "Joe's super duper villas.com".