Airbnb’s promotional video for Airbnb.org, featuring stories of hosts offering shelter in times of crisis, presents the platform as a community-centred initiative in the digital economy. This narrative suggests that Airbnb can create genuine, decentralised connections that support people in need. However, this portrayal obscures a deeper reality: Airbnb’s model transforms personal spaces into commercial assets, promoting a market-orientated approach that conflicts with the platform’s idealised vision of community-driven sharing. I argue that, while Airbnb taps into the appeal of digital empowerment, its emphasis on market mechanisms ultimately commodifies private space, challenging the integrity of the “sharing economy” and raising questions about the platform’s social impact.
Airbnb’s alignment with the Californian Ideology, a vision of libertarian individualism and technological optimism, forms the basis for its appeal. Barbrook and Cameron (1995) define the Californian Ideology as a framework that sees technology as a tool for individual empowerment, envisioning a free-market cyberspace where people connect without intermediaries or regulation (Barbrook & Cameron, 1995, p. 5). In Airbnb’s narrative, this vision is realised through stories of hosts autonomously offering their homes, suggesting that the platform facilitates a form of digital democracy where individuals can freely provide support. This ideal of self-determined generosity implies that, by leveraging Airbnb’s technology, individuals can foster community outside traditional institutional frameworks (Barbrook & Cameron, 1995, p. 3).
Yet, the Californian Ideology’s emphasis on individual freedom and market-driven interactions overlooks the socio-economic disparities such platforms can exacerbate. Barbrook and Cameron argue that this ideology often ignores structural inequalities, promoting a one-sided vision of opportunity that tends to benefit the economically privileged (Barbrook & Cameron, 1995, p. 8). Airbnb’s platform model exemplifies this tension, as its impact on local housing markets—where short-term rentals can drive up costs and displace residents—demonstrates. While Airbnb promises to empower individuals, it primarily benefits those with property to rent, reinforcing socio-economic divides rather than reducing them. This contradiction reveals a limitation of the Californian Ideology: freedom framed solely in economic terms can obscure broader social costs, as Airbnb’s commercial model ends up restricting access to affordable housing rather than creating equitable opportunities.
Airbnb’s platform design promotes a market-orientated model of hospitality by transforming homes into commercial assets. According to Spier (2024), Airbnb’s interface encourages hosts to adopt “professional” standards through features like pricing recommendations, photo guidelines, and automated communications (Spier, 2024, p. 9). This design encourages a shift from casual hosting to profit-driven transactions, aligning host behaviour with corporate goals and commodifying what was once private space. This approach fits within Freedman’s notion of the “economy of abundance,” where platforms use vast inventories of personal resources to expand consumer choice yet often impose standardised practices that undermine genuine individual agency (Freedman, 2016, p. 74).
Additionally, Airbnb claims neutrality in its role as a “platform,” presenting itself as a mere connector between hosts and guests. This neutrality thesis, as Spier notes, enables Airbnb to avoid responsibility for local market impacts, despite its direct influence on user behaviour (Spier, 2024, p. 7). The platform’s design subtly directs hosts to conform to Airbnb’s commercial model, challenging the idea that it is merely a passive intermediary. By embedding specific values and priorities into its design, Airbnb shapes interactions in ways that serve its profit motives, undermining the community-orientated narrative it promotes.
In essence, while Airbnb projects a vision of digital freedom and empowerment, its model reveals the limitations of this ideal within a profit-driven framework. For Airbnb to genuinely align with its community-focused image, it would need to balance its commercial objectives with social responsibility, perhaps by supporting non-commercial exchanges or community initiatives. Without such changes, Airbnb’s promise of digital empowerment remains primarily rhetorical, serving as a strategy to enhance brand appeal rather than a true embodiment of the sharing economy.
References
Barbrook, R. & Cameron, A. (1995). The Californian Ideology. Mute.
Freedman, D. (2016). “Web 2.0 and the Death of the Blockbuster Economy.” In Curran, J., Fenton, N., & Freedman, D. (eds.), Misunderstanding the Internet. London: Routledge, pp. 74-99.