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Might be a liability to their brand - major surges (say, around New Year's in NYC) also bring the most new customers.

Generally speaking that's a poor time to be flooding the market with inexperienced, new hosts and the requisite spike in bad customer experiences.

Hospitality differs substantially from Uber in the sense that quality of service is extremely important in a way it isn't on Uber (or at least, UberX).

Beyond Pricing is software to help hosts adjust prices based on supply and demand: http://www.beyondpricing.com

Airbnb only charge hosts 3%, so there isn't much they can do in that department.

I see a lot of Airbnb employees regurgitating this but it's not really true. Whether you nominally assign the fee to the guest or the host, it still comes out in the difference between what the guest was willing to pay and what the host receives. The total fee comes out closer to 10%.

That's a good point, but I'd assume most guests just compare the nightly rates on the search screen which don't include these fees (and also don't take into account weekly / monthly discounts).