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It's an interesting dark pattern...

I understand when products are compared directly: Uber vs. Lyft, Uber Eats vs. Grubhub, etc. Often consumers are looking at the exact same product and purely deciding based on price. I can see what a company would add that dark pattern to squeeze every dollar they can get.

AirBnb, Turo? I don't get it, are folks comparing the purchases directly to "other" products?

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My haphazard guess from zero evidence: they may have ran some A/B testing on their platform that compared showing full price vs hiding the fees, and have come away with the conclusion that their conversion rate is x% higher when deploying the dark pattern. What such studies fail to measure is the cost of eroding brand trust, but this is just one possible scenario.

> AirBnb, Turo? I don't get it, are folks comparing the purchases directly to "other" products?

Sometimes to hotels and car rental chains. But also people glance at these sites to ballpark the cost of a vacation, get their hearts set, and come back later (maybe after booking flights) and only then see the full price.

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