And a zillion alternate universes in which they never got big. Survivor bias is real, and everyone has just-so stories. The ones they choose to tell are partially an artifact of organizational culture, and partially of self-aggrandizement.
I'm genuinely confused at what is it better at than Booking, which also has hosts.
Booking is also significantly cheaper at all offerings ranges and has a much wider catalogue including hotels.
Airbnb was cool and interesting when it was genuinely cheaper and offering authentic experiences.
Every vacation or place I go I check Airbnb and bar for one apartment in Sangenjaya, Tokyo, I have never, ever booked there in years, and the only reason I did was that Booking had nothing in those days in that very place I wanted. But it's rare.
Both prioritize putting at the top places that are likelier to sell and hotels in more touristic areas draw more people.
What are those off putting experiences on booking?
Both apps and websites do essentially the same, it's not a sketchy dark pattern filled Ryanair check in.
As it would apply to a lot of things throughout history.
e.g. “Remember that there is an alternate universe in which ancient Anatolian farmers defeated the Yamnaya steppe raiders in Europe, and they are telling the story of how they nearly didn't make it.”
Which would mean even the concept of “European” as known in this universe… is just a bundle of survivor bias, just-so stories, and so on.
As to your second point: "European" is an arbitrary social concept. Cartographers could have decided that Eurasia is obviously a single landmass, or that nothing is more important than river systems, or that the most important directionality is the path of the sun. Thousands of years later, the decisions made have consequences, but there is nothing divinely ordained about what those decisions were.
I suppose if a hundred years from now the common, generic word for "hotel" is "airbean", that might be a significant effect. But it's a little more likely to be "marriott" or "hilton", I think.