I, too, work at Airbnb, and I'm also a host. A very significant majority of us care a great deal about the quality of the stays booked through us (I can't speak for everyone here, but if they don't care, I would question why they work here). Although there's not much of a reason to be public about it externally, it's a pretty regular occurrence to see poorly reviewed listings warned or failing to improve after that are removed for consistently poor reviews. We take a lot of pride in facilitating meaningful experiences between guests and hosts.
I love Airbnb. I use it almost exclusively (maybe 95% of the time) when I travel and I travel often. I even met my ex-co-founder through staying at his Airbnb. Bearing this in mind I think Airbnb is barking up the wrong tree here. A classic case of a solution looking for a problem. Airbnb are trying to solve a problem with this new move but not one based on a market need like their initial idea. The problem they are trying to solve is they've run out of growth in one market and are obsessed with trying to continue their hockey stick growth so they look to new markets. Lots of companies do this and they all inevitably fail. Doing this rips the soul out of companies and dilutes their value proposition. Growth is great until the delusional need to continue it at all costs becomes a curse. It looks like this is where Airbnb have arrived.
Edit: I just played around with it a bit more and maybe I was a bit harsh. I'm definitely not the target market for this and will never use though I can imagine there is a sizeable number of people who would enjoy this. That said it should definitely be a new app. It doesn't make sense to put it in the main app.
