Airbnb is really just the middleman. There will always be a demand for folks to rent out extra space they have and likewise always be a tenant who is willing to occupy it.
Imagine if Airbnb was completely decentralized -- a native, open-source application akin to Bitcoin. With no central server to shut down, office to raid, or company to sue, how would city governments prevent people from renting out their unused housing space? They could catch a few and make examples out of them (similar to RIAA with music torrenting) but they will overwhelming fail to prevent the hotel incumbents from becoming obsolete.
Not that I disagree, but I wonder if having a reserved personality has more to do with being disrespected than the gender. I know lots of women who I wouldn't dare make jabs at. Similarly, many of my submissive male friends get pushed around more so than my female ones.
I'll agree -- the $100 cost to developers is also a psychological one. You're more likely to carefully consider the development of your app if you've invested financially in it.
Also, imagine the hordes of crappy apps that would come through if the barrier of entry were just OS X and an internet connection. The App Store review process simply wouldn't be able to keep up. Apple's primary focus has always been on quality and always will be.
I'm not saying I condone locking developers into paying fees for platform-specific development, but as an iPhone user, I don't want to wade through a bloated app store to find something useful.
If Apple could both increase the effectiveness and iterative speed of the App review process, I think they could afford to lower the iOS developer fee a little, and perhaps even make it free.
I've found that the more I put off the coding in favor of designing and planning, the more I tend to spin my wheels. Bring it to reality, and then iterate over it. You'll never think of everything from the start, and if you do, it's likely wrong.
Imagine if Airbnb was completely decentralized -- a native, open-source application akin to Bitcoin. With no central server to shut down, office to raid, or company to sue, how would city governments prevent people from renting out their unused housing space? They could catch a few and make examples out of them (similar to RIAA with music torrenting) but they will overwhelming fail to prevent the hotel incumbents from becoming obsolete.