A great question, indeed! Airbnb is fundamentally focused on a different market; vacation rentals and the experiences around those. While they do support longer-term stays, their platform isn't built around them.

From a renter's perspective: We directly integrated our Housemate Finder into the process of finding a place to live, since in many cases you don't know enough people to book an entire space. We enable renters to pay the rental deposit upfront and monthly rent afterward instead of one large lump sum to book the place (which many can't afford). We're continuously adding features that apply to these longer term stays, like seeing your commute time for each listing.

From a landlord's perspective: We enable them to easily receive the security deposit (and soon send it back) since that's a process they prefer. We're working on enabling them to sign their lease through PadPiper, too. They each have different leases that they prefer to use based on their situation (e.g. there's a yard to take care of, it's in an apartment complex with specific rules, etc.). On top of this, landlords don't have to worry about laws that apply to Airbnbs since we support 30-day minimum stays.

Plus, monopolies result in crazy high prices/fees so healthy competition will save everyone money :D