What’s Happening: Unpredictable guest experiences, excessive fees, and a role in intensifying the housing crisis has soured opinions on Airbnb. Do the pros of short-term rentals outweigh the cons?

The Download: When Airbnb first debuted, the travel industry hadn’t seen anything like it. Co-founded by RISD schoolmates Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia and later joined by technologist Nathan Blecharczyk, the service successfully booked its first customers during a conference in summer 2008, when travelers had difficulty securing short-term lodging in San Francisco. Guests and hosts praised its variety of options and hassle-free online booking.

Since Airbnb’s starry-eyed origins, the tech unicorn has gradually devolved into chaos. Early complaints about negative experiences have intensified. Pest-infested rooms. Hidden cameras. Bait-and-switch scams. Last-minute cancellations. Intrusive hosts. Excessive fees. Chore lists. Faced with a torrent of backlash and public scrutiny at every misstep, Airbnb listings now come with a laundry list of rules that guests must follow or risk poor ratings—and even more fees—from hosts. And these are only minor offenses. Airbnb has hired a world-class “safety team” that keeps guests at bay when their rental experience is outright nightmarish in order to prevent more PR disasters.

Many of these issues arise because unlike hotels, individual rentals lack full-time staff. Even the seediest motels will at least attempt to solve problems and change your room, but guests at Airbnbs often need to deal with problems on their own if their hosts aren’t responsive. (Don’t think about leaving bad reviews, either.) But when you’re inundated with household chores, abiding by excessive rules, and hit with hidden fees without the amenities of a hotel, do the pros of an Airbnb rental still outweigh the cons?

Twitter doesn’t seem to think so. “The Airbnbust is upon us,” wrote a Dallas-based housing expert, who tweeted screenshots from a Facebook group called “Airbnb Superhosts” in which members complained of low bookings. The tweet went viral and prompted an impassioned response from users. “Holiday Inns are usually pretty nice and don’t give me lists of chores like I’m in third grade,” one person quipped. Another: “Maybe it’s because you evicted a family of four, converted their home into a shoddy duplex, filled it with clearance bin TJ Maxx decor, and charge guests $200 for a cleaning fee, all because you don’t feel like getting a job.”

They have a point. Along with supply chain woes, the construction slowdown, and exclusionary zoning laws, the short-term rental industry has been accused of driving up housing prices. Opportunistic landlords gobble up long-term rentals that once housed locals, converting them into short-term Airbnbs where a two-night stay may cover its monthly rent.

Cities like New York and Amsterdam have cracked down on short-term rentals, but the former recently reported having more Airbnb listings than apartments on the market. (That doesn’t bode well during a historic housing shortage.) A 2016 report estimates Airbnb’s grip on the housing stock costs New Yorkers an extra $616 million in annual rent, though many factors inform the housing market and make Airbnb’s true impact more difficult to measure.

In Their Own Words: “The change was so slow and incremental that there was never one moment when Airbnb became so awful. But as unique mom-and-pop vacation rentals have given way to corporate property management behemoths, the charm of Airbnb has slowly eroded until all that’s left are unpredictable lodging experiences at high prices,” Sam Kemmis writes for Nerdwallet. “The cons of staying at Airbnb properties so often outweigh the pros that travelers—even cheapskate backpackers—might reconsider its outsized role in the travel universe.”

Surface Says: One way to save Airbnb? Turn it into a platform exclusively for weird and wonderful rentals you can’t find anywhere else.

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Channeling the spirit of the Belle Epoque when it served as a stomping ground for journalists, musicians, and artists—Hungarian writer Gyula Krúdy famously penned portions of The Adventures of Sindbad there—a century-old art nouveau social hub is experiencing a rebirth. The bi-level, 300-seat Matild Café & Cabaret has played a prominent role in Budapest’s history since opening in 1901. Its shuttering at the onset of WWI is a time marker many believe signaled the end of the golden age of European coffeehouse culture.

Closing again during WWII, it was the first venue to open after the Allied victory. Weathering another disruption during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, it regained its status as the city’s entertainment epicenter and eventually became known as Belvárosi Kávéház. Now, emerging from a meticulous five-year renovation courtesy of Maria Vafiadis of MKV Design and architects Péter Cajka and Puhl Antal, the latest iteration is part of the tip-to-toe revamp of a UNESCO–listed building and home to the Matild Palace hotel.

Revisiting his Austrian roots, L.A.’s stalwart chef Wolfgang Puck oversees the culinary program and tapped Austrian chef Franz Pichler to help deliver a wide-spanning menu of regional staples. In the morning, coffee and baked goods inspired by the classic pastries of Puck’s childhood are on offer at the terrace along Duna Street. Come night, Hungarian soul food like beef stew with homemade spaetzle and Krúdy-style sausages are served during cabaret performances. An onsite chocolate atelier is the place to load up on bonbons and traditional Eszterházy and Dobos cakes.

“Not only a traditional Hungarian café has been reborn, but the entertainment and gastronomic palette of the city has been further enriched,” says Matild Palace general manager Selim Olmez. “I believe that the unique atmosphere of the venue, the culinary art of Wolfgang Puck, and the special cabaret shows will shake up the social life of Budapest.”

Vincent Pocsik’s meticulously crafted anatomical sculptures wield a certain power: they give pause and excite new perspectives of the human condition at every encounter. From his studio in Los Angeles, the SCI-Arc–trained artist restlessly experiments with wood, glass, and metal to transform his favored materials into provocative, grotesque creations that take on a life of their own.

When designing their Stick capsule collection for Contardi, Studiopepe founders Chiara di Pinto and Arianna Lelli Mami found inspiration in art gallery lighting. Each piece from the Stick collection is a design object in its own right and combines a gently undulating surface with triangular prisms to create an atmospheric glow. The capsule, which includes wall and pendant lights, serves as everything from task to accent lighting—and, in our opinion, wall art itself.

When: Until Feb. 19, 2023

Where: Dallas Museum of Art

What: Though he only practiced art for six years before his untimely death, in 2019, Matthew Wong’s poignant landscape paintings represent a singular talent tragically cut short. His first-ever museum retrospective—fittingly presented at the only institution that collected his work during his lifetime—presents a full scope of his oft-unpeopled landscapes ranging from panoramic vistas portrayed in iridescent patterns of dots to cool mountain landscapes delineated by long brushstrokes and washes, evoking styles from Post-Impressionism to 17th-century Qing period ink painters.

“Matthew Wong was an artist with an intense drive,” says Dr. Vivian Li, who curated the show. “Not only did he teach himself to paint, but he also tirelessly studied artists he admired, assimilating various elements of their work into his own. Yet in looking at his paintings, which are uncanny, captivating and so stylistically assured, it’s easy to forget this was someone working relentlessly to catch up with himself—and who the world was just beginning to catch onto.”

Last week, chaos erupted at London’s National Gallery as two young protesters suddenly hurled tins of Heinz cream of tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s beloved Sunflowers. As the viscous liquid dripped down the painting’s glazing, the duo—two members of Just Stop Oil, an activist group that aims to stop gas and oil extraction in the U.K.—smeared their hands with glue and stuck themselves to a wall. In an impassioned speech, they questioned if visitors “are more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people?” (The painting was protected by glass and overall unharmed.)

Footage of the incident went viral, achieving what the activists originally intended. Disruptive protests have become common in Europe and the U.K., with the goal of putting psychological pressure on governments to respond more quickly to environmental calamity and cultural institutions to divest from sponsorships by oil companies like BP and Shell. There’s a shock factor to seeing tomato soup splash all over an $84 million painting, but damaging art isn’t the point—the main strategy involves garnering publicity, and bizarre antics beyond typical “glue-ins” are a surefire way to make headlines.

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