It's been well documented that real estate has been one of the most racist and institutionalized discriminatory industries in America for decades, if not centuries. Just google 'redlining' if you're ignorant of this. The color of your skin would literally dictate which neighborhoods you were allowed to rent/buy in. If you don't know that term, then you really haven't done your research.
Airbnb is not virtue signaling. They only care about their bottom line as someone else pointed out. You know what hurts a companies bottom line? Class action lawsuits. It's only a matter of time before a lawyer picks this up and successfully sues airbnb on behalf of every minority who rented from them. It's a lot at stake. Of course they're going to work on this.
They already try to prevent partying on halloween and other holidays, and you might go 'see? more virtue signaling!' no, it's not. They try to prevent parties because parties hurt their reputation, piss off townships/cities, and cause STR bans. Again, Airbnb is beholden to it's shareholders. All they care about is their bottom line. It just so happens to line up with 'woke ideals' such as, I dunno, not being discriminatory? and not wanting to piss off local residents.
Be honest with yourself, we all generalize. When you see someones photo, you instantly judge them. If I see a woman in her 20s has booked, and she's partying looking drunk in her profile picture (ive seen this multiple times because its taken directly from facebook for most people) I instantly get guarded about how she's going to leave the property. I assume she may leave late, she may leave garbage everywhere, she may, I dunno, party!
As a business owner I will do anything, and everything I can to reduce problems for my livelihood. If I think that it will help me to reduce partying (aka help my bottom line) by rejecting everyone who 'looks' like a partier, I probably will. If airbnb showed me their photo beforehand, you bet I would start to try to use it to gain an edge in my business and perform better.
It's a very easy parallel to see that some folks would do this with race. Hell, I had my very first group of French kids stay at my house a this summer and trash the place and piss off the neighbors, half-naked screaming underage drinking in the street at 2 am. You bet I am now wary of french sounding names!
The fact is this - if this isn't hurting you, or your business, to hide someone's name and simply represent with an initial, why do you care so much? If you keep arguing about how this is silly, or virtue signaling, you're really just hiding your frustration that you think racism doesn't exist in real estate and it bothers you that maybe, it does, and you aren't aware of it. This ain't about you champ, so let it go.
