OK Airbnb not leaving much for you is just uninformed.

I personally did this quite a bit to raise some money and easily made over $1000 a week renting out my place after fees and alternate housing arrangements for myself were made.

I could do it for free on Craigslist or whatever but where else am I going to find someone who insures me against damages (which I had to use once for $300 bucks in damage cause) and provides safe payment gateways?

They bring value to the table, market your place, send a photographer to you for free to photograph you place, keep you safe and secure and help you make money while taking a small single digit percentage.

Uber provides a means for anyone to work at their own leisure. You can work during "surge hours" and get paid tonnes more while they take a percentage Let's say 40% for the sake of argument.

You could always sign up with a government cab company and pay upwards for 1 million for a licence in some places, or you can use Uber which costs 0 to get started.

Or you just don't have to do any of it at all and just stay home without a job or get a different one.

Google offers a service free to users in exchange for data.

This data is mainly used to advertise to you.

They found a way to give you billions of dollars of services for free while helping get relevant advertising to you.

The only difference is that instead of seeing diaper ads which don't matter to you you will see dog food ads which do matter to you.

Plus they give employees equivalent of 1 years salary in shares. If you work hard to make the company better then you get a share of the profits.