The terms sharing economy, collaborative consumption, and peer-to-peer accommodation are routinely used when talking about Airbnb and similar online platforms. But are they suitable descriptors? We argue that they are not. We also argue that – while initially there may have been an aspect of sharing on Airbnb – short-term accommodation platforms have mostly become web services that facilitate commercial online trading. The types of spaces that are being traded have changed substantially since Airbnb first empowered ordinary people to purchase access to space from other ordinary people in 2008: the number of private listings by people making spare rooms available in their homes has dropped, and the number of commercial short-term rentals has increased. In 2020, COVID-19 shook up the entire tourism industry. The pandemic rattled Airbnb investors, and may lead to a partial revival of the original, more sharing-oriented concept of space trading.