I agree that the tech is anchored in driving down costs first and foremost, but I think it can also create a better guest experience. Consider my #2, if you could order room service with a simple in-room app (not an additional phone download, no new account, just clicking buttons on a provided in-room tablet) would you prefer that or would you stick to the phone?

If you still prefer phone, I'd love to know why? I think the digital ordering is less error prone and likely takes less of your time. As for the labor point, I think about it much more as keeping staff focused on things like preparing and delivering food, instead of transcribing phone calls into orders. I'm not trying to reduce labor costs (but I totally hear your concern that hotels will abuse it to that end), I just want to keep staff free to focus on things humans do better than machines (which will remain quite a lot for the foreseeable future).

I also should be clear that I'm not suggesting hotels use more tech to outsource the services. I'm not a fan of services like butler in-use at many Manhattan hotels, but I found digital room service at places like Four Seasons Montreal to be an absolute delight.

I think the hard product of hotels remains better and much more consistent that Airbnbs. The Airbnb price advantage has also been mostly removed for single/couple stays (I do find Airbnb to be cost efficient for larger group stays). Aside from the hard product, even with more technology, there's many services I don't see making sense in Airbnbs (e.g., room service, turn down service, concierge to help with all the random travel things, etc).