> Was this really deliberate? Seems likely given their attention to details like this.
Random guess: maybe some US customers are confused by (or even just dislike) seeing "US$" or "USD" as opposed to just "$"? If enough US customers are like this (or even just if Airbnb believes that they are), that might influence a decision to just display "$" when they think (however wrongly) the customer is from the US.
I've never used Airbnb, so can't comment on their UX specifically, but I've seen before web sites run by US companies which offer their services to non-US customers, but have a UX which starts out by assuming you are in the US, and you sometimes have to go out of your way to tell them that you are not, and it is easy to miss doing so.
If you went to a .ca website, to book accomodation in Canada, you'd expect unadorned $ to mean C$ not US$.
[0] paragraph 10 of https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/ACCC%20v%20Airbnb%20Ire...
The .com.au domain was in AUD by default. I don’t believe there was a modal to redirect Australian visitors to the appropriate domain either.
I also never encountered this during all of my bookings over the timeframe mentioned (2018-2021) making me think that I had a selection of AUD in the Preferred Currency settings https://www.airbnb.com.au/account-settings/preferences
So I must assume that a default selection of USD or (no default) setting was the one affecting these customers. Strange that Airbnb, with their widely regarded bleeding user experience, still chose to render $ amounts without the default? "USD" qualifier.
Was this really deliberate? Seems likely given their attention to details like this.