Commission is the most visible cost of platform dependency and the least interesting one. The expensive part is that you never learn who your guests are.
A property with a strong direct channel knows which market its best guests come from, which rooms they rebook, and which month to email them in. A property without one starts from zero every season.
The shift does not need to be dramatic. Moving from ninety percent platform bookings to seventy is enough to change how a business plans a year, and it usually starts with a website that answers the three questions people ask before they book.