Even in the budget industry, your nightly utility usage comes close to $10, consumables are $3+.

Hotel stays are typically taxed higher than typical sales tax.

Once you add that in, real estate taxes, and any corporate taxes - you're getting close to the $50 price point...

That's before you factor in the cost of maintaining the building, or the financing to buy the building itself (or any profit).

Are we supposed to live in a world where everyone's entitled to be able to stay in hotel rooms for 1 hour of minimum wage labor? Because, until we have far more automation, I don't see how that makes any possible sense.

My standards for hotel rooms on road trips are quite low and I will call the crappy motels to avoid the bloated .com booking rates and it’s not very often I find even 1 star hotels under $80/day after taxes.

80$ might seem like a lot of money if you're making 60k a year as a biologist. If you're in a field where profit is the reason you work 80$ is peanuts.