"So let’s say you check in to a Dublin hotel, and they ask you for your passport. First of all you likely won’t have it if you are Irish. But if you did, and they wanted to keep it until you checked out. Would you be happy with that? "
Wouldnt bother me in the slightest. Why are people so hung up about handing a passport in? I just dont get it.
I think people are getting more paranoid.
"The argument about where your passport is safer, let’s put that aside for the moment. This is about power. Why put up with it?"
Power to do what?? Because someone has your passport dosent give them a hold over you.
"And as a backpacker in Australia. When a campsite owner held on to my passport, I saw that for what it was. A sign to not misbehave or not to not pay your rent. A form of power"
That could also be viewed as someone protecting their income and investment from the likes of the people that stay in Dicks field for instance, and leave without paying. My response to that would be its better to be safe than sorry.
Let me ask you a question.
If it became mandatory that every hotel, b&b and campsite held onto their guests passports till they leave, would you stop travelling?