[bmpafa]

Moreover, restricting voluntary economic interactions behind a wall of regulatory licensing schemes, like hotel licenses and taxi licenses, exacerbates income inequality

Airbnb was valued at $31bn after its last round. As of market close today, that's about more than the market caps of Hilton & Intercontinental combined.

Despite what the astroturfing campaigns of Airbnb et al would have you believe, regulations are meant to, in part, protect competition. If we're unsatisfied with them, we ought to use elections to change them. But allowing private firms to engage in Uber's brand of regulatory arbitrage severely undermines gov't institutions.

[Jabanga]

>Airbnb was valued at $31bn after its last round. As of market close today, that's about more than the market caps of Hilton & Intercontinental combined.

The Airbnb industry stands to replace a large chunk of the entire hospitality industry, which is worth substantially more than $31 billion.

The astroturfing is by the powerful hotel lobby, as is almost always the case when you see a push to restrict voluntary economic interactions with licensing requirements that ordinary people can't afford (e.g. hotel licenses which almost all the Airbnb hosts would be unable to afford):

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/technology/inside-the-hot...