What kind of benefit does society get from Airbnb that's so necessary to disrupt the lives of people living in a city and raising rents on folks that can't afford it?
"AirBnb increasing rents" is theory popularized by hotel industry and never been confirmed with hard data. AirBnb allows anyone to profit from demand for lodging, as opposed to few large hotel chains taking all profit. For many AirBnb hosts it's their livelihood. E.g. do you see benefit in anyone being able to start a restaurant or do you think only large restaurant chains should be able to do it? Also AirBnb increases tourist traffic benefiting other businesses.
Technology has always outrun regulation. It’s not any different in these cases. Regulators will catch up as they always have. This, truly, is how progress has been made since the dawn of time.
You’re taking the same position people took against the printing press, automobiles, and computers when they were all in their infancy.
Restaurants in people’s homes were incredibly common until health regulators showed up.
Yes I did sort of lump those together. But it's not 100% enforcement either. Lots of place didn't and don't have rules against short term rentals - but we're seeing more and more pop up in response to Abnb