[an_opabinia]

Would you say this collection of things you’re describing is, “AirBnb is exploiting someone?”

Anyway, there’s basically no evidence for any of what you’re saying, especially the crime part. The one not-yet-peer reviewed paper trying to show Airbnb’s causal effect on rents found a $9/yr increase (1), which is laughably, hilariously small - it could not possibly be playing a significant role in rent pricing in the biggest markets, and the researchers specifically excluded the possibility of AirBnb reducing supply. And this factual criticism is the one you actually omitted!

(1) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3006832

[mellavora]

I think there is quite a bit of evidence that "Residential areas are different from commercial areas in good parts of the world"-- they operate under different regulatory regimes. For example, insurance, and health & safety standards.

Hotels have to have commercial liability insurance. Hotels have to maintain certain levels of fire safety, and food sanitation, etc.