Why shouldn't everyone get everything for free that can be provided for free? Forcing other people to pay a cost because you paid a cost is just sour grapes.
It can’t be provide for free, that’s the point. Mitigating risks has costs that you are ignoring. Those costs aren’t cheap and someone has to pay for them.
> If only we could all get free protection from economic forces we don't control.
> That kind of insurance is usually pretty expensive. Why should you get it for free?
Protecting its constituents from the whims of out-of-town money seems like an excellent purpose for a local government. Especially if some of that money wants to move in so badly that it can be very profitably taxed!
Why shouldn't local government try to serve its constituents like that?
Because I'm rich, and I want to live in SF dagnabbit, and how dare the (checks notes) existing residents of SF vote to block me from taking one of their apartments that I obviously deserve to live in more than they do because I'm rich?
By that logic, we should let the Ohlone tribes underbid all existing residents. They too are just rich assholes who displaced those that were rightfully there before them.
One, we vote for it, and there's far more renters out there than owners. Sorry.
Two, there are many "free protections" that are taken for granted at our stage of civilizational development. Should fire departments be privatized? Police? I'd argue that housing security is even more important than those. We bear the costs together so that our lives are collectively better.
Three, your entire framing is kind of bananas. Rent control is neither insurance nor expensive, but a cap on landlord profits. If anything, it's unbounded profiteering of basic necessities that's actually "expensive."