[nostrademons]

I think that you're painting "the public" with a very broad brush. A more accurate model might be that people are happy when new options become available to them, ambivalent when stuff goes on that doesn't impact them, annoyed when people speak negatively about what's important to them, and angry when what is important to them is taken away from them. This is a pretty universal model, but the specifics differ depending on what is important to a person.

My girlfriend and I love AirBnB. It's allowed us to visit some pretty remote locations on very short notice at very reasonable prices. I have a friend who is surviving off the income from AirBnBing out her apartment. Probably, her neighbors don't like it. The hotel industry certainly doesn't like it.

I have friends in SF who similarly love having Uber available, because it's got them home late at night after a night at a few bars. As part of the yuppie tech demographic in the Mission, they are also hated by some of their neighbors.

What's changed isn't what's going on in the world, it's who is now angry enough to speak to the media. Somebody who finds a great weekend getaway on AirBnB isn't going to write a story about it or talk to a TechCrunch reporter; they will write a review on the site so that other people can have a similarly great experience. Somebody who loses their job because their hotel can't compete against AirBnB is both plenty angry and now has plenty of time to complain to the media.

I'm reminded here of reading Foucault in college, and specifically the role of the discourse in society. Foucault's central theory was that control of what can be said in the public sphere reflects power dynamics in a society. When public mindspace like the media starts leaning in a certain direction, it doesn't necessarily mean that reality has changed underneath. Rather, it means that certain interests have organized and care deeply enough about a certain issue that they're willing to spend time making sure that public belief swings a certain way on that issue.