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> There is an externality, but it's still smaller than the total benefit Benefit to whom? And how can you say that? Nobody knows yet what the total cost of ext

> There is an externality, but it's still smaller than the total benefit Benefit to whom? And how can you say that? Nobody knows yet what the total cost of externalities and benefits are for Airbnb. You're also thinking about one use case. What about a condo owner that decides to use Airbnb for profit, and just rents the room from afar, hires a cleaning service, and treats it like a hotel? The other residents of that condo end up assuming all of the risk, security breaches, and headaches of an endless supply of tenants. There are many other uses cases with different externalities associated with each. As a society, we have to decide what's acceptable and what's not--and that's where laws come into play.

Houshalter 13y ago
Good points although I still think it's very debatable. Housing is one of the biggest costs, and this is a great way to improve efficiency and save everyone money and resources. It would be said if it was banned entirely due to hypotheticals. >As a society, we have to decide what's acceptable and what's not--and that's where laws come into play. That sounds great in theory. In reality the government is far from perfectly competent. Additionally you get corruption where the government tries to protect an existing industry from competition at the expense of everyone else. Or jerks that shout "Not In My Backyard!" whenever anyone tries to change anything. People are irrationally resistant to new things and that is, on average, far more of a problem than the new things themselves.