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Airbnb Has Sued Its Hometown Of San Francisco (cnn.com)
Robert Mclean, reporting for CNN:Airbnb is taking its hometown to federal court. The company has filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco, objecting to short-term rental rule changes approved by its Board of Supervisors. A new ordinance set to take effect in late July would require all Airbnb hosts to register with the city. If they do not, Airbnb would be fined up to $1,000 a day for each listing, putting the burden on the company to make sure each listing is legal. But the city's $50 registration process is analog enough to turn off many hosts. It can't be completed online and requires submitting all the documents in person. Airbnb contends the new rule violates the Communications Decency Act, Stored Communications Act and the First Amendment.
Have you asked yourself why that's happening?
City laws prohibiting new development maintain the "desperate shortage" of housing. And city laws capping rents makes short-term rentals more lucrative than long-term rentals. The real estate markets were already fucked up there by those laws before Airbnb even existed.
The market wants to fix it by adding more housing units but is prevented by laws prohibiting development. This causes prices to increase, which normally acts as an incentive for more development. Since the city doesn't want that, it caps rents. This doesn't make the problem go away though. All it does is shift the problem from one of price into one of availability - a lot more people want to live there than there is available housing. This results in a larger population of people wanting to live there but unable to. Which leads to more people wanting to visit. Which leads to more demand for short-term rentals like hotels and Airbnb.
In other words, Airbnb is a symptom of meddling in the real estate market (by the local government). Not the cause as you're insinuating.