Is Facebook responsible for people using it to browse their highschool sweetheart's page, and using messenger to try to cheat on their spouse? Is Tinder responsible for an increase in STDs, infidelity, or date-rapes that occur? Is Zillow responsible for someone finding a house that was foreclosed on because somebody got sick and couldn't afford to make their mortgage payments?
AirBnB lets you find available short-term housing on their platform, that's all it does. Any complexity that arises around that, as far as I'm concerned, has nothing to do with AirBnB, and everything to do with local governance (if you have a problem with it).
Housing markets are based off of supply and demand, like most things. If AirBnB suddenly alters the nature of what is supplied, why does that matter? The demand in a given location is based off of so many factors to begin with, should we become upset with everything that changes the nature of the housing market? What happens if there is a neighborhood that is completely crime-ridden, and new police station is added right outside. Suddenly the crime goes down, and the housing prices in that neighborhood increase substantially as it becomes safer to live in. Whose fault is it that the people who were living there when it was highly unsafe can no longer afford to pay rent? Is it the police station's fault? Is it the new tenants'? The landlords'?
I just can't understand why people are so averse to letting situations play themselves out. SV, for example, is refusing to allow new construction due to zoning laws, and all of the jobs that drew people here are no longer enough to counterbalance the monumental cost in living...so people are leaving. Natural equilibriums exist. What happens when an area becomes so oversaturated with tourists that it no longer retains what made it desirable? Japanese tourism in Paris has dropped 42% in the last few years. What happens when the lack of supply for regular housing makes it so difficult to find local housing, people working normal service jobs have to travel increasingly far to work in the area? The rates to do those jobs begin to increase, as they become less desirable, and the area becomes less desirable to visit as everything gets more expensive. Those people become more capable of moving back to the area as their rates have gone up, etc.
This need for platforms to take responsibility for everything that happens as a result of the transactions they allow individuals to make with each other is so unbelievably misguided. There isn't always a boogeyman.