Evidently I’m the Internet’s go-to anti-Airbnb guy, because I can’t tell you how many people emailed, messaged, and tweeted/X’d me in the past 48 hours to let me know what I’d already heard:
“New York City just banned Airbnb.”
Of course, NYC didn’t actually outright ban $ABNB.
They simply made the company do what it says it exists to do: Allow people to rent out rooms in their homes.
But that’s not what Airbnb actually does, does it?
Sure, some people let strangers stay in their spare room for a night, but that’s mostly just desperately broke or head-scratchingly greedy people.
Airbnb’s cash cow is turning family homes into full-time clerkless hotels.
NYC did the math and said enough is enough.
Every full-time Airbnb = a homeless family + increased rent and purchase prices for everyone else
Homed families + more affordability > unearned passive profits to Airbnb’s parasitic shareholders.
So New York laid some ground rules: