You seem to think I know why people are furious. I don’t know what is in other peoples’ minds. I’m just telling you how I look at things. I‘m already rich, but even when I wasn’t I was never motivated by envy or hatred of those who had more than I did.
As far zoning and hospitality regulations: it is scarcely exaggeration to say that a municipality can come close to ruining your life, and certainly your personal fortune, through whimsical application of them. Perhaps you live in a place where these things don’t matter, or, more likely, perhaps you’ve never been in business for yourself. I live in Seattle, where they will cheerfully shut down your business for weeks because you have an electrical outlet 6 inches too close to the wall.
I think people are mad that the Airbnb founders are rich (fair, but there are a lot of rich people) and that they have arguably raised rents, though I'm not 100% convinced of that.
EDIT - There is some good data out there suggesting a correlation between airbnb activity and rent increasing. Still researching.