But the DUI penalty doesn't go to some private entity, eventually it goes back to the public.

The Airbnb penalty goes to cushion Airbnb's pockets.

>to cushion Airbnb's pockets

i.e., to their stock price, i.e., to investors, i.e., to pension funds both private and public (pensions are by far the largest AirBnB shareholders), i.e., it likely benefits the majority of the public (the majority of US households have stock exposure, quite often large pension funds or index funds - AirBnB is part of the Nasdaq 100, for example).

We typically do pay a fee directly to the person/people who were injured by their actions.

"May have been" vs "actually was" affected are quite different from each other.

True, portions of fees go to victims funds.

However, in most cases, damages will need to be pursued civilly.

My point was, the primary goal of expensive punishments are not to make victims whole.