Personally, I absolutely despise the situation that exists in the city and thinks everyone is selfish and unwilling to bell the cat by applying the only solution that makes sense: more housing. The landlords are selfish. Those with rent control are selfish. The homeowners are selfish. The only people who aren't selfish are those at the bottom of the food chain getting taken to the cleaners by the landlords, primary tenants on the lease and the homeowners blocking all zoning improvements.
I'm not poor, but I'm certainly not rich either. I earn enough to to live in this city, but certainly can't afford to live comfortably at $1500 a month, especially when I help out two other family members with money. That being said, absent other better systems for filtering, putting out a classified ad at a high rate is still a practical proxy for what you want in a roommate, even though I'm one of those filtered out by an ad for a $1500 room.
If you were a master tenant with a 3 bedroom for $1500 a month, would you put a classified ad for each room at $500 each? Answer honestly. I don't think anyone would (or does since I've never seen such an ad on craigslist and I know that there is no lack of rooms that should cost that much with ~175,000 rent control units in San Francisco.)
Furthermore, with supply as constrained as it is, nobody will actually read you ad or care what it is you want in a roommate. At $500, everyone will apply whether or not they actually meet your criteria. Let's say you want to live with single, pet-free non-smokers between 30 and 40 and you say so in your ad. Do you think that hundreds to thousands of people who don't meet that criteria will refrain from sending you an email for a chance at living in a $500 a month room?
To borrow the words of master spy Sterling Archer: Do you want anarchist protestors? Because that's how you get anarchist protestors.
No, I would grandfather in everyone in the city with rent control that currently has it and I would work on a legal mechanism that allows the grandfathered in right to rent control to be separated from the underlying property via a mechanism similar to one I've written about before here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7437658
Rent control messes up all housing markets, reducing the quality and quantity of housing for everyone. We can't undo the mistake that has been made, so the best we can do is find a way to phase it out in a way that allows the market to recover from rent control, but preserve the expectations of those that have come to rely on it. The city needs to increase the supply of housing and the way rent control currently works acts like a lock on a database. The city currently has ~175000 locks on n properties that are essentially undevelopable until you remove all the locks on the property.
I don't want rent control. I, and even most people with rent control, would actually be far better off in a parallel universe where San Francisco had never had rent control. Only those who have been in a property for decades actually benefit. The majority pay far more than they should be for the first couple of years and then in later years end up paying roughly what they would have in the parallel universe where rent control had never happened.
Furthermore, if you lifestyle changes and you want to raise a family, you've fucked yourself out of the market you love because you can't afford anything in the market by the time you decide you might want something different. When someone moves into a rent control place, they effectively check out of the housing market like an ostrich with their head in the sand. Basically, had they been back in the housing market every few years as their housing needs and expectations changed, they would have demanded more housing supply in the city. Rent control permits people to remain blissfully ignorant of the housing situation until one day something happens that causes them to be out of their unit such as an Ellis Act eviction. At that point I think to myself "boo hoo", because if they really wanted to live in a city forever they would have either bought property back when they first moved here or they would have demanded increased housing supply long ago so that they would never find themselves in a housing market they were priced out of. People who argue for rent control are downright selfish, since they basically get the benefits of a scarce good without any of the sacrifice (like saving for a down payment) and actively prevent developments which would reduce the scarcity so that others just like them that arrive later may also enjoy the benefits of living in a city like San Francisco.
If you put a ad on craigslist for a room for $500 today, you would go mad trying to select for the best roommate. Absent other automatic filters for roommates, like being able to filter on lifestyle choices/preferences, the ability to afford a high rent is a poor proxy for other desirable traits, but better than the alternative of no proxy. It's not like craigslist currently let's me put an ad out that only allows considerate, easy-going roommates with no undesirable habits to apply.