It has ruined housing for the neady, and broken the diversity within cities.
Someone please tell me one benefit of Airbnb for society? Not the individual, and I will eat my words.
Thanks.
Airbnb is just taking advantage of a more ugly situation ( sure you have witnessed displeasant adventures encountered in buying house, going to holiday or move out from a flat). However I wouldn't be surprised if they have speeded up the process you blamed.
Please note that I do not work nor ever used Airbnb before.
Is your question one of corporate citizenship, or legal obligations?
If the former, yes.
If the latter, then some countries have legal requirements, like https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/company-repo... regarding reporting requirements about certain social practices, for large companies in the EU, or https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f2e36590-95bd... which suggests that Germany may "require businesses to establish a sophisticated compliance management system to protect human rights in their global supply chains."
> Airbnb seems to provide a service where their clients are fine with. .. Airbnb is just the consequence of ..
I don't understand your statement. Surely there's any number of organizations which provide illegal and/or immoral services, which their clients are fine with. That doesn't mean those services should be allowed to continue, does it?
In US history, the Pinkertons were a private detective agency/security force. Its clients hired them (among other things) as strikebreakers. Their anti-union activities included using machine guns, tear gas bombs, and clubs to break up union meetings.
Their clients were "fine with" their services, which were "just a consequence of a number of decisions made in the past" and which met "the current needs" of their clients.
I don't think these actions of the Pinks were beneficial to society, or morally correct, or something that should be allowed to continue.
While, if I understand it, your argument seems to accept that anything which happened (and was legal, and of benefit to its customers), should be allowed to happen in the future, rather than recognizing that some behaviors are so detrimental that they should be made illegal, even when they benefit some.
It's even worse many of these don't even have sustainable business models it's all about growth and increasing stock prises while leaving a trail of burned soil in their wake. Prime example uber or all the bike and scooter rental companies.
Here's how it worked before the internet: You the property owner would engage a local estate agent [realtor] and they would find tenants for your property. There were both short and long term rentals. Most of the time it would be rented out to someone local. But if someone from another country wanted to do a short term rental, they would contract a company who would have a presence in the foreign country and would in turn be able to contact local estate agents by telephone, get particulars sent through the mail or fax (or if it was really urgent, read out on the phone), and these would find their way back to the prospective tenant.
Sure it's not as smooth as clicking on a website, but it was still a thing that was done.
(In fact these intermediary companies still exist and are still used especially by businesses that want a full service and don't want to deal with the randomness of Airbnb. I knew someone who worked in a Japan-England company back in the 90s http://www.redacstrattons.com/)
You couldn't misrepresent the effect on regular working people more.
It has been an enormous benefit to travelers of all kinds. It has made a huge variety of properties available for short-term rental, and because these rentals are often less expensive than alternatives, it has made travel possible for many who previously couldn't afford it.
The benefits are greatest for those who want to travel to expensive places, and to places that have few hotels -- that is, for travelers interested in most of the world's destinations.
Airbnb has also helped ordinary people to fight back against the powerful hotel lobbies. Perhaps this isn't a problem in some countries. But it is a grave problem in the United States, where the hotels fight hard to prevent any competition. See especially New York: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/technology/inside-the-hot....
(I've used Airbnb a few times but otherwise have no connection to it.)
At the expense of the local populations, especially the working-class and lower socioeconomic classes. Not to mention they've basically become hotels without any regulations. I wouldn't call this a good thing, and certainly don't think travellers should benefit over locals.