This is why AirBnB generates such apathy. Take the regulatory arbitrage away and AirBnB isn't a technical startup or a market disruptor; it's just another VRBO site with pretty CSS.
They are overkill and would be the same as if Congress, at the federal level, had passed laws saying that YouTube-style services should be banned because they can facilitate copyright infringement that hurts others.
No, completely different, and as a lawyer you know this. Local issues are valid concerns for local laws. If New York wants to pass an across the board tax on temporary rentals, it is absolutely not the same as if Congress passed a country-wide ban on Youtube-style service.
The key to all this is to deal with the abuses while preserving the values conferred by the new services. If there is antipathy toward the wrongdoers, there is no basis for directing this to the innovators themselves.
Existing laws already do this. And as a business that injects itself into the market governed by such laws, AirBnB has taken on the burden of complying with such laws. Moreover, AirBnB isn't an innovator--it's a copycat. The only innovation AirBnB provided was sub-unit rentals (i.e., just a room or a couch), which is no longer the mainstay of its business.