Would you mind explaining how Airbnb is related to the Tragedy of the Common? I was with it until the part about the actions being contrary to the common good and depleting a resource. What long-term good is Airbnb affecting? Clearly the there's a sustainable market and model for their business or it wouldn't have been so successful, not to mention that hotels and motels had long since proven the market for people needing temporary places to stay.
In my view, there are two commons being affected by AirBnB: first the community and sense of place where you live (building, neighborhood, town, city, etc.), and second a stable and accessible housing market.
Community can have many facets: security, friendship, socialization, child-raising, and even intangibles such as feeling integrated and belonging (not for everybody, but important to many).
Market stability is important for financial security, financial planning, schools for children, sense of home, reduced stress (not having to move often, or even needing to think about it).
Now, neither of these things is a resource per se, but I believe both are sought-after and generally preferred when people are given a choice. There are many laws and regulations made to help preserve these commons and prevent their erosion. For example, Prop. 13 in CA helps with financial stability in rising markets. Further, people actively work (invest effort) into maintaining these two commons and most people recognize that localities where either or both of these exist are more desirable.
Of course, that makes them also more desirable for investment property, and AirBnB facilitates the monetization of such investments, often to the point of enabling the investment altogether (the people who buy extra properties for the sole purpose of short-term rental). And I think it's pretty clear that those cases are profiting from the commons and not contributing anything back--net withdrawals that undermine the commons.
The "change is inevitable" argument gets tossed around for a lot of things, but often by the people who are profiting the most by change, and the faster things change, the more money they make. I think that in the domain of housing and community, fast change is disruptful to people. A landlord with 4 investment properties may think nothing of flipping them or kicking out tenants to remodel and rent on AirBnB, but the people involved have several months of stress and uncertainty in their lives, not to mention changing schools and sometimes jobs as a result.
I think city governments need to regulate AirBnB and the like so that the investment potential they create does not overwhelm the community and stability of residents. This applies anywhere the housing market is saturated or nearly so and visitors are plentiful: SF, Seattle, Portland, San Diego, Honolulu, and much of the east coast probably as well. I advocate for an annual limit of 30-40 day short-term rental for any given residential property. That covers the situation where you go on vacation and rent out your house/flat, and where there's a convention/concert in town and all regular hotels are booked (and you have a spare bedroom to rent). The booking site should enforce this limit and collect all hotel and sales taxes on the transaction.
I appreciate the thought out reply. I disagree, though, on the idea that a certain property being an AirBnB property lowers the value of the nearby properties, and think you're overstating the cascading effects by having it spill to schools and increasing stress.
My take on neighbors has always been that while it's good to know and like them, it's not required. A property being a discreet rental (as AirBnBs tend to be) would have neutral impact I'd argue. Other than seeing different people come and go, I would hardly notice that the property is anything but occupied. There is always the chance that someone unsavory would rent the property, but there's an equal likelihood (from my point of view) that a property would be purchased or long-term rented by someone of the same nature. I guess, frankly, I don't really care who lives next to me, since I do what I must to feel secure in my place.
I also think there's a bit of irony in your statement that change is championed those who are profiting, when you then lobby for regulation in the form of taxation. Instead of the purely capitalistic model of rewarding innovation and ingenuity, we give money back to the government to regulate something that may or may not need regulating in the first place. But I hesitate to go further, lest this turns to a political debate.
I just want to make sure you understand that I do get your point of affecting the feel of a community and the things that come with it, but I think that is highly subjective, and I'd even say that folks who look for that kind of experience in a living situation wouldn't be the kind to list their home on AirBnB anyway, and wouldn't sell to a flipper or someone who would.
