Airbnbs.

Airbed and Breakfast began in 2007 when Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia could not afford the rent on their San Francisco apartment. To make ends meet, they decided to turn their loft into a lodging space – complete with three air mattresses on the floor and the promise of a home-cooked breakfast in the morning. They built a website to advertise their offering, and by stages Airbnb grew ultimately into a multibillion-dollar business.

The idea in the beginning was that households would invite world travelers into their homes, get to know each other, and build in the real world global networks similar to those social media build online.

Condos, before the advent of Airbnb, were zoned, constructed, and assumed to be used as residences, either primary or, for a certain cross-section of owners, investment properties to be rented out, again as long-term residences because online booking of condos and other residences repurposed as unlicensed quasi-hotel rooms had never occurred to anyone, much less been debated and integrated into localities' regulatory policies.

Individuals today still have every right to rent out space in their home or even their entire primary residence as Airbnbs; but a certain number of individuals and organizations, in the absence of public policies regulating short-term rentals – particularly where condos and other dwellings have always been assumed to be built to provide long-term shelter for households – have accumulated in some cases dozens or even hundreds of units to use as Airbnbs.

This last group, including small holders who have been living high off the hog on $12,000 a month income when leasing an apartment to a household on a monthly basis would have brought in $1,200, are quick to complain that: "Government telling ME what I can do with MY property is Stalinism."

What is at issue in my opinion is consideration of the effects of one's own behaviour on others.

Renting a dwelling on a nightly basis that was approved when built to house a person or a family long-term strikes me as making up one's own rules, which is ironic when small holders complain that they have "played by the rules," worked hard, and "invested" in a portfolio of Airbnbs.

Investments have downsides. Bending the rules to one's own advantage, everyone else be damned, is not guaranteed to bring in big bucks forever.

A rule of thumb when considering actions with consequences for the community at large is that asking for public debate and an agreed policy on how to proceed will yield a decision that almost everyone will feel comfortable with. Big bucks tend to blind individuals to the wisdom of this approach.