Moreover, the type of people who would pay extra for a sanitary kitchen or a proper fireplace are not the type of people who would use AirBNB (or similar services) in the first place.

The problem here is what you mean by "market forces".

For a market to be truly open, free and efficient, buyers and sellers must be able to enter into transactions without hindrance. There must not be an overhead associated with transactions, and buyers need relevant information. People rail on "free markets" when really they miss the point. Unless the market is also open and efficient, being free doesn't amount to much.

In the past, you'd call a telephone number in New York and reserve a hotel. You had no relevant information about your purchase -- yes, you probably assumed a lot, such as "hotels in New York are nice" but you really didn't know. The market was open -- anybody could play.

So you ended up in a flea trap in a high-crime neighborhood and the manager took all of your money. You complained, and New York took action (Note that I'm making a generous case for regulation here. You could make a case that most regulations were the result of trumped up charges by monopoly players) People had no idea of what they were getting into. There was a lot of money and perhaps lives wasted due to people making deals in which they were unaware of the consequences. The market was not efficient.

What New York was doing, in a way, was creating a brand as a way to increase efficiency at the expense of market freedom. So when people came to New York they would know generally how hotels would treat them. This increased the amount of knowledge the buyers had, so it made the market more open. (But less free)

But that is _somewhat_ an outdated model. Note in my story I specifically said I was able to compare or contact previous tennants, look at the property on a satellite map, check references, and so on. The internet has made the market vastly more efficient. I no longer make a blind phone call and then show up and see what I get. There's still risk, of course, but the risk is distributed throughout the system. One bad actor steals 2 or 3 people's payment, then that property is effectively blacklisted. In a way, the penalties on the sellers is much more harsh than it used to be under the old system.

So this isn't an argument about free markets or some kind of laissez-faire capitalism. What we're talking about is simply what's necessary for people to trade efficiently. For many things (but not all) we simply don't need the same kind of government guarantee that we used to.

The problem was never in "market forces". It was in creating efficient markets. We've made some progress on that problem since those rules were enacted. We don't have to tear down all the rules, but we should at least acknowledge changing conditions. I'd argue in this case existing rules exist much more to protect vested interests than anything else, but that's just me.

Cool. Do you check for "Number of patrons who've died in a fire"? Because having working smoke detectors, or adequate fire escapes, are not the kind of things that work for market forces.