Don’t react to the Airbnb and Uber: read the article to the end. The core argument is tech empowers oligopolies which in turn drives inflation.
There are other damning facts too:
> private equity companies have rolled up all the fire truck companies, hiking the price of trucks, creating backlogs and bottlenecks for parts and service, and starving the nation's municipalities (including Los Angeles)
> Don’t react to the Airbnb and Uber: read the article to the end.
Agreed, but it is IMO a flaw in the author's work that they chose to lead with Airbnb and Uber. You see this very often with criticisms of the tech industry, and while it is understandable (they're the 2nd and 3rd most visible examples of what the author is describing; I'd put crypto 1st, though), I think it just hurts the point and certainly the appeal of such articles. Frankly, if we ignore the real issues they cause, how many people in the real world actually care about Airbnb and Uber dodging regulations? The public-opinion tide miiight have turned against Airbnb by now, but I'd wager that for most people, Uber/Lyft are still fine, and an overwhelming improvement compared to the taxis we had before. (I don't even use them more than a handful of times a year, but that's way more than taxis.) Even for Airbnbs, I suspect most people think nothing of them; a small chunk see, like, those funky, slightly-cheaper, hipstery accommodations they might have stayed in once or twice; and a vanishingly small percentage actually care about property shortages or regulatory issues.
I realize I've detracted from the main point, and I apologize, but it is something people will have to deal with if they want to make this point (tech industry regulation) to the wider public. Using Airbnb and Uber as the headline examples of "tech dodging regulations" is an awful idea when most people are ambivalent, if not outright happy, that the regulations were dodged in those cases. We will need something a bit more salient.
Crony capitalists are trying to see how far they can push before the people push back. So far people seem to be content to lie down and complain on forums managed by crony capitalists (for example the site you are on right now).
There are other damning facts too:
> private equity companies have rolled up all the fire truck companies, hiking the price of trucks, creating backlogs and bottlenecks for parts and service, and starving the nation's municipalities (including Los Angeles)
Capitalism is dead. Long live capitalism.