Equally there's some place for buy-to-rent investing to exist. There is, and will always be, a segment of the population who cannot, or doesn't want to, buy and this segment rely on rental for housing. If there was no invest-to-rent then that segment would be homeless.
The problem happens when there's an imbalance. When there's too much Airbnb (like Barcelona), locals get squeezed out of their own city. Some supply is good, too much is bad.
The solution to this is regulation. By regulating supply (prioritize in-home, limited permits for others etc) one can balance the three markets such that ultimately everyone wins.
I work remotely in tech, but I want to continue living here year-round, contributing to the community.
Short term rentals are simply too lucrative compared to owning and long term renting. Much of this is the government's fault -- the tax system has a lot of loopholes, like mortgage interest deductions, depreciation, business cost deductions, and untaxed fees that make short term renting even mire lucrative. I hope the government steps in soon to remedy this, but considering their response to the housing crises in the past I am not hopeful.