This is a microcosm of everything that has gone wrong in modern technological society. Most Airbnbs have occupancy rules that bar any daytime visitors if read strictly. This has been normalized under the understanding that the policy isn’t strictly enforceable, but exists as a backstop for situations where extra visitors cause damage/nuisances.

So if you want to have a (perhaps spontaneous) guest over or a small polite gathering, as long as you don't cause a disturbance, it's no harm no foul. This is beneficial to the social fabric and doesn't bring any detriment to the host or neighbors. Yet, thanks to the marvels of technology, we can now detect and deter these aberrances that would have otherwise gone unnoticed!

I can also imagine the problems when someone has, for instance, their work and personal phones with them.

People seem to be pretty universally incapable of not assuming computer products to be infallible, especially when they might get some extra money in "over occupancy" fees.

On the other hand, you could argue that the reason they have a “no daytime visitors” rule in the first place is because they have no way of knowing how manhunt visitors there are so they just make the rule “none” so they don’t have to try to provide how many were there at once.

If you could accurately know how many people there are and when they are there, you could have a more reasonable rule like “no more than 3 guests during the day and they have to leave by 9pm” or something.

This is purely party prevention. I've had ZERO pushback asking to host a group of friends over for dinner. I ask the owner. Mild inconvenience IMO when you think about the problem they are trying to prevent, the home being thrashed by a large party and the guests having no care about your home.

I think you're being disingenuous in that you're only looking at half the story. I don't use AirBnB either as a host or a guest, so I may be missing something here, but to me, this seems to fall squarely into "this is why we can't have nice things" territory.

Of course, if you have someone over for coffee, there probably is no issue. Of course, if you have many people over for a crazy party, there will probably be a boatload of issues.

The problem is there are plenty of dishonest people who'll try to skirt their responsibilities in the in-between situations. Maybe it's difficult to hide that you've had 50 people over. But if you're renting for, say, 4 people and you have 10 more people over? I'd guess it's not directly evident. So if those people aren't hell-bent on thrashing the place, but you know, shit happens? Perhaps the guest will try to say that the couch already had a wine stain, or the dishes were already chipped, or whatever. And if a neighbor complained about the noise? There were just four of us, we kept it reasonable, but we can't be completely mute.

So of course hosts will try to hedge against these behaviors. And, of course, people trying to be reasonable will get the short straw. Next thing you know, water will be found to be wet or something crazy like that.