Digital platforms are changing cities in many subtle and profound ways. The short-term rentals website Airbnb is just one prominent example of how new online intermediaries reshape urban practices and imaginaries, change social relationships, disrupt traditional markets, amplify spatial hierarchies and inequalities, and challenge existing regulations and policies. Our goal is to offer an empirically-situated understanding of the logics and (bio-)politics of platform capitalism and how to deal with it, with a particular focus on Italian cities and on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.