content: The point is there is such a thing as liability and liability insurance.  While one case may be a freak accident, a future one may well not be.  At present, if you're staying in a hotel and the porch is moldy and rotten, and you walk out on it and fall to your death, well the hotel has liability insurance and is definitely going to be found liable.  They are REGULATED and have requirements surrounding this.  That's part of the deal involved in taking people's money in exchange for a service.  This article broaches the lack of this within the AirBNB model.  It's a big problem - ultimately AirBNB must provide liability insurance to cover their rentals, or require their service providers to do so.  Neither is tenable under their business plan, so they've just decided to ignore it.