Trust is a more complex offering than the financial facilitation and verification of buyers and sellers in a marketplace. Platforms can protect themselves from perceived responsibility by take an invisible role (like a landlord for a retail outlet), but then what value do they offer their users other than a venue in which to be discovered?

To compensate for their unwillingness to accept liability, these platforms use content and design in an attempt to project a trustworthy image. But when Airbnb inserts itself into this arrangement and takes ownership of the experience in this way, they must also be accountable for their effect upon regulation, economic policy, and social contract. Read more about this tangled issue in “Living and Dying on Airbnb” by Zak Stone in Matter.