This is exactly the point. People on AirBNB rent out their houses that they built and maintain for their own use to you the guest. That means that you get the level of construction and associated accountabilty related to private individuals, not to professional operators. It is also one of the reasons you are probably better of in a hotel if safety is a prime consideration when you're traveling. The upsides of AirBNB stays are related to interaction, living like the locals do and a less thirteen-in-a-dozen experience, the upside is definitely not that the place you will be staying in is safer or better grade when it comes to reliability than your average old home, especially not when it is a quaint old cottage in some backwater.
Then there needs to be a huge disclaimer about safety liability and people need to be given a checklist of safety items to inspect upon their arrival. There should also be a guarantee of a full refund and/or alternative accommodations if the host fails the checklist. If you really want to blame the customer and put the burden on them for their own safety, make them aware of it. The problem is that informing the consumer of all the risks is going to be less profitable because people may second guess if it's right for them, and the checklist makes AirBnB look like a lot more work.
Either the homeowner needs to see a huge disclaimer and accept liability when they place a property, or the consumer needs to see a huge disclaimer and accept liability when they rent a place, or AirBnB needs to assume responsibility and liability for both. You can't just leave it a grey area where it automatically defaults to the consumer being liable for everything, so that the homeowner and AirBnB can maximize profit while assuming zero risk.
I think a lot of your posts make you out to be an AirBnB apologist, but looking over all of them, I don't think that is the impression you're trying to make.
