Airbnb is, in my view, a wonderful company. After a rash of thefts perpetrated by Airbnb renters, a number of critics have been making very strange and excessive claims regarding what Airbnb should and should not have done to deal with this possibility. It is fair to say that Airbnb didn’t address the complaints quickly and deftly enough, which is understandable given the fact that it is a young, high-growth business enterprise that has run into fairly few problems of this kind given the number of customers it has served so far. To their credit, Airbnb has created a new safety policy. I’d like to see future news reports acknowledge this fact.

I’ll end with this: Airbnb is doing an excellent job of disrupting the market for accommodations. Who benefits from a campaign of character assassination against it?