AirBnB's model depends on the two parties not being able to contact each other before a purchase is made. This is a restriction that does not happen on Craigslist, and as such, I'm able to vet just about everything I need to know about a candidate renter before he/she even knows the physical address of my place. For those prospective renters who don't have any real online identity (and decline to provide any other kind of info, such as proof of employment), I don't respond to their emails.
This is something you can't do on airbnb, so it's not at all fair to compare using their service to letting just some stranger in willy-nilly.
You can totally message a person before being made — I personally don't rent out my rooms to anyone who hasn't messaged me first and I at least got a bit of personal information. Or do you mean messaging via email rather than through Airbnb?
This is something you can't do on airbnb, so it's not at all fair to compare using their service to letting just some stranger in willy-nilly.