[saghm]

AirBnB is useful because it helps people wanting to rent their homes for short periods to people willing to rent them, which otherwise would be harder for both sides; without out, people would have more trouble traveling on a budget or making spare money from their homes. The service they're providing is a marketplace for the two parties to meet and communicate. I don't think this translates that well for journals; academics aren't getting paid by the readers of the articles published in the journals, and readers wouldn't have much trouble finding papers on arbitrary websites due to search engine nowadays. Moreover, renting your home to AirBnB once doesn't mean you're forbidden to let a family friend use it for a week next summer, but many journals forbid authors from sharing their papers for free.