No, at least not on NYT. On NYT, paid content/native ads are marked as such at the beginning of the article like this one: http://paidpost.nytimes.com/ca-technologies/apis-the-buildin... (Note the subdomain)

I must say that a lot of "paid content" pieces are pretty good, considering that companies are paying money to place these articles.

It raises similar thoughts with me... mostly I guess because I don't think I've read such a positive AirBnB write-up before, especially around them responsibly handling landlord screw ups

Unlikely, as it leads with negativity and a comment on how prevalent illegal rentals are.