This was a neat article, the part about AirBnB's attempt at creating a trust economy was my favorite part.
On the one hand, the online reputation does work to a degree; we value lots of reviews and a high average score. On the other hand it fails to prevent many of the usual problems with dealing with people. He calls out the opportunists who have no impulse control, but there's plenty of other archetypes of people who will take advantage of a situation when they get a chance and think they might get away with it. Maybe it's the cynic in me, but this article resonates with my general trepidation when trusting anyone or anything too quickly, especially online. No amount of features so far has solved this.