I finally threw in the towel and switched back to hotels after our previous stay in Toronto that was a nightmare, which included:
* Claimed we had the whole house but actually there was a family living in the basement and the laundry room was shared
* Host had crudely typed out instructions and labels over everything in the place
* House rules were extremely strict and required us to clear snow
* Had a 10pm curfew (which we broke because we got in late exhausted)
* Place wasn't terribly clean despite a listing with a $250 cleaning fee
* Absolutely the worst bed I've ever slept in
* Check-out instructions included a list of chores that went above and beyond the usual asks (eg: throwing out trash)
It wasn't always like this, but I feel like the quality of hosts has gone way down. I'm guessing most of the good hosts moved on during the COVID years.
In many cases, the prices are noticeably better, but the two big other reasons are location and a unique experience.
The last time I traveled, it was to Europe (I'm US-based), where I visited France, Germany, and Switzerland. The AirBnB we had in Provins, France was amazing—it was basically just a shed in a backyard (far enough away from the house that no sound reached there), but it was very well-appointed, and right outside the window were chickens, and we were encouraged to just go take freshly-laid eggs for our breakfast.
When we stayed in a guest room in a German village near the border with France (I'm afraid I've forgotten the exact location), the host couple invited us down for drinks in the evening—we're not big drinkers, so we didn't take much, but the selection was (at least to our American eyes) amazing, and the company was just lovely.
On the other hand, our AirBnB in Switzerland was almost as bad as some of the horror stories being told here. The host couple was disinterested almost to the point of hostility, and they left us a very bad review on AirBnB afterward, for reasons I can no longer recall, after pressuring us to give them a perfect review. Even if the pandemic had not stopped our travel after that, this experience was enough that we were seriously, seriously reconsidering using AirBnB ever again.
And that's the thing: when you're planning a vacation, one bad experience can so easily overwhelm all the good experiences—especially when it comes to having a safe, clean, reliable place to sleep at night.