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.
It's not about money, for me at least, but the experience. Hotels are generally boring, soulless, and isolated, whereas AirBnBs tend to be more like an actual home: comfortable, with personality, located in the place you are there to visit. You generally get access to a kitchen. A hotel is more convenient if you're just crashing somewhere for a night or two, but if you are trying to visit a place, and enjoy the time you spend living there, an AirBnB is better.