For the life of me, I don't understand the appeal of Airbnb. In my experience, the prices are comparable to local hotels of the same quality - especially if yo

For the life of me, I don't understand the appeal of Airbnb. In my experience, the prices are comparable to local hotels of the same quality - especially if you also take into account hotel amenities like room service and breakfast not included in Airbnbs. So I don't see a cost benefit. I have never in my life had a hotel cancel a reservation on me. Never. On the other hand, in only a few months of using Airbnb regularly while traveling for work, I had three last-time minute cancellations. This makes renting through Airbnb incredibly stressful, because then I have 'will they cancel on me last minute?' in the back of my mind, and who needs that extra stress? Finally, when something is wrong with the Airbnb there's not really anyone you can call to fix it, if the host is unresponsive. I was once in an Airbnb in Nevada where the temperature outside was higher than 110, and the air conditioner was not working. It took the host something like 12 hours to get back to me, and that was only to tell me that they've scheduled a repairman to come in a few days, when I would no longer be there. On the other hand, if you were to have broken air conditioner in a hotel, you'd be switched to another room promptly. So I just don't get Airbnb's appeal. It's not a good deal either money-wise or stress/quality-wise.