That, and the discounts they offer are weirdly misaligned with what I actually book and could possibly want. If a discount happens to actually be applicable for

That, and the discounts they offer are weirdly misaligned with what I actually book and could possibly want. If a discount happens to actually be applicable for a trip I want to make, booking.com usually is still cheaper. But then I've never managed to get a better deal booking with a hotel directly, usually it's significantly more expensive with more restrictive cancellation policy, which is a shame as I don't really trust booking.com et al. Maybe it works like that because I'm in Europe and mostly booking there?