Food for thought: maybe airbnb and hotel prices converged because of plain old market forces. Hotels got somewhat cheaper and airbnbs a bit more expensive, and they end up in an equilibrium.

And yes, you take a risk when you book airbnb, but it's not a big one, and it goes down dramatically when you look at reviews and maybe filter by superhost. If you just hunt great deals and don't even look at how many reviews they have... you just don't understand how airbnb works.