Last minute choices in France are much cheaper than $140 per night( wqith the possible exception of high tourist areas like the Riviera), and I suspect that this is the case also in Germany, depending on what one is expecting.

bedandbreakast.nl is a subsidiary of booking.com by the way.

twice I booked a B&B through booking.com. (netherlands) and they were well outside the large cities: one near a village in Drenthe, one in Friesland.

no deposit, no weird cancellation policy and the B&B owner was in direct contact with me almost right after receiving my registration.

News flash to everybody: Lots of B&Bs in Italy list themselves on AirBnb. They also simultaneously list themselves on booking.com, venere.com, etc. Many long time Italian b&b owners view AirBnb as just another portal for attracting customers.

A lot of B&Bs in Italy, though, are not what most people from other countries think of when they are looking for a B&B. They are often just cheap lodgings without hotel services. I've stayed in a number of B&Bs in Italy where there was no one at all onsite, where the agent met me at the B&B and needed to be paid in cash on the spot, where I never again saw the owner or an agent, and where the second "B" was just a voucher for a cappuccino and pastry at a nearby bar. Usually, I was told to leave the key on the table when I left.

This type of Italian B&B fits very well into the AirB&B model. Of course, there are B&Bs operated by owners who live onsite, but there are also lots of hotels that are similar to that. In fact, many of the lodging categories in Italy have definitions that are a bit blurred.

There are so many b&bs in Italy where the owners live on-site or there is nighttime staff, plus you are served a full breakfast, that you really should not worry much about encountering b&bs where there is not the case. They do exist, and if one wants onsite staff or onsite breakfast, confirm it will be there for you if the descriptions you read online don't make that obvious.

I note that the original post of this thread is not tagged for Italy, but since so many people made broad statements about AirBnb, I thought it was worth including here that AirBnb can be an excellent resource for finding b&b accommodation in Italy. It is also true that what an accommodation calls itself in Italy may lead you to expect something other than what it is -- but that is true in all categories of accommodation in Italy, so reading descriptions and reviews is a must.