Hello, it sounds like you are new to Airbnb and this happened quite a bit when I was a new host. It doesn't happen too often now. Airbnb gives hosts great financial benefit, but we can only be successful as hosts if guests have a great experience.
You must imagine that not many hosts want to host people that are complete unknowns. Yet, everyone has to start somewhere - even guests.
I will give you an example: when we were traveling to Colorado we had a hotel booked for our family, but they called and wanted to switch us to a room with a queen bed only. As a family of 5, that was not going to work, but we were traveling to a quite remote area. We had never used Airbnb before, so we signed up for an account and began looking hurriedly for rooms. We found a room not too far from where we were going, but the room required ID verification. Our cell signal was very spotty, and as luck would have it, it failed before we could take the picture of our ID. Luckily, Airbnb allows first-time guests 24 hours to upload a picture of their ID, and holds their reservation for that 24 hour period. Once we reached a location with service, we uploaded the ID photo as required, received direction to the home, and had a wonderful stay. We are repeat Airbnb customers now! Imagine if losing cell service had caused us to lose the reservation, and we arrived late at night in the middle of nowhere without a room to stay. It certainly would have been fair for the host to not have the room reserved by an unknown character, but it would have made for a negative customer experience and we wouldn't have tried Airbnb again.
Staying at a typical hotel, you may be asked to show your ID in the lobby on check-in, but you have to admit providing a picture on the spot at the time of reservation is not conventional. The 24 hour grace period is a compromise. I realize that it is inconvenient, but if they don't do it within 24 hours, your room will be available once more so it is in the grand scheme not such an inconvenience.
I typically send guests a note like this when it happens:
"Hello - I see that you are trying to book a room and it looks like you need to submit a photo of your license. Please let me know if you run into any trouble with the process. Airbnb customer service is happy to help if you have troubles."
By opening up this conversation I have spoken with a flustered grandma who didn't have a camera on her phone, and others who were just skeptical of the purpose of the ID request. (For those guests I explain I will never see their ID (and therefore wouldn't have their private informaiton) but that the information is held by Airbnb in the event of a catastophic stay). It helps move the process along and builds trust.
