The Death of Couchsurfing? • Hacker News Board

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#151

Post by Polylactic_acid » Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:01 AM UTC

JSavageOne wrote: post #71

More reason to move towards a free and open source decentralized web. Otherwise a beautiful community over a decade in the making can be obliterated by the flick of a switch of a couple money-hungry idiots wearing suits.

I feel like the biggest money drain for any community website is not server or development fees, its moderation and community management. You cant just stick up a php app on a vps and let it run forever for $3/month. You have to hire people to remove spam and to read user reports to remove rapists and creeps from the platform.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#152

Post by Polylactic_acid » Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:03 AM UTC

Markoff wrote: post #129

purple_ferret wrote: post #92

Didn't it basically turn into a hookup app at some point?

it can be whatever you want it to be i agree this become more common over the years, bit it's anyway easily avoidable through references or just by checking up sexuality, after all statistics are on your side, if you host person of same gender you are unlikely going into hook up

And even if one person is after the same gender, they wont just assume the other is without asking.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#153

Post by fxtentacle » Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:04 AM UTC

owenversteeg wrote: post #123

fxtentacle wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, your experience with CouchSurfing very much matches my initial experience with AirBnb, back in the days when they were still small. My experience with CouchSurfing, on the other hand, was weird. When me and my roommates (3 guys, 2 girls) signed up our shared house (in waking distance of a touristic city center), we were expecting to see lots of backpackers and tourists our age. Instead, most of our gues…

That is indeed very unusual, I've never heard of an experience like that! I wonder what happened, maybe they were all part of a group or something? Middle aged women make up a very small percentage of Couchsurfing, and when I see them they're usually hosts only. I get a ton of requests, and I think it'd be more likely for me to get a message from an astronaut than two middle aged women. I just checked my references a…

Did you ever actually meet an astronaut through couchsurfing?

The weirdest stay-over that I ever had was a Korean religious pilgrimage who mistook me for a monk because apparently one had lived in my apartment before I moved in.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#154

Post by toxik » Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:05 AM UTC

cpach wrote: post #147

eanzenberg wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guys hitting on girls is sexual assault now?

No. But if you host on CS in order to make advances towards women, that is creepy behavior and not what the site is intended for. If you want to get laid, use Tinder etc. instead.

A girl I met on Tinder used CS to find interesting people and have sex with them. It seems like something men and women have been denying but engaging in for centuries.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#155

Post by technick » Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:05 AM UTC

I used to host couch surfers in Denver. Everyone I met was amazing. Had a couple from Jamaica stay a few days and taught me how to cook jerk chicken. Then I hosted a group of 5 from Australia which put me up when I visited them. I hope something replaces this site.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#156

Post by fxtentacle » Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:11 AM UTC

alexashka wrote: post #148

brendyn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really the case? I couch surfed years ago. From memory I think couchsurfing.com has a reputation system where if people stay at your house, you gain points that give you priority when staying with someone else. so it's kinda like a system for bypassing money in exchanging accommodation. Ideally, if many people start swarming the system looking for free places to stay, it will just mean they won't get chosen,…

I hear you. Maybe I'm just weary of people, having lived in a city my entire adult life and yet forming few lasting bonds, that I have to wonder about the reward/cost ratio of couch surfing. What are the chances of hosting somebody you don't like? What are the chances of showing up to someone's couch and feeling yikes? I imagine the odds are reduced if the people using the service are largely of a similar ilk. Simila…

From what I understand, couchsurfing in the beginning was mostly western college students trying to travel. As such, the chance of meeting someone similar to yourself was very high. By now, not so much.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#157

Post by joshvm » Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:14 AM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #138

joshvm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, this does happen, but it's very rare. Anecdotally the most common issue is non-violent sexual assault - e.g. guys hitting on girls. That's largely a risk for solo female travelers unfortunately. If you travel as a couple, for example, the risk is far less. On the other hand the vast majority of solo travelers, male and female, don't have any issues. There are some safety nets in place, like you can get verified…

Guys hitting on girls is sexual assault now?

In some contexts, yes it can be. If that involves, for example, unwanted physical contact. A broader term is harassment, but either is bad. IANAL, and the legal definition may vary by location and situation.

See: https://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-sex...

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#158

Post by kemenaran » Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:14 AM UTC

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #93

Bro.. you gotta pay $15 a year. That's $1.25/month. I would like to see you make a website like Couchsurfing that can operate for free forever. Just pay the $buck 25 and keep using the site and go on with your life. This is not a Capitalist Conspiracy to rob you of your hard-earned $dollars

This is addressed in the article:

> In contrast, BeWelcome, a similar but much less popular platform, covered their finances with less than $10,000.

The costs of running such a platform are not high. And Couchsurfing operated for free for at least a decade: they relied on donations and volunteer work.

In the end, some of the founding volunteers decided to sell out the Couchsurfing code and community to investors. These investors want their money back. Of course Couchsurfing now has paid staff, but it's not required for operating the website: it's required for userbase growth. And neither the new user fee is about the operating costs: it's about investors getting their money back.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#159

Post by abyssin » Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:15 AM UTC

gmargari wrote: post #145

So sad to see this aggressive shift. I have made many good friends from Couchsurfing, and I was paying the annually fee both to support the site and to be "Verified by CouchSurfing". Even though on March they received my annually payment, today after reading this article I tried to login to CS after some months, only to find out I had to pay _again_ to even access my profile. I could not see my photos, references, me…

Have a look at Trustroots, the management of the project is quite different and doesn't put the same emphasis on formal democratic processes as BeWelcome does, but it makes for a community that's closer to what seems to me the authentic couchsurfing spirit. All of these hospex networks brought me a lot anyway.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#160

Post by machiaweliczny » Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:18 AM UTC

My friends traveled half of the world thanks to CS. In developing counties it's usually richest people that host, so it's sometimes better than hotel, but often just tent in backyard (I think when no "hosts" in area)