“There really is no similarity between Palantir’s business model and Couchsurfing’s business model,”
Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com
91–100 of 168 posts
Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com
#92I learned to couch surf in the 1980s, west coast Canada, US and Europe. Convivial people in the arts, music and so. Even surfed a barn couch in southern france. Biking and hiking was sometimes a common denominator. Internet optional.
Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com
#93Couchsurfing was too intrusive for me when i tried. It required somewhat nice and approchable picture of myself, with some interesting story to put on my profile This was just too much asked. Compare that to "pay N€, you can stay M nights" I picked second every time.
To be fair, that is, an small interesting story, IMHO, not much to ask for a stranger to open their place to another stranger.
In the good old times, an story was not enough, you had to describe much more of yourself to help people trust you. That what CS did, created a global trusting metric. The free nights (that is exactly the symptom of not understanding the CS concept) on someone place was just part of the whole thing. The connections were some of the main benefits and those were incomparable.
Or course, CS was not for everybody, you needed to be wired in certain way to use and to enjoy it, but f you did, there was nothing like it and it was as good as travelling gets.
Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com
#94Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23211495
The CouchSurfing community was wonderful, as I discovered from my first experience surfing in Irkutsk in 2009, to hosting in Japan in 2012, and co-hosting a meetup in Kaohsiung from 2016-2018. Some of the most dynamic and fascinating people had profiles, and the level of trust in strangers was immense. In my case it started largely because I had no other option, but it became a joy to pay it forward, and see how people worked together for the greater good.
Where is the community now? Many people, myself included, are still affected by lockdowns and border closures. Despite that, in the past year, BeWelcome has grown from 135,571 members to 167,073 members. We know we need a mobile app and an API, but it's been difficult for committed developers to get involved.
https://bewelcome.org/about/stats
These days I host a weekly online meetup at 23:00 New Zealand time every Thursday night. Welcome to come and hang out if you'd like!
https://meet.jit.si/BeWelcome-Chat_4MembersVolunteers
https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/?qm=1&lid=2193733,1673820,266...
Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, what? Price's Law. The square root of the number of people in a domain do 50% of the work. Nothing about trouble.
Causing trouble is work, of sorts. But perhaps it would be clearer if restated as, "50% of impact in a domain can be attributed to square root the number of people in that domain".
Could also be applied to community discussion, both online and in meatspace.
There is an extreme minority of people who comment and up/down vote who drive the discussion of the whole. The 99% rarely participate and just go along for the ride.
Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com
#96The first app I'd fire up when arriving in a new city was the CS app. I'd announce myself in the activities section - ie. I want walk around the city. A few mins later I'd have a group of people wanting to meet up and explore. Instant friends. It was wonderful!
Couchsurfing Hangouts was also a great way for me to meet people in new cities. Is there anything aiming to replace that aspect of the site now?
It's a lot less active, but it still works. I have never found a replacement for it.
Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com
#97Couchsurfing.com used to be a gem, I hosted a number of people so far removed from my bubble and had a great time with them. I hope a viable successor appears.
Open Hospitality Network just started. https://openhospitality.network
FYI they created their own submission here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28587228
Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com
#98The social proof that a couch surfing reference brought was second to none. Each one boils down to this "I, a stranger, stayed for a few nights in this other strangers home for free, and they were good human beings". That social proof carried to any part of the globe you visited. I cannot think of an internet app that brought people together in a more meaningful and wholesome way at scale. It was great while it laste…
It was well thought out too, hard to spam with fake comments etc. My family hosted people for a year or two and we were never empty. The appeal of a family home with a private room that had dozens of reviews from well travelled guests was so overwhelming people would take an air mattress in my study if the private room was taken by others. We regularly had multiple groups of people staying. Our record was 11 which in…
> he was accidently still wearing his police uniform
Hear, hear, fine sirs!
Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com
#99The social proof that a couch surfing reference brought was second to none. Each one boils down to this "I, a stranger, stayed for a few nights in this other strangers home for free, and they were good human beings". That social proof carried to any part of the globe you visited. I cannot think of an internet app that brought people together in a more meaningful and wholesome way at scale. It was great while it laste…
I agree it's not the same, but AirBnB profiles with a long list of positive ratings as a guest play a similar role. "This person slept under my roof, acted well, and treated my home with respect". When I advertised my apartment for a sublet on Craigslist, I received a couple AirBnB profiles and considered them pretty compelling as references. I ended up subletting to one of those people, and they were great.
Does AirBnB provide a “super-guest” filter, or equivalent so that you can brainlessly and reliably filter for suitable guests?
I would host independently minded guests that don’t want/need hand-holding, and guests that are vetted for being socially respectful (tidy, no 3AM drunks, etcetera). My property is tobacco and alcohol free, which surprises friends, so I can imagine strangers being disrespectful.
Do trustroots.org or movingworlds.org provide filtering? I really never want to have to trawl through reviews, because I find it wasteful and also I think reveiwers tend to avoid writing anything truthfully negative (allusions and omissions might occur, but are not always obvious).
Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
If only we had some kind of "credit score" but for social things..
And it should be algorithmically driven with all sorts of fun edge cases and poor maintenance. Edit: oh, and obviously closed source, and have it's entire db leak about once a year due to excellent security.
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