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Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com

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Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com

#141

Post by SkyMarshal »

ouid wrote: post #135
SkyMarshal wrote: post #134

> There was a massive spike in users on the site under Espinoza, but because they’d been attracted in part by an advertising push and there was an easier onboarding process, they were less committed and slower to adapt to the pay-it-forward spirit of Couchsurfing. Suddenly, there were a ton of people who were active surfers and relatively few who were actively hosting. So it started taking surfers longer to find host…

How does one protect something they love from commercialization?

1. Create it yourself

2. Give it a FOSS and/or Copyleft legal license

Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com

#142

Post by chagaif »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #132
chagaif wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very much still living this, Couchsurfing got more difficult to use and a lot of people don't use it because of the so called "pay wall" but luckily alternatives are there and will hopefully with more posts like this get more traction... I like Trustroots most

Hey Chagai! Nice to see you on HN :) How active are online meetups on Trustroots? It's nice to see that they do now exist, but I wonder whether the map limits it to people in the same geographical area. And I'l always be happy to see you on Thursday's BW Asia-Pacific weekly meetup.

Hey, long time no see! They are pretty active (the past few weeks are an exception I hope), you mean the volunteering meet ups?

I'll try dropping in to the BW online meetup soon!

Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com

#144

Post by xchaotic »

robocat wrote: post #99
jessriedel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

it's funny because when it comes to any real disputes, AirBnb sides with landlords as much as possible (and as much as PR will allow), because that's who are they getting the money from. The guests are just the 'meat' in the machine so it would be more consistent if they allowed property owners to vet guests even more to avoid any issues/disputes in the first place. For RoboCat's case - it does still allow to not accept a certain guest after looking at hteir profile etc, but IMO that's too far into the journey - it'd be better from UX perspective and satisfaction if such a guest never found the property as available in the first place.

Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com

#145

Post by mariha »

kragen wrote: post #113
chagaif wrote: post #49

A few developers from different HospEx (hospitality exchange) platforms (Trustroots, WarmShowers Android app devs, BeWelcome) started an attempt to federate the HospEx world. Mariha (@mariha:matrix.org) was contributing for Warm Showers Android App and with https://warmshowers.bike/ happening she kind of kick-started the whole project. We got funding recently from https://ngi.eu and with that we start to work for the…

What's the current spirit like? I've been not participating in CS2 or similar systems for the last decade or so.

I don’t have experience with CS but for WarmShowers which was built on trust and openness, current spirit is censorship, deleted accounts and no way for the community to influence the board which makes bad decisions - excluding community members, maybe unaware of its US-centered perspective on users and “targeting” to part of the community, maybe prioritizing their own profits over what would be good for the community.

WarmShowers Uncensored has more details on what’s happening: https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/2111860

Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com

#146

Post by erebrus »

Nimitz14 wrote: post #18

I honestly don't think the paywall was such a bad idea. The barrier to entry was too easy, there were too many people on the platform who had no intention of hosting and were just looking for a free place to stay. The very small contribution at least ensures some level of commitment.

It's too cheap to be a barrier for those people. I still see that type of people here, because they pay 2.5 euros for one month and they have a chance to stay for free in many places. It's still worth it. I also still see all the predators that are just using CS as tinder, because its cheaper than tinder. What I don't see are the long term travellers on a shoe string, who are some of the most interesting people in the community those are gone. Many other types of interesting travellers are also gone out of principle. We're left mostly with uni students and middle class people who travel once in a while. The community has changed completely since the paywall, and not for the best.

Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com

#147

Post by simison »

Excited to see Trustroots highlighted in the article.

If you're interested to help build Trustroots with us (we're a non-profit, volunteer based) — join us here: https://www.trustroots.org/volunteering

Different skills needed, starting from coding, ops, design, organizing, member support, translating, and more!

Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com

#148

Post by cto_of_antifa »

GravitasFailure wrote: post #130
TeMPOraL wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised /r/UnexpectedBlackMirror doesn't exist yet.

Unlike the inquisition, everybody expects Black Mirror these days.

Man, my day today was like it was out of an episode of black mirror. It was so fucking boring.

Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com

#149

Post by h0l0cube »

zwayhowder wrote: post #86
carlsborg wrote: post #6

The 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 from work

Wait, this was a cop? Did they face any consequences for this?

Re: Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com

#150

Post by kragen »

mariha wrote: post #145
kragen wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the current spirit like? I've been not participating in CS2 or similar systems for the last decade or so.

I don’t have experience with CS but for WarmShowers which was built on trust and openness, current spirit is censorship, deleted accounts and no way for the community to influence the board which makes bad decisions - excluding community members, maybe unaware of its US-centered perspective on users and “targeting” to part of the community, maybe prioritizing their own profits over what would be good for the communit…

Thank you for explaining and for all your work!
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