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Couchers is officially out of beta

couchers.org

11–20 of 139 posts

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#11

[flagged]

> Lots of issues like this due to an overly dynamic site.

Rarely are UX issues there because of anything technical at all, just poor testing and poor polishing. Of course, things are way easier with a static site, since the back button Just Works(TM) in that case, but doesn't mean "overly dynamic sites" cannot have proper browser history.

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#13
Michael Sandel’s book had a good section on Airbnb killing couch surfing. Maybe the one thing Airbnb really did do.

Another POV is, everyone is fatigued out of selling to customers who cannot afford to pay more. In this space: Trusted House Sitters is like having a homeless person stay over. Couchsurfing: is it similar?

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#16

I hosted couchsurfers and it was fun, but i stopped when i started getting detailed reviews about random shit about my home after people left. Letting people live in your house in the central business district of a top tier city and then having them comment on your towel designs. It’s not a hotel. I’m so over it.

Couchsurfing really went to shit towards the end (2020 when they went from "we will always keep our core service free" to locking you out of your account unless you paid them overnight without any warning)

I think reviews criticizing aesthetic choices or even cleanliness would tend to be taken with a grain of salt, but also I hosted people (and couchsurfed) from 2005-2020 and managed to avoid bad reviews, so perhaps if I personally had received a slew of silly bad reviews over silly things like that I would have abandoned it earlier.

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#17
post #12

Very fond memories of couchsurfing met very nice people both as a traveler and a host. But this was long ago. Not sure this will ever work again though

Hosted loads for a while, a brilliant time. We were living somewhere unusual at the time, everyone that came through was interesting, intelligent and fun. Zero bad experiences. Made some friends for life.

My flatmate at the time ended up marrying a couchsurfer we'd hosted, after reconnecting many years later.

We all got sulky and huffy when they started charging and stopped engaging, but the sad thing is we just got too busy. Couchsurfing was like hosting a party constantly, and as work picked up I found it harder to engage.

Still seems to be a community there. I found myself in Split a while ago and stumbled upon a meetup, had a great evening unexpectedly.

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#19

I hosted couchsurfers and it was fun, but i stopped when i started getting detailed reviews about random shit about my home after people left. Letting people live in your house in the central business district of a top tier city and then having them comment on your towel designs. It’s not a hotel. I’m so over it.

Couchsurfing really went to shit towards the end (2020 when they went from "we will always keep our core service free" to locking you out of your account unless you paid them overnight without any warning) I think reviews criticizing aesthetic choices or even cleanliness would tend to be taken with a grain of salt, but also I hosted people (and couchsurfed) from 2005-2020 and managed to avoid bad reviews, so perhaps…

Yeah, I really doubt any one turned down the opportunity, because of the criticism. It was just one review mentioned it and the next review disputed it. It just became a train of reviews. I just became annoyed by it and it made me wonder why I was bothering.

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#20
Note to all founders:

Tell the reader what your product is - first.

And you can't manage to do that, then your logo link should go to your product, not back to the blog.

I gave this TWO attempts to find out =what the product is - that's the biggest opportunity most startups will get - and this company failed twice to tell me conveniently what it is and I am not trying a third time.

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