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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

#101

Post by bakuninsbart »

xapata wrote: post #82
thomasahle wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also strange they made the paywall for hosts and travelers the same. Who wants to pay to host other people?

The same people that wanted to host in the first place. When I was really into Couchsurfing, my girlfriend and I searched for apartments that made it easy to host, the same way that people seek ways to host via AirBnB. I enjoyed hearing stories from travelers, and showing them around town.

I didn't know about the changes but actually wanted to reactivate my CS account after a couple years of absence. Now that the travel restrictions are mostly gone and me and my girlfriend finally have a flat with a nice living room I wanted to give something forward.

But I'm not gonna pay for it to an at this point frankly dubious middleman.

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

#102

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

omginternets wrote: post #52
bogwog wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you met people?

Is one person out of five that you meet causing trouble?

People who are shit are probably excluded from many social circles, so I don't think that's a great indicator.

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

#103

Post by rootsudo »

phreeza wrote: post #83
rootsudo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paid for it earlier this year and haven't yet used it but it seems to be really popular in PNW (where I go biking.)

It seems the thing you need to pay for is the app, it's free to use on the web?

Nope, signed up on the web - wouldn't let me see hosts info otherwise.

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

#104

Post by thomasahle »

xapata wrote: post #82
thomasahle wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also strange they made the paywall for hosts and travelers the same. Who wants to pay to host other people?

The same people that wanted to host in the first place. When I was really into Couchsurfing, my girlfriend and I searched for apartments that made it easy to host, the same way that people seek ways to host via AirBnB. I enjoyed hearing stories from travelers, and showing them around town.

I guess some people may still want to host. At least if the community is still as good as when I used to host. Personally I'm sceptical that it is, and not going to pay to find out. I'd rather support the newcomers on Couchers.org and the like.

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

#105

Post by enriquto »

j1elo wrote: post #84
jrochkind1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"implication"?

Most likely it's a false friend, from a very similar Spanish word that means "commitment"

My mistake exactly.

Now I realize with horror that I've been misusing this word all my life.

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

#106

Post by ajsnigrutin »

pope_meat wrote: post #35
im3w1l wrote: post #33

Earlier 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.

Nah... surely there's no way that software could mess up... people have all kinds of strange ideas, like traffic cameras looking for people using phones, and tag a guy scratching his head.... this surely is impossible to happen in real life with modern software.

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

#107

Post by glandium »

nateberkopec wrote: post #40

Airbnb ruined Couchsurfing because it changed social expectations around hosting strangers at your house. Before Airbnb, no one really even thought people would pay for the privilege to sleep on your couch or your spare bedroom. But once Airbnb started getting popular, I think a lot of hosts on CS were thinking well, this is neat, but I could get paid doing this. And a lot of CS guests became refugees from Airbnb thi…

I can't tell about the US, but paying money to sleep in spare bedrooms was a thing in Europe well before Airbnb.

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

#108

Post by Razengan »

Couchsurfing is my go-to case to present in favor of making all in-app purchases via Apple instead of third-party payment processors.

So they had a one-time “verification fee” of around $60-$100 (I think it varied by region or something) and a promise that we would never have to pay anything again.

Some time later they started charging a monthly “COVID fee” or something (not much but also varying by region) but unless you paid that, you were suddenly unable to access anything on your account AT ALL.

I hadn’t used Couchsurfing in a while so when I logged in after that update, it was as if my account had been hijacked and ransomed; people couldn’t even delete their profiles (along with the info visible to the public) until they paid (again.)

You might say that a few bucks isn’t a big deal, but if these fees were paid via Apple’s IAP system, Apple would have given me a refund without question like they do with all other crap services, whereas Couchsurfing has yet to even respond to my requests for a refund.

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

#109

Post by marricks »

dkersten wrote: post #46
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…

> 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 also carried over to friendships. For a few short months, I was one of the most active hosts in my city (mainly because we had a house with lots of space and all of my housemates were couchsurfers), until the landlord wanted to sell and…

It seems like for any tech company to be successful and sustainable it has to destroy the openness and community it was born from. I discovered couch surfing right as my wandering days came to a close and I feel I sorely missed out.

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

#110

Post by amelius »

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…

> It was well thought out too, hard to spam with fake comments etc.

Curious, what techniques did they use for that?

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