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The Death of Couchsurfing?

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Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#141

Post by eanzenberg »

Frondo wrote: post #114
ashtonkem wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that YC is very visible. As a result, complaints about VC behavior in general will accumulate to YC, since they’re often the public face of startups and startup culture. That might not be fair or ever correct, but it’s how people work. Personally, YC’s involvement in AirBnB is my biggest complaint with the company. I’m not sure how it looked from the inside before hand, but in retrospect AirBnB is one of…

Extracting profits at the cost of society may be a bad thing for you and me, but it might be a good thing for YC. I'm reminded of Paul Graham's words on unions: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/663456748494127104?lang=en From his perspective, it could be that society is something standing in the way of profits.

Also, society stands in the way of progress. You can’t have both. Progress and no-profits.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#142

Post by eanzenberg »

MattGaiser wrote: post #81
seattle_spring wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any of the non-founder employees who work at one of their hundreds of portfolio companies that have refused to go public. Literally only one company backed by YC, Dropbox, has gone public to date.

Does Y Combinator have a lot of companies that could go public? Most do not seem IPO ready. And what does any of that have to do with YC?

Probably a return of investment priced without the Ponzi-smell.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#143

Post by dvcrn »

Ayesh wrote: post #116

It's about €2 a month, and I subscribed yesterday. It didn't occur to me until they prompted that CS must be doing pretty bad during the pandemic. I still open for Hangouts (I'm "stranded" in Vietnam where things are open back now), and the CS as a platform was fantastic to meet new people. I think the €2 price is only for those who live in relatively richer countries. Here in Vietnam, my friends were not asked to pa…

This is interesting, so it's based on address? I am also a Hangouts user and never did actual 'couchsurfing' so seeing it disappear esp. in countries like Vietnam or Thailand is a sad thought. Still, having this paywall slapped on for the majority of users means that a lot of 'casual users' like me who open the app occassionally will fall away, which then means far less people available on Hangouts.

Maybe someone else will step in and build a Hangout clone? Their app is a massive battery hog full of bugs, and I dread opening it every time I get a new message.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#144

Post by Noos »

inimino wrote: post #115
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

/s? I almost wonder if you've ever met anyone in need. This brand of smug entitlement preceeds revolutions ...bro.

If you are in need why on earth are you couchsurfing and traveling at all? If you cant afford $15 for the site what happens when you get sick or any emergency whatsoever forces you to shell out money?

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#145

Post by gmargari »

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, messages, nothing.

I'm really disappointed and sad, and I guess I'm also switching to BeWelcome.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#146

Post by djsumdog »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #9
MattGaiser wrote: post #7

>If community powered websites like Reddit can survive Reddit is backed by venture capital and shifted heavily to be more advertiser friendly.

I don't know how Hacker News manages to stay so pure, given that it's run by venture capitalists, yet still remains free of ads and open to newcomers. Monetising CS is like demanding a signup fee to join HN: it will drastically change the community.

> I don't know how Hacker News manages to stay so pure

It's heavily moderated, more so than Reddit. Right now is an interesting time because COVID posts are weighted to quickly fall off the front page (I'm not really complaining, this is a tech link site and I can see how those get annoying; no one wants to think about that right now, but if you see one of those threads, they are some of the most interesting and controversial, so check them out before they fall off).

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#147

Post by cpach »

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?

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.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#148

Post by alexashka »

brendyn wrote: post #76
alexashka wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing. Couchsurfing is so interesting. Its success relies on it never becoming mainstream. It's like those word-of-mouth-only parties that are so great but if enough people hear about them, they are no longer any good. I had a similar experience with drum circles in Toronto, Canada. They were this hippie heaven of people coming together in a park and playing drums once a week in the summertime. Other peo…

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. Similar ilk works well if the service is carefully grown over time via careful word of mouth. People tend to behave much better if you know each other through a mutual friend or acquaintance. If the service grows big enough, that invisible bond of a small community will be gone and I imagine that invisible bond is what the original poster was so fond of.

It's like that house party example - if enough people show up, that delicate balance of meeting new people by being introduced through a mutual friend and having the time to make a connection with a stranger is broken and you end up 'networking' instead of connecting, as is the case with most tech meet-ups I've attended :)

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#149

Post by vincnetas »

trianglem wrote: post #132
inimino wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/s? I almost wonder if you've ever met anyone in need. This brand of smug entitlement preceeds revolutions ...bro.

Nope, stop right now. Anyone in America can come up with $25 of disposable income a year.

There is a world outside USA also ;)

And you don't need money to travel.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#150

Post by bigfoot675 »

trianglem wrote: post #132
inimino wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/s? I almost wonder if you've ever met anyone in need. This brand of smug entitlement preceeds revolutions ...bro.

Nope, stop right now. Anyone in America can come up with $25 of disposable income a year.

And it doesn't really seem exactly dispensable if you are using it for housing
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