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The Death of Couchsurfing?

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Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#171

Post by yoricm »

owenversteeg wrote: post #45

So I imagine there's a lot of people here that don't know Couchsurfing or what the big deal is. Couchsurfing has been one of the most important things in my life, so I'll do my best to explain why it's so special. The basic idea is you stay at a stranger's place, or you host a stranger at yours - completely for free, no money involved. Everyone does it differently. Some people plan their trip meticulously months in a…

I love reading about your enthusiasm for Couchsurfing and your philosophy that comes with it. You should write a book. I'd love reading real stories, along with some reflections. It sounds like a nice way to meet people as they are. Authenticity is scarce and we need it.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#172

Post by nicksellen »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #168
Lapland wrote: post #162

Man that's a bad way to do it, and it makes me really sad. Couchsurfing has been awesome but this is probably good for the community long-term since the motives of a large part of the users and CS where wildly misaligned after becoming a for-profit corp. With the nail in the coffin hopefully this will lead to a migration to some platform run by the community itself. Trustroots seems like the best existing option righ…

Trustroots has a nice map-based interface, but lacks references and meetups. BeWelcome is my preferred option, and is open-source and has excellent financial transparency.

I'm one of the developers working on Trustroots.

We're working on references :) I merged this PR yesterday https://github.com/Trustroots/trustroots/pull/1413, there is a bit more to work out for displaying them...

There is also a meetup feature already (see https://ideas.trustroots.org/2017/08/21/meeting-people-now-o...), it's a bit primitive right now, but it was a first iteration, and we've been discussing some next steps recently.

We are also open source! https://github.com/trustroots/ (with a node + react stack)

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#173

Post by nicksellen »

abyssin wrote: post #159
gmargari wrote: post #145

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, me…

Have a look at Trustroots, the management of the project is quite different and doesn't put the same emphasis on formal democratic processes as BeWelcome does, but it makes for a community that's closer to what seems to me the authentic couchsurfing spirit. All of these hospex networks brought me a lot anyway.

I'm one of the Trustroots contributors, you're right about the governance topic, we have a do-ocracy approach right now (described a bit at the bottom of https://www.trustroots.org/faq/foundation). I'm actually keen to evolve this, with a more specific approach to community-governance, but this thinking and these talks take time.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#174

Post by abyssin »

elliekelly wrote: post #85
peterburkimsher wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

HN is maybe the only social network that is actually for socializing and networking. It’s also the only one that has figured out a way to monetize a network of people that doesn’t involve counting eyeballs and clicks. Networks are so valuable and important to success it’s actually kind of crazy that surveillance and advertising is the only strategy most social networks have been able to come up with so far.

I've never socialized neither networked here, but I've learned a ton thanks to the quality of the discussion. It taught me a lot about the importance of moderation, and rules in general.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#175

Post by namdnay »

owenversteeg wrote: post #45

So I imagine there's a lot of people here that don't know Couchsurfing or what the big deal is. Couchsurfing has been one of the most important things in my life, so I'll do my best to explain why it's so special. The basic idea is you stay at a stranger's place, or you host a stranger at yours - completely for free, no money involved. Everyone does it differently. Some people plan their trip meticulously months in a…

I had some really good experiences on couchsurfing (hosting and surfing) about 10 years ago, then I moved to a very touristic part of the world, and started getting 90% of requests from couples who were basically looking to get free accommodation for their holidays. I accepted the first 3 times, and each time they would arrive in the evening, unpack, drive to a restaurant they had already booked, come back to sleep and then leave first thing in the morning.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#176

Post by abyssin »

nicksellen wrote: post #173
abyssin wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a look at Trustroots, the management of the project is quite different and doesn't put the same emphasis on formal democratic processes as BeWelcome does, but it makes for a community that's closer to what seems to me the authentic couchsurfing spirit. All of these hospex networks brought me a lot anyway.

I'm one of the Trustroots contributors, you're right about the governance topic, we have a do-ocracy approach right now (described a bit at the bottom of https://www.trustroots.org/faq/foundation ). I'm actually keen to evolve this, with a more specific approach to community-governance, but this thinking and these talks take time.

I'm perfectly happy with the current style of governance. It seems like it works, while BeWelcome is still struggling with endless babbling.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#177

Post by welly »

mnky9800n wrote: post #170
owenversteeg wrote: post #45

So I imagine there's a lot of people here that don't know Couchsurfing or what the big deal is. Couchsurfing has been one of the most important things in my life, so I'll do my best to explain why it's so special. The basic idea is you stay at a stranger's place, or you host a stranger at yours - completely for free, no money involved. Everyone does it differently. Some people plan their trip meticulously months in a…

Every woman I've met on couch surfing has been a victim of some kind of sexual harassment or violence due to someone they meet on couchsurfing. Basically they stay with a guy and he has expectations and is vocal if not forceful about it. Women would be surprised that I had a bed just for them, didn't expect them to sleep with me, didn't ask them for sex, etc. I hosted for two years living in Berlin. That being said I…

I used to be very involved with couchsurfing in the late 2000s and early 2010s I had a high number of women couchsurfers, which came about from having positive feedback from other female couchsurfers, because like you they had their own bed and I wasn't trying to have sex with them.

It started being a concern because I began to think that people looking at my profile would assume that I was just looking to host women which wasn't the case at all. But from speaking to my guests, they said they chose me to host them because of the positive feedback from other female couchsurfers.

I do miss couchsurfing, I met some great and interesting people and have been thinking about getting back into it but have concerns about the direction couchsurfing has gone. I now live on a narrowboat on the canals in the UK and I think it'd make an interesting place for couchsurfers to stay.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#178

Post by m4lvin »

In related news, https://www.warmshowers.org/ (a couchsurfing, but only for cyclists) also changed "business model" this month. However, they will not charge existing active users and only ask new sign-ups for 30 USD once for lifetime access.

https://www.warmshowers.org/sites/default/files/files/inline...

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#180

Post by pelario »

namdnay wrote: post #175
owenversteeg wrote: post #45

So I imagine there's a lot of people here that don't know Couchsurfing or what the big deal is. Couchsurfing has been one of the most important things in my life, so I'll do my best to explain why it's so special. The basic idea is you stay at a stranger's place, or you host a stranger at yours - completely for free, no money involved. Everyone does it differently. Some people plan their trip meticulously months in a…

I had some really good experiences on couchsurfing (hosting and surfing) about 10 years ago, then I moved to a very touristic part of the world, and started getting 90% of requests from couples who were basically looking to get free accommodation for their holidays. I accepted the first 3 times, and each time they would arrive in the evening, unpack, drive to a restaurant they had already booked, come back to sleep a…

A key technique to avoid those situations was the "poisoned pill": buried in your profile there is some keyword they must include in their request.

With that (which I copied once I was reading a full descriptive profile) you get a great filter. I have done a good share of CS, both as host and guest, over the last ~10 years, having either good or amazing experiences.

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