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The Death of Couchsurfing?

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Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#181

Post by nicksellen »

h0l0cube wrote: post #131
peterburkimsher wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that losing references is a big problem. Thanks to GDPR you can request an export. https://www.couchsurfing.com/preferences/privacy If that fails, you can also contact me - my account is Taiwan-registered and still has full access. I can save your references, photos, and friends list, but not your private messages.

Ah, I saw that link on the BW forum post and now have my data :) It would be great if the data was signed, and it could be verified with a public key. That way you could have validated references for import into BW. Alas, I see nothing of the sort in the JSON.

I'm one of the Trustroots contributors, we have an old work-in-progress pull request to import couchsurfing data (https://github.com/Trustroots/trustroots/pull/1086), but it needs some love.

As mentioned in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219760 references is coming.

The verification issue though for import is a big one, we couldn't just trust a JSON file the user has uploaded to have real references, there would be nothing stopping them writing their own glowing references.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#182

Post by LoSboccacc »

I understand the need for monetization since it's a large community and running it will have some costs but it's weird they couldn't partner with some travel equipment goods firms and be done with it.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#183

Post by maram »

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 knew about Couchsurfing because my previous startup was in the rental marketplace.

Although, I never tried it..I heard many good things about it.

I also noticed Travis Kalanick used it as a title “couchsurfing” in one of his blogs before he launched Uber.

https://swooshing.wordpress.com/?s=Jam+pad+&submit=Search

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#184

Post by LoSboccacc »

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.

> Hacker News manages to stay so pure

we're still the product https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs

it's mutually beneficial, compared to say straight up advertising, but still.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#185

Post by welly »

vincnetas wrote: post #149
trianglem wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't need money to travel beyond your front door/neighbourhood but come on, you need "some" money to travel. You can't travel without a penny in your pocket.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#186

Post by wickerman »

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 also know someone, a very handsome dude in his mid 20s who had a bit of a wanderlust for a year after a brief stint in the military, who also got plenty of harassment from dudes he was staying with. As in, two of his hosts in Italy cooked and ate naked with him ("no strings attached"), and one really creepy dude tried to touch him while he was sleeping (in a separate location)... which obviously didn't end well for the host as this dude was fresh out of the military.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#187

Post by h0l0cube »

nicksellen wrote: post #172
peterburkimsher wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

> We are also open source!

This is a big deal actually. From what I've heard, One of the reasons why Hospitality Club fell into decline, was that the code-base was closed source and the original developer was reluctant to let go of it.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#188

Post by ZeWaren »

I'm very saddened by the news.

To me couchsurfing was not only about hosting people to my place (which I hope I can continue doing after the pandemic) but also about their events.

The weeks I couldn't or didn't feel like hosting strangers to my place, I could still meet random foreigners in bars or outside.

My city had 3 weekly events in addition to random theme events, from board game nights and sport activities to cooking classes.

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#189

Post by peterburkimsher »

nicksellen wrote: post #172
peterburkimsher wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

It's possible to export my data from CS. Would the Trustroots community be willing to have a CS data import option, for bringing in old CS references and friends?

Re: The Death of Couchsurfing?

#190

Post by h0l0cube »

nicksellen wrote: post #181
h0l0cube wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I saw that link on the BW forum post and now have my data :) It would be great if the data was signed, and it could be verified with a public key. That way you could have validated references for import into BW. Alas, I see nothing of the sort in the JSON.

I'm one of the Trustroots contributors, we have an old work-in-progress pull request to import couchsurfing data ( https://github.com/Trustroots/trustroots/pull/1086 ), but it needs some love. As mentioned in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219760 references is coming. The verification issue though for import is a big one, we couldn't just trust a JSON file the user has uploaded to have real references, there…

> there would be nothing stopping them writing their own glowing references.

Verification wouldn't be trivial, but a Trusted Human, could check that both their CS and their import match, at a glance - or the public profile could be extracted to partially automate the process.

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