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Couchers is officially out of beta

couchers.org

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Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#21

Post by eeue56 »

carabiner wrote: post #8

[flagged]

The "trendy stack" comment seems misplaced. CS is famously written in Ruby on Rails, not PHP, perhaps one of the most "trendy" stacks at the time[0]. Coincidentally, CS is also awfully slow with frequent errors. Managing all my guests when my city was in high season was usually much easier to do via WhatsApp.

To be honest, as a top host in my city, the only features that Couchsurfing was actually good for was discovery. Everything else was kinda broken or slow. It added to the charm, but it definitely wasn't much better than what you're claiming here for Couchers.

[0] - https://about.couchsurfing.com/about/jobs/rails.html

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#22

Post by maqnius »

yrcyrc wrote: 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

After CS went downhill, I created accounts at most of the alternatives around. I just leave it there, offering our living room.

I'm not living in a very touristic area, but every other month, I get a request for a night and if it fit's in my schedule, I'll accept. It's been only nice experiences so far and no one gave me the vibe of seeing it as a cheap alternative to hotels only. Most people ask on bewelcome.org by the way.

I just like that even though I stay in my bubble most of the time, I get the opportunity to spend some quality time with a stranger. Especially because those strangers are often on some kind of a mission, else they typically wouldn't come to my area.

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#23

Post by aapeli »

I'm one of the Couchers founders and wrote this blog post (and incidentally spend way too much time on HN), awesome to see this show up here!

This launch is the culmination of a huge push from our volunteer team to clean up a bunch of core features and make the platform easier to use. We are also launching a new branding strategy and new landing page.

Quick plug: we are looking for senior React Native devs to join us and help us get a mobile app out, as well as React/Python devs for frontend/backend. Everything we do is open source (under MIT): https://github.com/Couchers-org/couchers/

Happy to answer any questions folks might have!

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#24

Post by nabramow »

bluesmoon wrote: post #2

Wait, is this a rebrand of couchsurfing.org?

Volunteer dev for Couchers here, crazy seeing this pop up here!

Anyway to answer the question, we are totally separate from Couchsurfing.org!

We created Couchers in 2020 after Couchsurfing put up a pay wall, after going for-profit and going downhill for awhile.

We want to keep the original Couchsurfing spirit alive, so we started Couchers.org.

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#25

Post by k__ »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #16
daft_pink wrote: post #10

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…

Interesting.

I had the impression it slowly transformed itself to a hook-up community and that attracted a different crowd than intended.

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#26

Post by nabramow »

artur_makly wrote: post #15

In 2008, I met my ex wife on CS.. those were good times before they went corp later. Also had many fun trips through EU with it. Glad to see it back!

Volunteer dev for Couchers here. We're actually a totally separate website from Couchsurfing. Different team, different tech stack, though we hope to keep the original vibe of CS alive! You can find us at couchers.org.

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#27

Post by nabramow »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #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?

IMO AirBnb and Couchsurfing have to entirely different aims.

AirBnB is about the space itself. You pay for the space.

Couchsurfing is about the people sharing the space with you, cultural-exchange, etc. You do not pay, it's more about connecting and meeting with people.

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#28

Post by Nextgrid »

simonhfrost wrote: post #18
yrcyrc wrote: 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

What's changed? Did you get older?

I wonder how much of it is down to the internet changing - similar to the eternal september, or overtourism.

Couchsurfing used to be a relatively niche thing which allowed it to work and thrive. The percentage of freeloaders or bad actors was low enough not to be a problem.

But now with more people being aware of it/its alternatives, the percentage of bad actors would increase too (and maybe not even proportionally to the number of good actors).

Re: Couchers is officially out of beta

#30

Post by nabramow »

Oh hey, volunteer dev at Couchers.org here. How cool to see this pop up on Hacker News!

For the n00bs: I think the best way to explain the concept of couch surfing is to imagine visiting a friend in another city — they show you around, you have a great time, and you crash on their couch, or guest room or whatever. With Couchers, it’s just like that — except you’re meeting that friend for the first time (via Couchers).

Anyway come join us we're fun lol.

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