The Death of Couchsurfing?
medium.com
medium.com
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 advance and give arrival times to the minute, while others send a message at 9pm the same night asking if you're free. Some people ask to stay one night, some three, some far more; some bring bags of delicious food and artwork of their culture and some bring nothing.
I mostly host, and I've had all of the above - and then some. You have an incredibly diverse group of people. I've met artists, musicians, dancers - everyone from a Syrian man who lived under ISIS for years to an evangelical Christian woman who wanted to try shrooms.
The beautiful thing is that it's anything you want it to be. People have profiles that are often filled out with a good amount of detail (I usually skip the skimpy profiles) so you can pick out whoever or whatever you want. You want a pastry chef? You want a violinist? You want an architect? You want someone tidy and on-time or a hitchhiking hippie? Simply search for one to host or stay with.
The friendships and relationships I've made through Couchsurfing have been some of the best and most interesting I could have asked for. And the best part - you can do it all from home, traveling the world from the comfort of your couch.
Anyway, that's the beauty of it. I really hope that the network of people can be saved. Long term, I think it can, with something like BeWelcome, but of course it's a network effect problem - no hosts=no guests.
If anyone is curious about Couchsurfing (or wants to couchsurf my boat in the Netherlands - seriously, anyone is welcome, please come!) then feel free to send me an email (it's in my profile.)
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 people would come by and picnic, sit around, dance, hula hoop, whatever.
Once it got popular enough, the park would be littered by the end of the day, so local residents complained and got drum circles banned, so we don't have drum circles anymore, because they were too good and a complete non-profit :)
hosts will be overwhelmed with requests. many guests will be freeloaders who would be better served with airbnb.
for the site to work, the influx of new members needd to be small enough so that the community csn handle it.
word of mouth is the only way to make sure that new members can get a reference before their first trip.
It worked very much as described in that post, and didn't seem to have the problems listed in yours. The biggest problem I remember with CS, was people trying to inappropriately use it to get laid.
The real problem is the same that has been plaguing the web in general - there seems to be no more room for just doing good stuff while trying to break-even or even making a modest profit. Everything has to be a "startup" with the possibility of making its founders millionaires (or more).
I got on the internet in the early/mid 90s when the web was new & for a few years it was mostly non-commercial and ran by enthusiasts and hobbyists acting according to the hacker ethos of sharing, openness, decentralization & world improvement. You could see these principles for years even behind decidedly commercial sites such as craigslist.
It didn't last for long but that's the kind of ideology couch surfing originally started in & it's sad but unsurprising to see where it ended up in.
i should have pointed out that i am speculating.
Maybe they should host first?
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 :)
My brother lived near a big ole drum circle in Santa Cruz, CA and had the same experience. Originally it was a small crew and they weren't a problem. They hung out, didn't get too loud, and were respectful of the properties nearby. Definitely some LSD and other substances floating around, but nothing out of control.
Couple years later it's essentially a quasi-homeless community and lots of problems with litter, noise, and, eventually, overdoses.
See also: Mop Theory & Subcultures -- https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
More than anything, Couchsurfing taught me wonderful things can happen when you embrace serendipity. Couchsurfing is an important antidote to a world that seems increasingly fearful of strangers.
I hope they manage to survive.
Paradoxically, trusting strangers has also made my life safer.
In Armenia, I met an old woman who then helped me get through a dangerous area and told me not to worry - she'd protect me like her own grandson :) In another country, I made friends with an army officer who watched over me, and somewhere else a truck driver helped me through a tough border crossing.
People also seem to be scared of that one crazy person who'll stab or rob them. Here's one thing I realized: even the "bad" members of society are not bad to everyone. A mugger doesn't mug his friends and many murderers have been loving parents. Getting to know someone - aside from being interesting - means they'll see you as another human being, not some target. (Most of the time. Of course, always use your judgment, and if something feels off, just leave.)
I hope CS gets reborn. Who knows, it might happen - maybe they'll run out of cash, put the site up for sale, and someone will rebuild it as it should be. Or maybe the current leadership will do a 180 (unlikely, but who knows!)
I'm sad that all those good memories will be tinged with pain by this betrayal, but it's given me a good reason to get back in touch with old friends, and invite them to BW. I wholeheartedly agree with your descriptions of CS and trusting strangers; you've had some great stories!
We let strangers into our homes, but not into our superuser shell. Why?
In China and Vietnam, I found that the locals use the site only to meet foreigners. For example an teacher in Vietnam asked me to be a guest during an English class.
I traveled by bicycle. This meant I could use also the Warm Showers website. This worked extremely well in Europe and the US. I had wonderful hosts in New York City, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Bavaria, Zurich, Washington DC, Berlin, Czech Republic, Dallas, Houston, Baton Rouge.
And in the Netherlands I used Vrienden Op De Fiets, which is more expensive, but also very nice.
There are some safety nets in place, like you can get verified by couchsurfing for a small fee. It's a trust system, people are encouraged to vouch for each other. If you're worried, then only visit/host people who have a lot of good reviews, or who can be vouched for by someone else in the community. If you were asking from the perspective of a prospective traveler I would suggest going to local couchsurfing meetups rather than randomly finding people to stay with. Often you can get recommendations directly and gut feel is very valuable.
It's no less of a potential hookup app for women as it is for men. You don't think women want to me interesting guys to fuck? Else women wouldn't even stay with men. They already avoid the guys with bad reviews.
See: https://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-sex...
They are people who have chosen to stay at a stranger's house
> Do you think women are completely naïve about how the world works
No, but I don't think they want to have to take every decision based on probability of getting raped
> I've known two women who couch surf and it was de rigueur to have sex with their hosts
And I know male hosts who had sex with their male visitors. Does that mean that if I couchsurf at a man's flat I should be expecting intercourse for my bed?
If you think women can afford to take the same risks as men when travelling then I just really don't know what to say to you. That's just hopelessly naïve. Attractive girls learn very early on that every man wants to have sex with them. It's just part of life for them.
> Does that mean that if I couchsurf at a man's flat I should be expecting intercourse for my bed?
No, but if I were you I would at least consider that there might be a "misunderstanding" leading to you having to find alternative accommodation.
That's what laws are for. Shaping society so that it's like what we want rather than the jungle
> If you think women can afford to take the same risks as men when travelling
When did anyone in this thread ever say that?
> No, but if I were you I would at least consider that there might be a "misunderstanding" leading to you having to find alternative accommodation
I'd prefer to live in a world where I don't have to make that choice, hence society shunning people who would put others in that position
Why, on a site like couchsurfing, would there be any implied sex, or opportunity for misunderstanding around 'sex for surfing'? It's blatantly outside the standards and norms of the community.
I don't think I've used Couchsurfer since....2012? Roughly the same time I discovered Tinder. I absolutely treated CS as a dating site where you had to be extremely discrete/low-key in your approach. I rarely offered my couch but did offer local tour guide-like services to cute women which was essentially a first date. I would never consider staying at a male host's place; even as a Marine I would assume the rape/murder risk too high. Maybe I'm just a misanthropic cynic but I don't trust anyone to behave themselves. I also have never seen the appeal of the "broke backpacker" travel methodology, perhaps colored by experiences living out of a backpack in the military, which usually sucks. If I have the money to fly halfway around the world, I should have the money to afford comfortable private accommodations. If I'm going to mingle, I'd prefer to mingle with the locals rather than other foreigners on a shoestring budget (or rich people PRETENDING to be on a shoestring budget).
I don't understand you here: that's the whole point of couchsurfing! You're staying with "real people", instead of yet another backpacker hostel
But he also was arguing, IIUC, that the sex for stay is implied for women. I get that people will use it that way, but implying that it is any sort of norm is a very perverted view of couchsurfing. One that I never experienced, or found to be normal from many people i've talked to along the way.
I didn't mean it was sex for stay, just that for many people the whole experience was very much sexual. I mean, for crying out loud, it's a young, attractive woman going to stay at some dude's bachelor pad. Some people here must think women are so stupid. They know exactly what's going on.
Ok, I see the distinction you are making but....I think all women should operate under the assumption that if a man invites you into a private residence, for ANY reason, sex is on the menu. At least that way one is never (negatively) surprised. If I have daughters I think this is an important thing to drill into their heads. A guy says he wants to show you his collection of Warhammer 40,000 figures, at 1pm? You still won't be taken aback when he's suddenly pantsless.
>>>implying that it is any sort of norm is a very perverted view of couchsurfing. One that I never experienced, or found to be normal from many people i've talked to along the way.
I think my experience is just the opposite, but about 95% of my social circle is manwhores, the other 5% are males who aren't manwhores, but wish they were (a mix of younger, inexperienced officers or civilian IT/engineer guys). But this is why I'm on HN, to step outside of my bubble and exchange experiences with people with radically different backgrounds and perspectives.
>I think my experience is just the opposite, but about 95% of my social circle is manwhores
I get ya. Been there. I just feel we need to move from is implied consent. Couchsurfing and implying consent means the women either puts up with it (leveraged consent is ugly) or ends up on the streets. That is not good, and can be avoided if people are just more forward, even tactfully so. I suspect that this leverage is exactly why they choose the couchsurfing, and that mixed without transparency is ... eeesh, imo.
I'm not apart of the "tinder" generation per se, but I think the (at times gross) honesty is largely positive. People who scoff at the screen shots of people openly discussing sex are being prudish and don't understand that merely being transparent is a net positive.
On which website and what country is this?
To anyone reading this -- that is absolutely NOT the norm, speaking as a dude who has hosted and couchsurfed a bit.
One clue is that it's just focused on men flirting with women that's inappropriate here.
All I can gather is that some HNers need to find a new way to low-key flirt with people that doesn't make them(self) think "oh, this must be sexual harassment, this is bad".
Human life however is not an infinite array of possibilities, but stay in very specific zones for most of the time.
Think about it; exponential behavior would propably be deemed bad for most things out there in code, but if you knew the iterations never peaked above 3, it doesen't apply. Much like in real life, you have concrete real values that never really change, unlike the abstract unknowable problems you're used to dealing with.
1) hosting someone with no expectations, hitting it off and consensually getting together
2) hosting someone with the uncommunicated expectation they will sleep with you and pressuring someone alone in your house in a strange country until they consent.
People are cool with 1 and not with 2.
Let's not forget that hitting on someone is a continuum that ranges from flirtatious banter that you can enjoy with anyone to one's twisted idea of what hitting on someone entails that makes all their guests uncomfortable. Like asking "wanna fuck?"
Yes, hitting on someone in a way that makes them uncomfortable does make them uncomfortable and makes you a bad host. But I worry that you have an unhealthy understanding of flirting if you don't think it's something you or anyone can do without making someone else uncomfortable.
The moral flaw "the crowd" made was that it was men attempting to coerce sex from other men. Lot wanted to solve the problem by throwing his virgin daughters into the crowd.. which was apparently a perfectly righteous thing to do.
And anyways, that's why you shouldn't get your morality from an ancient book from a very different culture. Please don't throw any of your family members into crowds of rapists, it's not polite.
Keep in mind I'm a pretty big, able-bodied guy & at the time I was in my 20s. If I was a small woman living alone I may have skipped hosting single men.
Nothing has happened to me or anyone I know (or anyone I know knows.) And I don't think anyone should be afraid of things like murder, kidnapping, etc. While pretty much every high profile app/website these days has a big tragedy happen, Couchsurfing only had one - I actually think that's very low for the number of times people have Couchsurfed. (If you're thinking of Airbnb as the safe alternative, it's had far more gruesome and tragic events.)
But the thing to be careful with using Couchsurfing isn't a microscopic chance of murder, it's creepy hosts. There are always hosts that are clearly using Couchsurfing as a dating site. The way around this is just to read profiles and references.
Of course, everyone sets their own comfort level. Maybe a woman would only want to stay with other women; or maybe only with families, or with gay men. Maybe you'll only want to stay with someone if you'll get your own private room (you can filter for only those if you want.) Or only by verified profiles with 20+ references. Then there are red flags - Does a man have only references from women? That's a red flag.
That's the beauty of it: it's a completely choose-your-own-adventure kinda thing. If you want to stay with a family with kids in the mountains you can do that; if you want to join a clearly wild local on their quest to do illegal activities that will leave you with a hell of a story to tell, then that's also possible.
I would encourage anyone to still think about it no matter how old they may be - some of my best hosts got into CS late in life. It's possible to Couchsurf in a "paranoid" manner (for example only staying with families) it just takes a bit more effort and planning :)
Really, Couchsurfing changed my life. Ignore the fact that the app is a dumpster fire and just give it a shot - or better, try BeWelcome or Trustroots.
And again, if anyone has any questions about Couchsurfing or wants to start but is confused (or wants to couchsurf my boat!) please send me an email (it's in my profile.)
My experience with CouchSurfing, on the other hand, was weird. When me and my roommates (3 guys, 2 girls) signed up our shared house (in waking distance of a touristic city center), we were expecting to see lots of backpackers and tourists our age. Instead, most of our guest requests were middle-aged women with a strong urge to point out how adventurous they were feeling. I believe we not once had a guest request from a guy.
Middle aged women make up a very small percentage of Couchsurfing, and when I see them they're usually hosts only. I get a ton of requests, and I think it'd be more likely for me to get a message from an astronaut than two middle aged women.
I just checked my references and my friends' references and didn't find one woman over 40. I really wonder what happened in your case!
The weirdest stay-over that I ever had was a Korean religious pilgrimage who mistook me for a monk because apparently one had lived in my apartment before I moved in.
They had loads of really interesting stories and it sounded fascinating. They'd talked about how those who had done the winter season (24 hours of pitch blackness for 4 months) were all a little bit on edge and twitchy.
We had an artist which might had a mental issue or maybe just acting as he constantly confused who we were and told the same histories again and again. Some guy who in his own words, was trying to start his own religious cult. And some guy who brought a lot of peyote and blow the kitchen trying to destilate the mescaline.
Those were pretty interesting times, I definitely appreciate the experiences I had, but I also don't think I host anybody now (or at least not until my son is older).
I probably hosted 10 times and stayed with people about the same. Each time it was such a wonderful experience - by far the best way of traveling when I was in my 20s. Truly an amazing exercise in trust, as well as building experience of the kindness of strangers (with memorable adventures).
If Couchsurfing was truly about meeting people then the profiles wouldn't have gender and age on them. But they do.
That means that it's always potentially on the table any time you have human connection going on, couchsurfing included. Nothing about couchsurfing means this isn't happening or shouldn't be happening. It's just part of life and human connection.
After reading these comments, I do think that the miscommunication here is a lack of shared understanding of what flirting is.
I presume some people's imaginations immediately go to a host making guests uncomfortable by laying unwanted attention on thick, like the stereotype of the guy coming out in a short robe and hiking his leg up on the arm of the couch.
But I would like people who imagine that to know that most flirting lives in the banter area where both people are having a good time.
That being said I also had some amazing experiences through couchsurfing.
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.
We never received any negative feedback and were in high demand. Aside from that one super busy weekend, where things did get a bit cramped (but people knew in advance that it would be), nobody shared any beds or couches and couchsurfers had rooms separate from the hosts. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Sharing beds with the host is... creepy (unless the person was given their own bed/couch and they mutually decided they wanted to share a bed, of course).
I miss couchsurfing too. I stopped being part of it around the time it got a sense for being a bit commercial. My circle of couchsurfing friends did it for the cultural exchange and at some point it drifted from that to just free accommodation and drinking parties. At least that’s the sense I got.
I was actually pretty surprised when I was speaking to another couchsurfing host how many women he'd hosted that he'd slept with. Perhaps I'm (or was) naive but it never occurred to me that people would use it for hooking up.
> Women would be surprised that I had a bed just for them
It sounds like you were taking a lot of the desperate people on the site that aren't mostly in it for the cultural exchange but to save $5. Because here's the thing - everyone's profile has a section detailing what kind of room/bed the Couchsurfer will get. A "shared bed" is a red flag the size of Russia.
That's the other thing: I like to read the CS profiles of the guys accused of being creepy. 95% of the time, it's VERY obvious who they are. Guys will have "sex" in their interests, only have a shared tiny bed, or pictures of them shirtless, or 100% references from young women, etc., etc. That's the beauty of Couchsurfing - if you see a profile that you're not 100% confident in, then just move on; there are fifteen million people.
The real problem on Couchsurfing stems from people not reading each others' profiles. People get greedy, see a way to save on hotels, then send out copy-paste message spam that's not unique to your profile. I only host people who send me a message personalized to my profile, and even then that's after a lot of reading their profile, references, etc. I simply ignore the copy-pasted messages - if you don't care who you end up with, then you're not Couchsurfing for the interesting experience, you're doing it to save a few bucks.
If you don't read profiles and carefully select, then you're basically rolling the dice. This is the #1 cause of bad Couchsurfing experiences.
TL;DR: if you choose a host without reading, Couchsurfing just becomes Omegle IRL.
(If you're a woman reading this and want to Couchsurf 100% safely, you can do things like only surf families, other women, places where you'll get your own room, etc etc.)
You want a virtue signal? Here you go: sexual assault is the fault of the assaulter, not the assaulted.
Unlike most people passing by this thread, I have actual experience with this topic. I'm close to several women who have Couchsurfed solo, and I have hosted countless young women (men as well, of course.)
If a discussion about American gun deaths came up, it would not be victim blaming to explain the context and the source of most of these deaths.
My comment had several purposes. One was to explain the most common reason for sexual assault on the platform. Another was to help people getting into Couchsurfing. There will undoubtedly be a number of HN users joining Couchsurfing as part of this thread, and I wanted to pass along valuable safety information to any women among them.
Also, as a 2005 signup, I can attest that copy/paste requests have always been a thing. In fact, initially they were the norm. Back when travelers used internet cafes and were paying for every minute, it was understandable that they needed to send out a wave of requests quickly without being able to personalize them. Even now, I prefer copy/paste as a host because I can sympathize with travelers and don’t want them to jump through silly hoops.
And I have no problem with people that want to save money, but if that's the - only - thing they're using CS for, with no interest in ever talking to me, then I'm just not going to host them.
It's admirable to take in anyone, but it's pretty rare. The vast majority of hosts I know (and have surfed) will only take people in who have read their profiles.
Like I mentioned, there's a safety component to this (for men as well!) but also a practical side - many people live a good bit outside the city they're listed in, some people go to bed early or late, some people play music all night, some people are nudists, some people have a shorter sleeping spot (couch/bed/etc)... If you don't read profiles you're just rolling the dice - even if you just want a free bed!
By the way, I think I'll try to be more active on BW/Trustroots (hosting mostly.) Any advice for how to get my profile seen? On CS I get absolutely flooded with messages (and often get great, well written messages) - on BW and Trustroots I've gotten nothing.
Really, for me the negative change in CS over the years was the explosion in hosts who were sedentary. If you don't do shoestring travel as a lifestyle yourself, you won't be able to sympathize with your potential guest's needs. For a site that, in Europe, spread initially through the hitchhiking community, I was appalled to see so many CS hosts by 2008 who looked down on free travel, and threw around words like "freeloader".
I also can't agree with people complaining about guests who need their hosts to feed them. If they are ordinary backpackers who just budgeted poorly, that is one thing, but if they are intentionally trying to live on no money, that is another thing entirely. Among the freespirited alternative traveler community who founded CS, there have always been people traveling by providence, and they have been among my best and most memorable guests. Their stories and positive attitudes far outpaid the pasta and salad I made for them.
Finally, you can't assume that guests who write a non-copy/paste request actually read your profile. Sure, they may have quickly scanned your profile for things they can mention in a request, but that doesn't mean they care about the details. For years I could only offer a mattress on the floor and clearly said so in my profile, and yet so many of the guests who wrote ostensibly personalized requests either didn't catch that, or when they accepted my invitation and arrived at my home they complained about it. Again, writers of copy/paste are just as likely to be appreciative or not.
As for getting requests on BW or Trustroots, either live in a place where many travelers want to go to, or become a superhost whose house is open to all travelers and word of the good vibe there attracts people to your region even if initially they don't know what to do there. Those are your only options, really. However, this looks to be the biggest wave of CS refugees ever, so you may start getting more requests regardless.
I don't think you are wrong, sometimes it is obvious you are walking into a bad situation, but wtf is the point of couchsurfing if its not to save money? lol.
TBH I think the real problem with couchsurfing is that it was more of a passing fad, cultural phenomenon rather than something that will stay forever. My guess is someone will come up with a more clever solution and the generation that used couchsurfing will keep using it and a new generation of travelers will use the new thing.
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.
can you explain? what keywords do you have to put to avoid this?
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.
The weird thing is, AirBnB came along, and I keep reading the sentence "nobody believed that hosting a stranger at home would work", which made me internally scream "but there's couchsurfing!!".
In fact, I think that Couchsurfing (the website/company) had a chance to become like AirBnB. They didn't. Maybe intentionally.
Reddit is backed by venture capital and shifted heavily to be more advertiser friendly.
This site is a lot less brazen that, say the Gates Foundation or Jack Dorseys "all the strings attached" charity "donations", but there's no doubt it's run in the interests of YC and they're doing it for the benefits they get.
Not that I begrudge them that. It just needs to be something you bear in mind when wondering about odd looking article rankings or apparent voting/submission patterns that evade the fraud detection... It's their space, they can do that if they want. I (and everyone else) needs to weight up the benefit to themselves against the benefit to the people in control, and determine whether to hang around here, or walk away. For me? They do an OK job of not taking too m much advantage of their ultimate power here. I'm mostly cool with them.
I’m not sure where I personally sit, but I think it’s a bit silly to pretend that YC is universally beloved or beyond reproach.
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 the poster children of VC backed companies extracting profits at the cost of society, and I suspect that they probably should’ve known better.
Do you have any evidence to back up that claim? Because hard data shows exactly the opposite: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2018/beyond-bls/how-airbnb-has-...
You also haven’t provided any evidence to back up your claim. I’d be curious to read it, if it exists.
Studies into various markets have shown that AirBnB increases rent for residents by converting long term rentals to short term rentals, reducing housing supply. The question is whether or not the increased tourism offsets the damage caused to the housing market. Studies point towards the answer being “no”.
Source: https://www.epi.org/files/pdf/157766.pdf
This is not an out there theory on my part; the name for this is the “AirBnB effect”, and searching for that shows articles in Forbes, EPI (linked), the Guardian, The Harvard Business Review, among others.
The EPI thinktank report you linked to simply states the costs outweigh the benefits without any numbers to support that conclusion. This paper, on the other hand, does look at the numbers. I appreciate the reference, however.
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.
That should tell you something important about them.
The fact that YC doesn't need to monetize HN , and others mentioned how so much talented is sourced here is what makes it a good and comfortable place for technologists and tech enthusiasts.
Although, I am still a wee bit dissappointed at the lack of discussion about actual hacking.
And what does any of that have to do with YC?
The site is literally news.ycombinator.com... and you're surprised it's slated towards ycombinator?
I'm a little skeptical of this. Don't get me wrong, I understand that it's not going to win any ACM awards for innovation in web development - it's a simple web app. I know this. But I think it's well beyond the 2-day prototype mark.
Because I know what a cheapo off-the-shelf, 2-day-product or PHP forum feels like, and Hacker News doesn't feel like that. It's a little more fine-grained and thoughtful than that.
The design, and probably countless little feature improvements that take time to make: I think these have accreted over time, a tiny bit at a time. And for what it's worth, getting comments to nest (stored in DB, parent, child, child of child etc.) and then to show that correctly in the UI isn't quite as easy as people who haven't attempted it might think.
And then things like downvoted comments being faded, next page loading at screen bottom, setting up the API... it all adds up.
As I typed this I realized how unsubstantiated this claim looks, and to be frank the cost of just doing this isn't even that high, so I'm probably just going to do this next weekend for giggles. Let's see!
If you really wish to go back to the original view, you should consider giving Netflix dvd a try. You get DVDs and on top of it the original site with five star ratings, predicted rating and most importantly the ability to sort by predicted rating in any genre!
I'm not sure about that. HN is moderated very effectively. I couldn't comment on the workload there, not being a moderator.
Plus: there are a shitload of people from all over the world here, ranging from broke devs in "third world countries" over German journalists to US VC CEOs. HN is essentially a gateway to a lot of influential people... a "soft power" in politics terms. And one with real monetary value as HN is an excellent place for new YC companies to get users, staff, or a network. An advantage that other VC funds do not have.
I think it may be just one now - sctb's last comment here was 8 months ago.
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.
And I’d call a comment a form of socializing. Who knows? A maybe one of your comments here put the seed in someone’s head to launch a new startup. That seems like the kind of socializing YC would be interested in fostering to me.
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).
Agreed. There is no shortage of COVID coverage, like, everywhere so I'm glad that they slide away quickly.
That said, I do appreciate the hard looks the HN crowd takes on some of the posted studies.
we're still the product https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs
it's mutually beneficial, compared to say straight up advertising, but still.
2. Light curation (pushing posts that aren’t a “good fit” down the rankings; asking people to resubmit good submissions that flopped)
3. I feel like it’s changed quite a lot in the last 10 years or so I’ve been reading the site. The popular topics have changed. I see fewer of some kinds of stupid comment and more of other kinds of stupid comment. But it’s hard to describe what the changes are.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/reddit-users-are-the-least-v...
The coins seem to be a couple hundred thousand a month.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ak1769/red...
Edit: I'm totally wrong about Reddit. They're both currently VC backed companies.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/reddit-raises-300-million-at...
Conde Nast did own it at some point, then it was transferred out and Conde Nast's parent is the majority owner (or was? the news report above only lists them as one investor).
not since 2011 [0]
Between 2017 & 2019, I hosted about Couchsurfers. I initially paid to verify my identity, and I paid a few dollars per quarter (I forget how much) to maintain my membership. Then I needed to change my credit card. There was literally no option to change my credit card. In order to change my credit card, I had to let me credit card expire. Wat.
In there recent email about running out of money, they were looking for people to spend $2.49 USD/month or $14.99 USD/year. I was like "hey, I can finally support them!" So I clicked on the link, and because I already have a verified membership, there was still no option to pay. I contacted support asking how I could pay, and instead of giving me a way to send them cash, they gave me ANOTHER FREE YEAR of verified membership. Wat.
Maybe start a Patreon? It'd be hard to screw that one up.
Couchsurfing has a great community, but it has been resting on its laurels for too long.
They could have started a Patreon or buy me coffee-esque donation model several years ago and people would have been down to help sustain them.
It seems that mid 2000s internet knew how to use CS without being creepy but more and more of the 2010s internet just didn't. There were so many allegations of harassment and women not feeling comfortable. One woman traveler I met said if she even logged in in India, she would get 6-7 invites from men to stay with her. Seems like this 'travelers near you' feature maybe had some downsides.
It's also just hard to stay relevant with the rise of facebook, airbnb, and reddit. It's a bummer they didn't stay more focused. Gosh, I would have loved to work for them back when I lived near the mission, but it sounds like it would have been incredibly frustrating.
Regarding making money or doing it wrong - says who? The barrier to entry for podcasting has never been lower. It's all in people's heads :)
https://www.warmshowers.org/sites/default/files/files/inline...
It also feels much more barebones, which I'd say people kind of like.
I left couchsurfing (which i used mostly for hosting) to warmshowers where I've hosted a dozen or two guests over the last few years. I've never traveled on a bike and don't have any plans to. The guests are great, since bike touring is a filter for a certain kind of person.
I don't know I would have signed up if it were $30 (though it has obviously been worth it).
One of my "things to do when im rich" daydreams was to visit my favorite guests/host from CS in a world tour. Most I didn't exchange numbers or emails with, but having their good reviews on my profile was a monument of what the kind of person I wanted to be. If it's true I can't message them now, I should've got rich sooner.
So, back before the ubiquity of 2 or 3 social media sites, CouchSurfing was a quirky place to meet travelers and let them crash on your couch. One of the things that made it work was profile reviews and couch requests. The second thing was the community forums.
The profile reviews and couch requests acted as a quality filter. Bad reviews lead to much lower community engagement. An interesting profile and good reviews, combined with community instruction on how to compose a good request, leads to acceptance of couch requests. The system works as long as the community polices itself, teaches its values to new members, and encourages good behavior.
The community forums were a huge part of facilitating all that. Profiles would often include instructions on how to behave, but the forums filled the gaps by adding social pressure to enforce standard conventions. They also ensured there was constant user engagement and content, which we know from modern social media sites is imperative for a vibrant community.
All of that got flushed down the drain when Couchsurfing reorganized and annihilated their old site. All the community engagement fled to private Facebook groups. That caused profile quality to crash, and the result is anti-community behavior, like how the majority of single men on the platform now host only single women, which besides being sketch as hell, just makes it harder to find a reliable host.
After I literally flew across the country just to have lunch with the Couchsurfing team and discuss the community problems I'd collected, I got the impression that they were not going to change. My concerns were mostly considered bug reports, and the problems that drove the community away were never addressed. Years later, it looks like no work has been done at all.
I was grandfathered in as an older user so I never even realized they started charged you to send more than a certain number of couch requests. But why would any new user seriously commit to a community now? It can probably still be a place to meet amazing people, but you can also just meet amazing people anywhere you go in the world, without Couchsurfing.
The saddest part of all of this is that now there won't be an amazing platform to show people how insanely generous humans are all over the world. Hopefully BeWelcome or another site can pick up the mantle and restore the old ways, so we can go back to showing more people the inherent goodness of strangers - when those strangers are tied together via community and purpose.
It’s here use it
I also dispute the "get a VPS and ship it" for 3/month -- there are a lot of images on Couchsurfing, and a userbase that's non-trivial in terms of size.
I'm really disappointed and sad, and I guess I'm also switching to BeWelcome.
Also, I forgot to mention that the message you get when you login to couchsurfing.com is a landing page that says: "Due to the impact of Covid-19, we need your immediate help to keep Couchsurfing alive" and then the only options you have are: 1. Pay with Credit Card 2. Pay with PayPal 3. Logout (https://imgur.com/g7QKHEt)
Their site totally looks like ransomware.
New Years Party in Budapest;
A haunted house trip in Philadelphia turned into being a pretend boyfriend for a girl in Ürümqi and a week later flying to Maldives with her best friend;
Playing ice hockey with the President of Finland;
Having a fling with a famous Japanese MMA Fighter;
I even started my website www.uncivil.engineer because of it; sad to see.
Not everything needs to be the next WeWork.
I've already contacted their developer to ask if I can help create a data import tool so people can easily transfer their C$ profiles.
It's heartbreaking to see such a wonderful community be divided like this. There are no "rich" and "poor" countries, only ones with more inequality. Ideally I wish that the HQ would change their mind, but my support is now behind BeWelcome as the alternative.
We must work together and stay united as a community. Travel will continue, despite government lockdowns. Contact tracing is much easier with hospex sites like BeWelcome than with 11 strangers in a hostel room. Economic troubles will lead people to cheaper alternatives. Even if C$ has been ruined by venture capitalists, giving freely and paying it forward will live on elsewhere.
In case this message reaches the C$ investors in Silicon Valley, I don't hate you personally, and I wish that internal reform is possible so that we don't all have to flee to a new platform. But the new change, brought without consultation, is contrary to the principles that CS was founded on. CS is not Airbnb, nor is it a dating site, nor is it exclusive. Selling personal data and private messages didn't bother me too much - Facebook does the same. But trying to charge a monthly subscription from people who don't even have stable countries, never mind bank accounts, is totally ignorant. Change your mind, quickly, because the community is already one foot out of the door.
This has been brought up in the past (there have been multiple waves of disgruntled CS members leaving for BW), but it is pretty clear that CS would consider this web scraping that violates their terms of service. CS does not provide any authorized way to export its profiles.
EDIT: Sorry, I'm wrong. I left CS and chose to use only community-driven hospitality-exchange platforms pre-GDPR.
https://www.couchsurfing.com/preferences/privacy
However, there's no data import tool yet, and that's what I'd like to build.
> There are no "rich" and "poor" countries, only ones with more inequality.
This is true only in the same way that there are no tall and short people, only taller and shorter people. Most of the population of the DRC lives worse lives than the bottom 1% of the US population in terms of material consumption. The US is rich. The DRC is poor.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9633122
... and it doesn't really represent the operation. At the end of the day, moderation and support for membership is needed, particularly for keeping predators out of the system, mechanisms for people who might have fallen prey to them. It is something that requires time and effort. Such operations need guaranteed vigilance on these issues, and aren't easily sustained by the whims of volunteer involvement.
It might be that many established members are okay with taking risks. I remember one host I stayed with that talked about hitch-hiking on trucks around Europe to save money, but also how she got drugged once and her money stolen and dumped in the middle of an autobahn, and then another time how she 'talked herself out of' being raped. This sort of risk might be okay for the seasoned couchsurfer, but this might not sit well for newcomers who don't know who they are staying with.
Not sure if the situation has changed with CS, and they've become profit-oriented, but it does take some money, from somewhere, to keep things to modern standards. Personally, I would prefer that CS was sustained by those who can afford to by donations, rather than subscription. And I may actually look to bewelcome, or hospitality club if that's still around. (I also used another called 'Trustroots', not sure if that still has a community.)
Edit: To that individual with the privilege to down-vote, could you please correct me where I'm wrong with an actual comment?
Servers cost money, and BeWelcome are transparent about that. Having developers to code the site and moderate the forum would be expensive if paid by the hour, but there are willing volunteers. Asking for donations is acceptable, a paywall demanding a subscription is not.
Please come over to the BeWelcome forums; I'd like to discuss the possibilities of starting new meetups, and selling merch (t-shirts, hoodies, stickers) to improve the BeWelcome brand so it can bring together the community, lest we scatter. Any financial donation like that should be discussed democratically though, so that's why your input is needed.
(I didn't downvote, I think your comment is fair)
I logged in just earlier to have a look, and I see that people do have feedback. I'm not sure if there's anything like 'vouching' that CS used to have.
> Having developers to code the site and moderate the forum would be expensive if paid by the hour, but there are willing volunteers.
I have been to a festival in Australia (the predecessor to burning man) that is completely volunteer run. It's interesting to be a part of operations and see it work, and fail to some extent, and in meat-space the 'look after each other philosophy' can work when everybody is can watch each other.
I'm not sure how that could translate to a platform that has private messaging. I believe CS had a mechanism where communications could be inspected if a complaint was raised.
> Asking for donations is acceptable, a paywall demanding a subscription is not.
I think you're right about this. The people who I enjoyed the most with CS would probably find this offensive, so I'd be more likely to participate in a platform that was donation-based.
My only hesitation is that I lose all my references.
> so that's why your input is needed.
I'll make an effort.
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.
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.
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.
I'm curious about that (being an Australian and a Burner).
Which festival? (if you're OK sharing. My email in my profile works if you're OK sharing but not as widely as publishing it here...)
(And I've never been, Easter is BluesFest time for me...)
But that it is :) It was a direct inspiration for burning man, and also another long running festival in Europe (the name escapes me).
> (And I've never been, Easter is BluesFest time for me...)
Are you talking about the one in Denniliquin that often coincides with ConFest? It's a very short drive away, and I recall bumping into a few curious folks making a detour after BluesFest.
So maybe alternative won't arise - because spending hours building a product and paying to host it for people who can't or won't pay is a hard sell.
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)
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.
But really, I want to contribute to the original project, and given I am not the original developer, it still relies on the them (and any other founders) to open up contributions. Fortunately, in this case, they have :)
(most relevant, but dated, PR is https://github.com/Trustroots/trustroots/pull/1086)
(I also saw your comments on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219900)
I think the €2 price is only for those who live in relatively richer countries. Here in Vietnam, my friends were not asked to pay, it's just me because my address was set to the Netherlands.
They even support PayPal payments, which I believe take ~€0.30 for the payment.
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.
I've been a heavy CS user for over a decade, I've been to events at their (now defunct I suppose) office in SF, I met their CEO at the time (one of many) and even did a walk around the block chatting strategy with their VP of Product at the time.
After building lifelong relationships through the platform, and comparing my experience as a user with management's side of the story, it was clear to me that they had very little understanding of their userbase.
Couchsurfers are broke. By definition. Meeting people is a huge value add, and the longer you stay on the platform, the more you gravitate toward the "community spirit" and less "saving money" side of things. But you are kidding yourself if you think that first time CS users are on the platform for any other reason than squeezing a few more days out of a thin backpacking budget.
Not only are they broke, but even the community often has an anti-money ethos. Just look at the outrage (as the article points out) when they switched to a B corporation. And it makes sense -- taking an inherently capitalist product (lodging) and building a community to make it free creates a very specific narrative.
Therefore, the expectation that CS users, especially first-time, will pay even a dollar on the service is DOA. They need to make money (exactly how much is up for debate), but this isn't the way to do it.
But that doesn't mean there aren't any other choices! CS Event sponsorships, cross-product integration (language learning, travel deals FFS), other corporate sponsorships, a more Airbnb-like private experience (maybe the community would hate that too, who knows), partnerships with local tourism authorities, discounted tour / event packages... None of these were even close to tried.
I'm not at all advocating that Couchsurfing should have become Tripadvisor, but to barely even consider a few alternatives to nickel and diming a bunch of broke backpackers just shows that CS was on its way out long before COVID-19...
Music can be obtained for free (whether recorded onto a cassette tape off MTV or downloaded). Despite that, I go out of my way to support my favourite bands. Sometimes quite literally flying to other countries to go to concerts. Now I have the money, I want to support those who showed kindness in the past by paying it forward.
BeWelcome's financial transparency is excellent, and I would happily buy a t-shirt from them, and I'm discussing with organisers of CS weekly meetups whether they'd be willing to rebrand to BW. If CS wants to save their platform, they can and should, but must act quickly.
You can give away the product and monetize related needs. This is how I did it with my website, where I can still afford to give away all my knowledge. You focus on your core product, but still make affiliate income from pointing them to other things they need.
Stay safe everyone. Have a good time! ~*~
The article makes this sound super shitty. What happens if you were traveling on May 14th in a country where you don't have cellphone service, trusting that you're going to use CouchSurfing to message your hosts to arrange to meet up when you arrive, and now you can't contact them any more? Either it's cough up the US$15 (assuming you even have a means of payment CouchSurfing accepts — I don't think they do M-PESA) or you're sleeping on the side of the road where your hitchhiking ride dropped you off. And US$15 is a fucking lot of money in some places.
I've hosted a bunch of people via Couchsurfing and also been hosted. Another alternative I've used is hospitalityclub.org, which seems to still be up. The article and other comments here mention BeWelcome, but I haven't tried it.
While I agree with comments that it shouldn't require hundreds of millions of dollars a year to run the site, and that we need to move community services like this onto decentralized systems, I think things like the Beaker Browser are not yet widespread enough. Communities like CouchSurfing where lots of people meet up in person and try new things might be the most fertile soil for something like that.
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
I almost wonder if you've ever met anyone in need. This brand of smug entitlement preceeds revolutions ...bro.
And you don't need money to travel.
So it's true that you need something....but you can do it with little enough that $25 can be a significant part of your budget.
My brother had a $10,000 surgery. He works a minimum wage job so they tried to get him to agree to a payment plan. He didn’t think he could afford that, so offered $2500 as full repayment and they accepted.
> In contrast, BeWelcome, a similar but much less popular platform, covered their finances with less than $10,000.
The costs of running such a platform are not high. And Couchsurfing operated for free for at least a decade: they relied on donations and volunteer work.
In the end, some of the founding volunteers decided to sell out the Couchsurfing code and community to investors. These investors want their money back. Of course Couchsurfing now has paid staff, but it's not required for operating the website: it's required for userbase growth. And neither the new user fee is about the operating costs: it's about investors getting their money back.
I can imagine bad hosting varied travellers who themselves may be sleeping in many different beds would be terrible for it.
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.
I've heard about the negative experiences people have had, but never from direct source, always someone heard about someone. I have no clue about the actual numbers.
The community died off with the mismanagement, but also shrunk from the rise of airbnb and meetup.
i agree this become more common over the years, bit it's anyway easily avoidable through references or just by checking up sexuality, after all statistics are on your side, if you host person of same gender you are unlikely going into hook up
The fact Couchsurfing didn’t warn or consult the community it hosts that the company was switching to a paid service, effective immediately as of 14th May 2020, only underlines the already poor track record of the management. Just in case you weren’t sure how mainstream the service went, they’ve gone and removed all doubt.
In order to simply message old friends through the site, people who you warmly welcomed into your home, who kindly hosted you in a strange foreign land — or who perhaps changed your life — you must now pay a subscription fee. Users have essentially had their accounts frozen unless they pay the fee immediately.
The bosses of Couchsurfing know how much these old connections mean to some members, so in one final hustle have blocked messaging and even referencing, forcing those who have no other communication links to sign up for at least a month to speak to their friends, and hoping for a little bonus before the gentrified party is over for good.
It also means those that use the site only for hosting, in other words, offer their homes to others for free, have to pay the fee too.
This should kick out the remaining ethically-minded members. Leaving only noobs and those that want to save money when travelling to run the whole show. To be fair, $15 a year is not a lot to ask. But the way they asked shows everybody exactly where Couchsurfing stands.
In contrast, BeWelcome, a similar but much less popular platform, covered their finances with less than $10,000. BeWelcome is also completely transparent about their finances. Everyone who has used Couchsurfing knows that policy has slowly — although not imperceptibly — changed over the years. The sole aim since it changed from .org to .com has been to increase its membership and with that the hope that its members will pay to be verified under the controversial pretext that this makes the community safer. As a host, I can say this “safer” mantra is nonsense. It’s the references I care about. It’s what the community, not the bank, say about you that I care about.
Of course, Couchsurfing will never die for good. Its apparition will live on in the memories of original users, their profiles as tombstones representing an age — however brief — where three great things: the internet, travel and the human spirit combined to create an enviable community accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Considering the incredible stories, the global relationships and shared interests of locals, there is little doubt that Couchsurfing changed the world. Just how many people turned a new era in their lives through a friendship which can be traced back to Couchsurfing? For a while it flew in the face of the monetisation of simple travel, even as a for-profit company it triumphed as the lefty nemesis of Airbnb and the boutique hostel craze which swept the world; now rearranging its company structure to join them, having long replaced the wording of its most fundamental function from “community” to “profit”. Over the last years, the true community still struggled on, creating events and meet-ups and ignoring the new requests from creepy men with empty profiles, while in the background $22.6 million was quietly being squandered to turn Couchsurfing into the next trendy startup venture.
Many community organisations (wikipedia.org for example) which respect their user-base — indeed realise they are their user-base — have resorted to reaching out to their members in search of aid when times got tough, financial or otherwise. Even some newspapers, dammit, score morally higher by asking for donations rather than ransoms.
Despite the recent drama, it’s already clear from Couchsurfing’s Privacy Policy that other money making outlets besides the ones they mention do exist:
“We may engage a third party data provider who may collect web log data from you or place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser” “We may also share aggregated or de-identified information, which cannot reasonably be used to identify you.”
They may not admit directly selling your data. But Couchsurfing allows other companies to collect it in exchange for advertising space, which is paid for. The key words here are “engage”, and “reasonably”, which means if you are a large company and have the means to to re-identify data, then ta-da! — those trackers which monitor clicks and people you interact with, many who are now linked to profiles on Facebook, combine to make a neat little profile for you, and the travel-themed adverts stack up higher than the empty iPhone boxes at the Couchsurfing headquarters, which is now closed from Covid19, by the way.
But that probably didn’t work out for them, which is why they are now allegedly scrapping the advertising plan. Returning instead in true business-means-business style to the community, which after being neglected for years, they have suddenly realised they depend on. And may also realise no longer exists.
But how can it be so bad? As of May 2020, it is one of the top 10,000 websites by Alexa rank, putting it in the top 0.001% of websites in the world — absolutely no mean feat. And certainly not in a position to be losing money. If Couchsurfing couldn’t make it work with that amount of traffic, and with multiple multi-million dollar investments, while simultaneously ignoring its community and deleting its oldest and most valued members, it deserves to die. Nobody asked for all the fancy graphics and apps they made for us. People that are willing to sleep on a stranger’s mattress can live with a few, em, bugs. If community powered websites like Reddit can survive, Couchsurfing could have survived too.
Everyone that has used the site, even until very recently, will be grateful that it existed; its simple empowerment of people allowed everyone to get more of the best thing about it: the people we meet. If anything, it remains as a bleak lesson on the poisonous nature of replacing strength of community with financial capital. Now it’s time to shift away from what is essentially a company run by faceless people whose sole community is those in Silicon Valley; the only question remaining is, where do we go?