The Rise and Fall of Couchsurfing | Hacker News Reader

The Rise and Fall of Couchsurfing

nithincoca.com

136 pointsmooreds74 comments

My mother lives in Germany, and has done the couchsurfing thing a few times. After being a guest, she decided she should reciprocate and opened her couch up to others. She had some good experiences, first, but the last guy that contacted her really skeeved her out. She said something just didn't seem right in his communication with her, so she cancelled a few weeks before he was supposed to come. She had some experiences earlier in her life that have made her hyper aware of small indicators that signal danger. Fast forward a few months later, and the BKA (Federal Criminal Police Office) showed up at her door asking about the guy. He was a serial rapist, who used online sites to find his victims. They had, thankfully, captured him and wanted all of her email correspondence for their prosecution. No more couchsurfing for her.

This just highlights the importance of reporting incidents immediately, and not just to the police of course - though I imagine / hope they warn and notify the proper channels.

What incident should she have reported? The guy was strange? It was something in this anecdote but he could just been awkward. Your response is especially bizarre given that this attitude is exactly what led to the NSA scandal we're seeing now.

I was referring to if someone comes to your place and assaults you, or things go missing, etc..

It's tough to report "something didn't feel right" as an incident, though...

I was referring to if someone comes to your place and assaults you, or things go missing, etc..

Why doesn't she simply continue to host only women?

You think women can't be serial rapists/murderers/whatever?

They can. But the odds are vastly, provably, lower.

I'm sorry, what are you basing this on? Provably? In what sense?

Given how underreported rape is in all cases, i'm curious what conclusions you think can be proved.

Looking at a bunch of journal studies from the past 10 years:

Rape by males of females is underreported by 50-90%, depending on who you believe

Rape by males of males is underreported by 95-99%, depending on who you believe

Rape by females of females is underreported by 95-99% depending on who you believe

Rape by females of males is underreported by 95-99% depending on who you believe.

I'm only suggesting your statement that the odds are provably lower, is false, because i don't think you have enough reliable data to prove anything.

It may in fact, be that rape by females is lower, but i have a lot of trouble seeing that we have enough statistical data to prove it.

Some statistics would help here, and ones without source are as useful as none at all.

Percentages are useless without any context: http://xkcd.com/1102/

You latched onto rape specifically, presumably because it's the easiest one to claim skepticism about reporting rates (although I still find it very difficult to believe that men don't rape at least 10 times more than women). But what about murder? I suspect murder is much more accurately reported.

Without any real data, and widely varying estimates of reporting rates, why do you find it difficult to believe?

Gut feeling is not a valid scientific method :)

Yes, murder is definitely more accurately reported, because, well, in most cases, it's always investigated (if you are murdered, generally, the police investigate). Males commit ~90% of murders in the US.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf

However, most of it is of other males :)

Male offender/male victim 67.8%

Male offender/female victim 21.0%

Female offender/male victim 9.0%

Female offender/female victim 2.2%

In fact, it shows that males kill females only twice as much as females kill males, which is a lot higher than most people expect females to be.

Males also get killed by strangers (relevant to the original discussion) at a rate >2x higher than females:

         Male  Female

Stranger 25.5% 11.9%

(Sadly, none of the source data is in that PDF, and honestly, for a mostly side-argument on hacker news, i'm just not willing to go looking very hard :P)

Well, women make up ~50% of the general population, but only ~1-15% of serial killers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer#Female_serial_ki...

Serial killers that are caught or discovered, you mean.

Women are also a lot more likely to kill through more covert means (poison in particular), which means they are almost certainly statistically less likely to be caught.

In order to poison someone, you need to be close enough to them that they're willing to eat/drink something you've prepared for them, which would suggest that the majority of poisoning murders involve at least an acquaintanceship between the murderer and the victim. It seems very unlikely that 85%-99% of female serial killers (the required percentage to get to a 50/50 ratio) are all using undetectable poisons, successfully ordering these poisons in a way that can't be tracked, killing people they know with it, probably during a shared meal, then adequately disposing of the poison afterwards. Not to mention doing this over and over again without anyone getting suspicious about the fact that otherwise-healthy people around them are dropping like flies for no apparent reason. Do you have any evidence whatsoever for this?

Or just people with good reviews...

I upvoted you and then immediately thought...

"Oh wait... women can be deranged killers as well."

So.. yeah... this woman probably knows what she's doing.

Only wrote this comment because I can't take my upvote back.

I've been on CS for several years but only got active around 2009 (up until the end of 2012). I've hosted and been hosted once, both being slightly odd experiences due to being 10-day stays each.

In my mind, the meetings are what make it appealing, though after a while I started to see they were all about the same thing: drinking with instant friends. Almost every event has alcohol involved as well as "instant friends", seemingly good people with whom I could be friendly but never really connect. As a foreigner living in a large city, I could never be as interesting as a foreigner who was just visiting, even though I personally only found myself enjoying (to a certain extent) the local CSers because at least I could try to build an on-going friendship with them.

The seedy underbelly of CS is that it's a hook-up enabler. Many local CSers have had sexual relations with other local CSers as well as with the foreign CSers. The idea of "if it happens, it happens" is fine with me but I found that the main draw for the locals in several large foreign cities was finding a hook-up. In fact, I'll admit that my girlfriend is someone I met on CS (though we maintained a couple-year friendship before meeting). Now that we live in the same city, sometimes we have contact with the same CSers and in few instances we both get messaged by the same user. In one case, a male user who I met at a local meeting sent me a very brief, basic email saying we should hang out some time. My gf, who he hadn't met, got a message from him that was longer, funnier, and which specifically asked about going out on a certain date, and where he left his cell number at the bottom.

For this reasons above, the "instant friend" CSers (even the most "hardcore" or well-known of them) never became real friends, despite my attempts to make friendships. Also, any CS event had to be an "event" for anyone to really care, meaning it had to be sizable. In my new city, in a new country, the local group is chock-full of "let's go out tonight (drink & party)" posts. No substance, no spirit.

I wouldn't say CS has a "seedy underbelly". There's a few things that make sex an issue.

First off (like someone said) it's an online social network - there will be lots of creeps by default. But CS helps weed them out by encouraging references and friends. It's not perfect, but it's a good indicator of behavior.

Second, the whole point of CS is for (mainly) adults to socialize in foreign places. If my theory that the users are at least 50% single is correct, hookups are going to happen. CS even makes it easier by encouraging like-minded people to meet each other, and spend several days together.

Third, local communities that meet regularly form a kind of peer social network that will lead to people hooking up. That's any local community, be it an indie music scene, a foodie group, whatever. CSers who tend to get together locally are (imho) lonely and want to have fun with other people, so hooking up is more of an eventuality than a possibility.

I agree with you that very few (if any) of my CS meetings led to real friendship, but I didn't get into it to make new friends. I just like travel and meeting people.

My experience is quite different. I made several lasting friendships in both local and foreign CS meetings. I have a big group of friends locally, and CS just added some more.

Meetups suffer from this too...You can chat for a couple hours and "connect" but it's really really hard to take it beyond that. I dislike it but am guilty of it too, it's too hard to take a chance on giving people more of your valuable time, I suppose?

Well, how much easier is it to 'connect' in other settings? Do you connect more significantly with colleagues? random people you meet at clubs, bars, or other types of social events?

I'd say the 'connection' problem is equally real outside of meetups, and more an issue of post-college life:

First, there is almost no institutional 'mingling' (outside of work anyways). Second, we stop having the massive amounts of free time that we used to have in school and/or college to goof around with others. And third, we have less energy and often more responsibilities in the bit of free time we have left.

Add to that perhaps a general increase in weariness, 'emotional scarring', and decrease in energy and decreased need for socializing (for some of us anyways), and the whole concept of 'connecting' with new people in a post-education, full-time work life (for you AND them) becomes a serious challenge...

Very very true...

If you like to meet people and discover new countries, I deeply recommend Servas[0]. This is a world wide peace activist association where you can be guest (traveller) or host. You go as host and guest through an interview process to be accredited. We travelled worldwide, from Norway to Japan, and are now hosts in Germany and we had wonderful experiences.

This is a low-tech group, you get the list of hosts in a country as a book on paper, etc. but full of really really nice people. The interview is a good way to be able to then trust the people coming at your home. The interviewers get regular training on how to run an interview as they are basically the gate keepers.

[0]: http://servas.org

Another good one for less urban locations is WWOOF http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWOOF

Also highly recommended is htp://www.warmshowers.org/‎ 'a site for reciprocal hospitality for touring bicyclists ' others listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospitality_service#Example_web...

Interesting article...I hadn't thought of Couchsurfing having a particular gender imbalance but I guess it's not surprising.

However, it's strange to see an article about Couchsurfing today without the context of Airbnb. It's not even just that Airbnb has become so popular, but that Airbnb introduces a financial transaction that, theoretically, should mitigate concerns of unspoken "quid pro quo", which purportedly leave women in awkward situations. The free spirit of Couchsurfing may have been noble, but it seemed bound to be exploited for purposes alluded to by the OP. At least with money for services, everyone is on the same page.

Agree - I joined couchsurfing but never used it, however I hosted for years on airbnb at the start. My wife and I hosted many females, and the little verification parts, the fact a CC was on file and could be referenced to identify the person in the event of any issues, was more reassurance than couchsurfing provided, and I can understand some similar reassurances from the guest side: with money being exchanged, I felt more obligated to uphold reservations, even if I ended up being out of town and had to make complicated arrangements to get them in!

I'm pretty sure CS has an element where you can be verified by making a small donation (with a valid cc). Plus, references seem to go a long way and personally, I advise looking for CS stays while at meetings in the city you want to stay in. Book a night or two in a hostel then go to the meetings and ask around. It's a good way to get a feel for who'd be a good fit.

Yeah, I like the verification and only host those with it.

I can see where you're coming from but Couchsurfing is more than a free place to sleep. They actually specifically say that if it's what you're looking for, you're probably best off elsewhere. I hardly ever saved money using CS (dinners, gifts, etc) but I have experienced amazing kindness all around the world and made lasting friendships. Once you experience something like that, you feel obligated to give back, to pay forward.

Yes, there will always be bad people in every community, especially as it grows. You get better at spotting them quickly. If you're a girl, don't get greedy, spend time chatting with the potential male host, stay with a girl or at a hostel. Couchsurfing is not for everybody, though, which suits me just fine.

Both are psychologically completely different. With CS, you don't just crash the couch. You hang out with the people, you get dinner together, you talk. And I think most of the time, with CS you hang out only for a night or two. Longer stays might be awkward, since you don't know the person in advance.

With Airbnb, the whole thing is less about the social interaction and more about a place to stay. In several occasions, I didn't even meet the host of Airbnb. In another occasion we had a BBQ together, which was really nice.

The "advantage" of Airbnb is that you, as a guest, can psychologically expect to be left alone, since you pay for the room. This enables stays of a week or longer, not only a couple days. It doesn't matter as much, if the host is awkward.

I like both, but I'd use both on very different occasions.

Let's be reasonable---the NYC group is not anything like other CS groups.

In Berlin, or Cologne, or Buenos Aires, or Florence (where I've had a LOT of couchsurfing experience) the gender balance / country balance is good, and there are a lot of activities.

In NYC, it was boring creepy skeevy men.

Dunno why.

I've had great experiences with the Philadelphia CS community, as well. The one NYC event I attended was filled to the brim with "pickup artist" types.

I've been to a couple events in NYC, and while the new york skeezeball types are there, there were other nice people (mostly the foreigners) to talk to, so I enjoyed it.

The DC community is huge - transplant cities will lend themselves to social networks full of strangers, and especially in a capitol city, so in a way it's perfect. But the changes to the website absolutely destroyed the way the community interacted. Nearly everyone has fled to Facebook and phone trees.

In the end, it's all about what you're trying to get out of it. I stopped going to happy hours and dance clubs and started going out hiking, biking, skiing, road trips, etc with CSers and it's been much more rewarding.

I recently attended an SF meetup and it was great. Probably 40-60 (women-men) but it was friendly for mingling and bit of awkward dancing.

I have couchsurfed a bit. I became a little bit disillusioned after I noticed that the first thing that 90% of of its members write about themselves is how openminded and easygoing and creative they are. Those three keywords were literally everywhere. As a rule of thumb, if you have to explicitly remind people how cool you are, you are probably not that cool - just be cool and I can conclude for myself that you are amazing. Same applies to those qualities, thank you.

If you specifically look for profiles where none of that is mentioned, and people actually describe who they are and you can conclude for yourself how openminded, creative and easygoing they are, it works a lot better in my opinion.

You have to filter that sort of thing out. Everyone on dating sites likes photography and taking long walks on the beach.

Oh certainly, it just struck me as ironic when I read this in the article:

> When you met someone who said they were a Couchsurfer, it meant they had a different viewpoint on life, that they knew how to share, and were culturally open-minded.

Because I think "different" is a bit of a misnomer if there's such a specific couchsurfing stereotype.

It's no different to people seeing the "Goth" style of clothing choices being described as showing individualism. Which is, indeed, exactly how I heard many (very nice, friendly and often intelligent) teenagers describe their decision to wear nothing but black.

By rejecting what you consider to be mainstream, you feel you can describe yourself as different, it doesn't matter that you are merely conforming to the behaviours of a smaller subset. There is some comfort in being able to declare yourself as being different I think, I'm just not sold on the idea it shows Individualism (if that is even a word, I need an ism for it though)

funny, I just remarked earlier in the day that a famous JS open source developer loves photography and mixology ... like everyone else.

> 90% of of its members write about themselves is how openminded and easygoing and creative they are

I have seen sometimes profiles where people openly say they live by conservative values, or that they don't welcome youth and party animals, etc. or that they are gay and focused on hosting lgbt travellers. Not sure about the creative part, but I read openminded as a hint that one won't shut the door in your face for ridiculous reasons and is comfortable handling cultural differences.

I use CouchSurfing, but never attended 'meetups' because I don't care, so I have no idea what he's talking about. As long as I can find a place to crash at or a person to walk around show the town, Couchsurfing works just fine for me.

Can't say the same about the new website - it looks better but the experience is extremely frustrating.

Oh, if somebody is surprised that a social network of ANY kind is used for dating - well, you must be new on the internet.

// btw if you're a HNer/CSer and want me to show you around Warsaw, you can find me by the same username.

I once met a Scandinavian SEO guy who insisted CS was an international free-sex hookup network. He said he used it to this effect a few times "you need to look for hints in user profiles". I dismissed it as his nerdy fantasy but noticed since that some people indeed tried to look "inviting" in their profiles.

I showed this article to a friend of mine who frequently organizes and participates in CS events. He made a few good points, but here's the main one:

Local groups tend to be extremely personality driven, with a small number of people driving them. When these people move to a new location or their priorities change, the local groups that they led often die. This sounds like what happened in San Diego for the author. There are many other extremely vibrant communities out there, as noted by the comments of others.

Also, if you look at the statistics for users on CS, it's 47% female to 53% male.

I have a fully built out couchsurfing profile but only stayed with someone once. I like to travel on short notice. I tried finding hosts with a few days notice in multiple cities but all of them said no. After I while I just gave up and stuck with hostels. I've met multiple women who had the opposite experience. They'd go somewhere with almost no notice and have multiple (male) hosts to choose from.

That's another problem: crossing all your T's but getting no response. My profile is complete, too, and I'd write personalized requests but almost never would get a response, much less a positive one. After writing about 100 requests over a few trips/years and getting 1-2 "yeses" and 3-4 "thanks but can't" responses, I stopped trying to be hosted.

Don't be so quick to assume. You have a fully built out profile, but...

- what do you mention in your profile?

- how many photos do you have?

- what are the photos of?

- how many "friends" do you have?

- have you been vouched for?

- how many reviews do you have?

- do you have any neutral or negative reviews?

- what do the reviews say?

- what does your personal surfing message say (the one you send out to potential hosts)?

- how long have you been a member for?

- have you verified yourself?

and so on.

Most people are also less likely to host someone if it's very short notice.

I agree with all your points (long-time couchsurfer with 6 vouches, 42 references, all positive from an even mixture of hosts, surfers, and friends). However, I will say from personal experience, it seems that women have a much easier time getting responses on couchsurfing. I'm not saying it's more useful for women, just that men appear to be more likely to initiate interactions with women and respond to women. My best friend (who is female) and I just moved to Portland, OR, and both of us posted to the Portland couchsurfing group within a month of each other, with slightly different messages but a general theme of interest in meeting Portlanders. I received no responses, and she received 4 or 5 (all from men, who wanted to show her around, meet for coffee, let her know the good spots, etc). She has never hosted or surfed (except with me when I arranged it), and has only one positive reference, no vouches and a less than descriptive profile.

I'm not even insinuating that these men all have ulterior motives. I believe that there are studies that have suggested that women are perceived as more approachable and less threatening than men, and that could be the principal at work. Regardless, I do think there is more to it than just faulty observations on the part of men who may be overlooking the completeness of their profile, though that is a possible contributor to these observations as well.

Couchsurfing isn't just for finding hosts. Personally, as a long-time host I would choose to host people who seem to be more engaged with the community and have also hosted in the past, over someone who has a history of just surfing, any day. You didn't mention having hosted, which could be a big contributing factor in having a hard time finding a host (not trying to arrange hosting 1-3 weeks in advance may be another one). That being said, I agree with you that women on couchsurfing seem to have it much easier in many respects. However, to me, I let a CSer's history speak for itself. When people (male or female) have requested to surf with me in the past, there have only been a few times I've accepted if they hadn't hosted prior. It comes across badly to try to receive help from a community that you haven't shown an interest in contributing to.

Just adding my experience: My wife and I are in our fifties. We don't say yes to everybody who wants to visit, and our profile is certainly not very attractive to the element that is being complained about here. So far we've hosted four guests at our house just outside Chicago and the experience was 100% positive and we look forward to more guests in the future.

I've been active in CS since 2008. I can pay for a hotel, but the experience of the experience of getting to know a place like a local is priceless and that - as well as meeting really cool people - has been what I've loved about CS. Yes, there are risks, that exists everywhere, but a bit of common sense goes a long way, and references plus the verification mechanism takes it a step further. Another beautiful thing is that: there is no quid-pro-quo. Just cos I've been hosted, it doesn't mean that I have to host anyone, and vice versa. However, I've been hosting less and less, just because the community has been watered down by its huge growth. Now 90% of the requests I guess sound like hotel reservations and I got used to having a template no response handy. The article got it right, the focus on numbers instead of community is the main culprit. Just as an example, they changed the sorting algorithm on the list exactly for that, so that different people kept coming up top on the list, not necessarily those more experienced or with better references. When asked about it, they told me it is because this increases the number of requests accepted. I'm sure it does, but I doubt it increases the overall quality of the experiences people have.

I hosted a few times and all my guests basically treated my house like a hotel. No socializing and then going out to do their own thing. The whole reason I signed up was to meet people, but it seems to have been taken over by freeloaders.

great post. i like couchsurfing and i've had mostly positive experiences. apparently they deliberately wanted to distantiate themselves from the "couch"/hosting theme - hence the new logo (they redesigned their logo from couch & earth globe to what's supposed to be a "path" symbol) since they had users who cannot host but are still interested in meeting other couchsurfers.

about the gender issue - here's what happened to me when i visited egypt two years ago. i logged in to couchsurfing because i wanted to change my couch status to "i'm traveling" (to let potential travelers know that i couldn't host at the moment). without knowing it or explicitly stating where i'm traveling, my profile must've appeared in some "people near you" part of the site - within 24 hours i had received nine contact requests from guys wanting to meet or marry(?!) me. i don't know. it just really creeped me out.

I've been using CS rather successfully for the past 2 years to meet people as an expat. Mostly going to hikes, trips, beer events, picnics and the like.

As an expat currently living in Central Europe, I'd be curious to know if anyone can recommend similar communities for going out or participating to various events with other internationals.

Where do you live?

I was trying to be helpful and I'm getting downvoted?

I'd say Meetup but I don't think it is what it used to be. Too many "business" groups these days.

360 degrees shift? I do not think it means what you think.

I feel like this will be true of most expanded social networks, unless the founders value curation and quality over quantity. Some solutions that I can think off may be:

1. Make it invite-only? I don't use CS but I think it had this feature the last time I heard about it. Wonder why it doesn't address the complaints of blank profiles, etc.

2. A group of moderators amongst local users who can verify or address endorse people from their area.

I don't know if either of these will help address some problems which seem to be heavily localised to specific areas though (NYC / San Diego, from what I've read in the post and this thread.)

That's another thing in which CS has gone in the opposite direction. Before, the ambassadors had much stronger roles of welcoming and educating new members of the community, now they are less and less relevant. Ambassadors are what made the community a bit self-moderated before.

When reading this site on an iPhone, after about five seconds a "Share" button appears right in the middle of the screen. It covers the text, is unmovable, and cannot be closed.

Does this happen to everyone or just me?

Me too. Creepy.

I hate, hate, hate that share thingy.

I'm not surprised given creepy sites like these out there:

http://couchbangs.wordpress.com

I've definitely noticed the same shift. I've been on couchsurfing since Sept 2006, hosting folks a number of times, and then surfing and meeting up with folks a few times on travels to Europe. FWIW, I've never done a big "meetup".

It used to be a lot more about traveling and culture. Now it seems to be more about partying and one-up-manship. It's really sad to me, I have some great memories from CS pre-2010...

I've never been couchsurfing myself but some years ago when I was only doing part time work my girlfriend and I welcomed an American couchsurfer into our home.

He was working for the Peace Corps in Eastern Europe and wanted to check out Vienna as well, he was the nicest guy ever. It was a great experience but only now I realize that there seemed to be some kind of unwritten rule as he bought us some gifts - a cool retro table cloth and a cool little elephant for my girlfriend. We didn't have any expectations so it made us quite happy but then again I think this really shouldn't be a must.

I thought the culture on that platform is more about giving without expectations.

I wouldn't say I've understood this to be a rule.. maybe he just had the same impression of you that you did of him and was moved to do something special for you out of gratitude? I've had many surfers bring beer, and generally travel with a bottle of wine to offer to share my host(s) if they're into drinking. Some hosts make it explicit in their profiles that they expect you to do something for them, tidy up, cook them something, etc. which I think is really against the originally intended spirit of couchsurfing. I'd say that the rules on couchsurfing are the same as rules in friendship. You and a good friend may help each other out time and time again with things like moving, dogsitting, and advice. There are no 'rules' about what you should do for your friend or vice versa, and personally I have the best experiences with people who match my level of engagement or generosity without me expecting or asking for it. There's way too much drama between people who feel like they're being used in a relationship, and I think that stems from people having too many expectations of others. What I'm getting at, is that many people may have expectations of couchsurfers, as with any other relationship in life. But the couchsurfing community's only explicit expectations are good communication, honesty, and respect. I think the point is that people who consider obligatory gifts to be part of the experience are conflating ideas they've gotten elsewhere with the ideals of couchsurfing.

I've couchsurfed pretty extensively and I think it is hands down the best experience for travelling solo. It is one of the few sites online which I really think has tangibly improved people's lives.

Is there really another way to show up in a spot and instantly be plugged into a community who introduces you to their friends and wants to hang out with you?

The problem is not the project.. the problem is with the society.. the male society... they/we dont use to deal with women as human beings but as objects... thats pretty sad in our society

Women are treated as male commodities :(

>Since its early days, Couchsurfing has had a gender imbalance, with more male members then females one. But it was not really an issue then, and more a reflection on the fact that men, unfortunately, have more freedom to travel then women.

That phrase strikes me as odd. I would think it's because it's safer for men to travel alone than for women, not for some direct limit on their freedoms.

I was an active member of CS in 2004-2005. Never surfed, hosted only once. It was a fine site, so I was sad to read that it had degraded.

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