[elbajo]

Love the idea! I've been using Couchsurfing for many years and tried their "hangout" feature a few times. It's 95% males harassing traveling women that happen to log in but the 5% left can be great to meet and I've had great experiences. Hopefully you find a way to navigate away from that even as you get more users.

[hutzlibu]

"95% males harassing traveling women that happen to log in but the 5% left can be great to meet"

That sounds like a general description of way too many internet communities, too.

[alisonatwork]

Basically, this. For some reason any kind of "meetup" site always seems to end up having this undercurrent of being a crypto dating site. I wish there were sites where people could sign up for hanging out that were 100% guaranteed platonic. It's so exhausting to have to try filter out that weird dating/sex dynamic apparently shoehorned into everything outside of work.

[tarkin2]

I liked Cousurfing, and paid them money for the service, but then they locked me out asking for a subscription. I'd happily use another application now, especially since their application was rather buggy and servers slow.

[Stevvo]

I've found it to work great in cities that have reached a critical mass of users, e.g. in Taipei & Kuala Lumpur I often found diverse gender balanced groups meeting. In smaller cities it was 95% dudes looking for a hookup.

[puzzledpenguin]

Thanks!

I've also used Couchsurfing for many years and had great experiences! Sadly it got paywalled during the pandemic to stay alive and the usage has plummeted. I also always thought it could be have been done better.

The harassment messages will be a challenge. I've just added a step now that first messages will be reviewed and approved by a moderator, but would have to come up with something more scalable long term.