Couchsurfing really went to shit towards the end (2020 when they went from "we will always keep our core service free" to locking you out of your account unless you paid them overnight without any warning)
I think reviews criticizing aesthetic choices or even cleanliness would tend to be taken with a grain of salt, but also I hosted people (and couchsurfed) from 2005-2020 and managed to avoid bad reviews, so perhaps if I personally had received a slew of silly bad reviews over silly things like that I would have abandoned it earlier.
Reviews in these kind of sites should always be moderated before it reaches the hosts, if not by a moderation team (due lack of fund) then at least other users, e.g. 2 out of 3 other hosts that mark the review as helpful and within the spirit of the website.
This is just hospitality reviews 101. I run a couple of Airbnbs in the uk - 99.9% of guests leave gushing reviews, 0.01% break open locked cupboards and are like “There was a cupboard FULL of cleaning supplies! Disgusting! 1/5!”.
I’ve even had people bring a plastic rat with them and pose it around the apartment to then complain to customer service - successfully. That one cost me about £5,000 in a refund, lost revenue as I was made to cancel bookings until I had a pest controller in, and a mystified but still expensive pest controller.
(I'm the Couchers co-founder who wrote this blog post.)
Yes I agree, CouchSurfing.com went to shit through a slow process of enshittification that ended up looking like this. That's exactly why we founded Couchers.org when CouchSurfing.com put up a paywall (it was the last straw for us). We're trying to take what Couchsurfing was at its best and go further. We're solving these issues you're talking about with better moderation, better safety tools, and nudging users to behave in a way that's best for the community, etc.
I think it comes down to setting clear expectations and educating users about what it is and what it's not. We try to make it very clear and then enforce those rules very carefully. Once this happens, it's surprising how quickly the community roots out that behavior.
I'm one of the Couchers founders and wrote this blog post (and incidentally spend way too much time on HN), awesome to see this show up here!
This launch is the culmination of a huge push from our volunteer team to clean up a bunch of core features and make the platform easier to use. We are also launching a new branding strategy and new landing page.
Quick plug: we are looking for senior React Native devs to join us and help us get a mobile app out, as well as React/Python devs for frontend/backend. Everything we do is open source (under MIT): https://github.com/Couchers-org/couchers/
Alternatives to Couchsurfing.com such as BeWelcome and WarmShowers have been around for many years, decades even and have users counts into 6 figures. They've remained non-corporate but never managed to reach mainstream popularity like Couchsurfing.com did.
What are you hoping to achieve by launching another hospitality sharing site that the other established non-profit sites couldn't?
Highly recommend integrating with the atproto network to hop onto its social graph; that could be a major differentiator for your service. I’d love to log in with my Bluesky account and see who else in my network has opted to share their couchsurfing status.
I haven't used Couchers, but I was once very active with the Couchsurfing community in a couple cities. Here's what made Couchsurfing once a vibrant, thriving community:
- Forums. Regular-old stupid 1990's CGI web forums. They are the perfect way to grow organic community on the web. Simple, functional, compact, reliable. They don't bury content in endless scroll, they organize discussion by topics, pinned messages help drive central/ongoing discussions, and local moderators keep things in order. Couchsurfing began a steep nose-dive when the redesign de-emphasized forums.
- Regular local group meet-ups. There were plenty of people who hosted and surfed who never went to one of these; but for many, this was their first introduction to the community, and their first "profile reviews" that gave them social credit/standing. For others, the meetups were all they ever did... not really the point of the site, but it was a symbiotic relationship. Without regular in-person meet-ups, the community is too decentralized, and moderation suffers. Once regular meetups died, and the other "features" of Couchsurfing emerged, it became a weird hookup app, which you could see not only in "chat", but also in profiles and reviews. The social pressure and moderation of local meetups created a culture and reinforced its values. (also: depends 100% on forums)
- Reviews. Love 'em or hate 'em, you live and die in the community by your reviews. I feel like we should have public, irrevocable reviews for all kinds of things now. And bad reviews aren't necessarily a death sentence, but they are the meat and potatoes of the site, so they really have to work well. Looks like Couchers is still improving them, which is good.
- Weirdness. Part of the allure of Couchsurfing was the unexpected. People would tailor their profiles in all sorts of ways; long lists of rules, unique formatting, almost like an old MySpace page. Maybe you'd stay with a Mormon, or a Naturist, or at the last art-punk squat in Berlin. This creates safety issues, uncomfortable situations. But it also challenges people to deal with the real world (when they elect to).
I see Couchers has banned some of these last types of interactions (nudism & shared space). Regardless of what you think about this, every such restriction will shrink the human experience surfing used to provide. You can still have a restrictive hospitality site, but it's unlikely to be as successful. I think it would work if dedicated to one thing, like tourism, or rock climbing. But if you want it to be general, it's gotta be messy.
Wow, thanks for the warning that Couchers bans naturists. I am aware of many unique and beautiful experiences by naturists hosts. It’s disappointing that Couchers would want to eliminate them.
This brought up so many memories. The CS raves on Paris bridges, the bar hopping in Barcelona, and the nomads of Berlin. If anything defines CS it's the unexpectedly weird. On the other hand, you will need to dedicate sufficient energy and time to it, be it as a guest or a host, or an event goer.
Very fond memories of couchsurfing met very nice people both as a traveler and a host. But this was long ago. Not sure this will ever work again though
Hosted loads for a while, a brilliant time. We were living somewhere unusual at the time, everyone that came through was interesting, intelligent and fun. Zero bad experiences. Made some friends for life.
My flatmate at the time ended up marrying a couchsurfer we'd hosted, after reconnecting many years later.
We all got sulky and huffy when they started charging and stopped engaging, but the sad thing is we just got too busy. Couchsurfing was like hosting a party constantly, and as work picked up I found it harder to engage.
Still seems to be a community there. I found myself in Split a while ago and stumbled upon a meetup, had a great evening unexpectedly.
After CS went downhill, I created accounts at most of the alternatives around. I just leave it there, offering our living room.
I'm not living in a very touristic area, but every other month, I get a request for a night and if it fit's in my schedule, I'll accept. It's been only nice experiences so far and no one gave me the vibe of seeing it as a cheap alternative to hotels only. Most people ask on bewelcome.org by the way.
I just like that even though I stay in my bubble most of the time, I get the opportunity to spend some quality time with a stranger. Especially because those strangers are often on some kind of a mission, else they typically wouldn't come to my area.
The Summer after graduating high school is sometimes used to travel, taking extended backpacking trips or other. Couching could be a big hit for this demographic that takes a cultural immersion.
I see 900+ Couchers registered among a few of the New York City boroughs. My impression is that this means someone can live in NYC for an entire Summer, couch-surfing the big city and establishing a real connection with at least 60 hosts. That would be quite an experience, with many stories to share.
>, couch-surfing the big city and establishing a real connection with at least 60 hosts. That would be quite an experience, with many stories to share.
Oh hey, volunteer dev at Couchers.org here. How cool to see this pop up on Hacker News!
For the n00bs: I think the best way to explain the concept of couch surfing is to imagine visiting a friend in another city — they show you around, you have a great time, and you crash on their couch, or guest room or whatever. With Couchers, it’s just like that — except you’re meeting that friend for the first time (via Couchers).
Nice I was loving Couchsurfing until they started aggressively monetising it. Had really great experiences with hosting people! Hope Couchers will revive the great experience of hosting people
Couchsurfing isn't aggressively monetized. They've got a very very small annual fee, and once you pay it they never harass you for money. It's far less monetized than other mainstream apps.
If anybody is interested in beta app testing, I’m happy to invite you to the BeWelcome.org iOS app!
Currently it’s just a PWA, but we’re trying to keep it simple so it can get onto the App Store.
I was a big fan of CouchSurfing before they started charging a monthly fee, which is a similar gripe I have with Servas. I met my girlfriend at the CS meet up in Kaohsiung, and although I’m no longer able to help, BeWelcome has several ways to volunteer.
Michael Sandel’s book had a good section on Airbnb killing couch surfing. Maybe the one thing Airbnb really did do.
Another POV is, everyone is fatigued out of selling to customers who cannot afford to pay more. In this space: Trusted House Sitters is like having a homeless person stay over. Couchsurfing: is it similar?
IMO AirBnb and Couchsurfing have to entirely different aims.
AirBnB is about the space itself. You pay for the space.
Couchsurfing is about the people sharing the space with you, cultural-exchange, etc. You do not pay, it's more about connecting and meeting with people.
It looks completely different and is a non-profit:
> Couchers, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization ... [incorporated] in the United States in late 2021, and the project was moved under the purview of this new non-profit in early 2022.
I happen to have an account with them, and also BeWelcome (what seems to be the closest to popular alternative to the original couchsurfing.org) and TrustRoots, too. Also, the original one, of course.
Volunteer dev for Couchers here. We're actually a totally separate website from Couchsurfing. Different team, different tech stack, though we hope to keep the original vibe of CS alive! You can find us at couchers.org.
I don't think so: it just takes thoughtful moderation, setting clear rules, and then enforcing them. When you make it socially unacceptable on the platform, people do a good job reporting inappropriate behavior.
I think the reason that CouchSurfing.com turned into a low-key hookup app is that it was actually a profitable strat for them. They used to monetize verification (something like $60 per verification), and my hypothesis is that a large proportion of people who ever verified paid for verification soon after signing up. By being a hookup site, it actually increased the perceived value to a certain subset of people signing up, which increased signups, verification numbers, and revenue. Of course this made the experience worse on the platform itself once people tried to use it, but they could milk that "easy way to hook up" concept for a long time (basically until the pandemic killed it).
And you can't manage to do that, then your logo link should go to your product, not back to the blog.
I gave this TWO attempts to find out =what the product is - that's the biggest opportunity most startups will get - and this company failed twice to tell me conveniently what it is and I am not trying a third time.
Completely agree. It took me much longer than I wanted to figure out what the hell Couchers is. Be direct and to the point with the language you use above the fold (on the home page...not the blog post).
> We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site, we will assume that you are happy with it.
You are likely violating the GDPR. You can’t just assume consent (that applies to other areas of life), that’s the whole point.
Either you only use cookies which are essential for basic usage—in which case you don’t even need to tell users about it—or you need to provide a way to refuse everything else which has to be at least as easy as the way to accept.
In practice, nobody is going to enforce this, so they're in the clear. 90% of the cookie consent flows you see out there are not compliant either and are little more than compliance theatre.
> Lots of issues like this due to an overly dynamic site.
Rarely are UX issues there because of anything technical at all, just poor testing and poor polishing. Of course, things are way easier with a static site, since the back button Just Works(TM) in that case, but doesn't mean "overly dynamic sites" cannot have proper browser history.
The "trendy stack" comment seems misplaced. CS is famously written in Ruby on Rails, not PHP, perhaps one of the most "trendy" stacks at the time[0]. Coincidentally, CS is also awfully slow with frequent errors. Managing all my guests when my city was in high season was usually much easier to do via WhatsApp.
To be honest, as a top host in my city, the only features that Couchsurfing was actually good for was discovery. Everything else was kinda broken or slow. It added to the charm, but it definitely wasn't much better than what you're claiming here for Couchers.
daft_pink|8 months ago
Letting people live in your house in the central business district of a top tier city and then having them comment on your towel designs.
It’s not a hotel. I’m so over it.
pcthrowaway|8 months ago
I think reviews criticizing aesthetic choices or even cleanliness would tend to be taken with a grain of salt, but also I hosted people (and couchsurfed) from 2005-2020 and managed to avoid bad reviews, so perhaps if I personally had received a slew of silly bad reviews over silly things like that I would have abandoned it earlier.
mattigames|8 months ago
madaxe_again|8 months ago
I’ve even had people bring a plastic rat with them and pose it around the apartment to then complain to customer service - successfully. That one cost me about £5,000 in a refund, lost revenue as I was made to cancel bookings until I had a pest controller in, and a mystified but still expensive pest controller.
Pareto’s law is pareto’s law.
UltraSane|8 months ago
muppetman|8 months ago
aapeli|8 months ago
Yes I agree, CouchSurfing.com went to shit through a slow process of enshittification that ended up looking like this. That's exactly why we founded Couchers.org when CouchSurfing.com put up a paywall (it was the last straw for us). We're trying to take what Couchsurfing was at its best and go further. We're solving these issues you're talking about with better moderation, better safety tools, and nudging users to behave in a way that's best for the community, etc.
I think it comes down to setting clear expectations and educating users about what it is and what it's not. We try to make it very clear and then enforce those rules very carefully. Once this happens, it's surprising how quickly the community roots out that behavior.
nosioptar|8 months ago
aapeli|8 months ago
This launch is the culmination of a huge push from our volunteer team to clean up a bunch of core features and make the platform easier to use. We are also launching a new branding strategy and new landing page.
Quick plug: we are looking for senior React Native devs to join us and help us get a mobile app out, as well as React/Python devs for frontend/backend. Everything we do is open source (under MIT): https://github.com/Couchers-org/couchers/
Happy to answer any questions folks might have!
jonp888|8 months ago
What are you hoping to achieve by launching another hospitality sharing site that the other established non-profit sites couldn't?
erlend_sh|8 months ago
(I put up a GitHub issue)
0xbadcafebee|8 months ago
- Forums. Regular-old stupid 1990's CGI web forums. They are the perfect way to grow organic community on the web. Simple, functional, compact, reliable. They don't bury content in endless scroll, they organize discussion by topics, pinned messages help drive central/ongoing discussions, and local moderators keep things in order. Couchsurfing began a steep nose-dive when the redesign de-emphasized forums.
- Regular local group meet-ups. There were plenty of people who hosted and surfed who never went to one of these; but for many, this was their first introduction to the community, and their first "profile reviews" that gave them social credit/standing. For others, the meetups were all they ever did... not really the point of the site, but it was a symbiotic relationship. Without regular in-person meet-ups, the community is too decentralized, and moderation suffers. Once regular meetups died, and the other "features" of Couchsurfing emerged, it became a weird hookup app, which you could see not only in "chat", but also in profiles and reviews. The social pressure and moderation of local meetups created a culture and reinforced its values. (also: depends 100% on forums)
- Reviews. Love 'em or hate 'em, you live and die in the community by your reviews. I feel like we should have public, irrevocable reviews for all kinds of things now. And bad reviews aren't necessarily a death sentence, but they are the meat and potatoes of the site, so they really have to work well. Looks like Couchers is still improving them, which is good.
- Weirdness. Part of the allure of Couchsurfing was the unexpected. People would tailor their profiles in all sorts of ways; long lists of rules, unique formatting, almost like an old MySpace page. Maybe you'd stay with a Mormon, or a Naturist, or at the last art-punk squat in Berlin. This creates safety issues, uncomfortable situations. But it also challenges people to deal with the real world (when they elect to).
I see Couchers has banned some of these last types of interactions (nudism & shared space). Regardless of what you think about this, every such restriction will shrink the human experience surfing used to provide. You can still have a restrictive hospitality site, but it's unlikely to be as successful. I think it would work if dedicated to one thing, like tourism, or rock climbing. But if you want it to be general, it's gotta be messy.
yunesj|8 months ago
3abiton|8 months ago
unknown|8 months ago
[deleted]
yrcyrc|8 months ago
specproc|8 months ago
My flatmate at the time ended up marrying a couchsurfer we'd hosted, after reconnecting many years later.
We all got sulky and huffy when they started charging and stopped engaging, but the sad thing is we just got too busy. Couchsurfing was like hosting a party constantly, and as work picked up I found it harder to engage.
Still seems to be a community there. I found myself in Split a while ago and stumbled upon a meetup, had a great evening unexpectedly.
maqnius|8 months ago
I'm not living in a very touristic area, but every other month, I get a request for a night and if it fit's in my schedule, I'll accept. It's been only nice experiences so far and no one gave me the vibe of seeing it as a cheap alternative to hotels only. Most people ask on bewelcome.org by the way.
I just like that even though I stay in my bubble most of the time, I get the opportunity to spend some quality time with a stranger. Especially because those strangers are often on some kind of a mission, else they typically wouldn't come to my area.
simonhfrost|8 months ago
yosito|8 months ago
Dowwie|8 months ago
I see 900+ Couchers registered among a few of the New York City boroughs. My impression is that this means someone can live in NYC for an entire Summer, couch-surfing the big city and establishing a real connection with at least 60 hosts. That would be quite an experience, with many stories to share.
lawlessone|8 months ago
Sounds like my idea of Hell, but i'm introverted.
-mlv|8 months ago
nabramow|8 months ago
For the n00bs: I think the best way to explain the concept of couch surfing is to imagine visiting a friend in another city — they show you around, you have a great time, and you crash on their couch, or guest room or whatever. With Couchers, it’s just like that — except you’re meeting that friend for the first time (via Couchers).
Anyway come join us we're fun lol.
konsalexee|8 months ago
yosito|8 months ago
rambambram|8 months ago
Had some great experiences with CS and I'm happy to pay them for these couple of times a year I host somebody.
peterburkimsher|8 months ago
Currently it’s just a PWA, but we’re trying to keep it simple so it can get onto the App Store.
I was a big fan of CouchSurfing before they started charging a monthly fee, which is a similar gripe I have with Servas. I met my girlfriend at the CS meet up in Kaohsiung, and although I’m no longer able to help, BeWelcome has several ways to volunteer.
pentagrama|8 months ago
worldsayshi|8 months ago
doctorpangloss|8 months ago
Another POV is, everyone is fatigued out of selling to customers who cannot afford to pay more. In this space: Trusted House Sitters is like having a homeless person stay over. Couchsurfing: is it similar?
nabramow|8 months ago
AirBnB is about the space itself. You pay for the space.
Couchsurfing is about the people sharing the space with you, cultural-exchange, etc. You do not pay, it's more about connecting and meeting with people.
bluesmoon|8 months ago
vintagedave|8 months ago
> Couchers, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization ... [incorporated] in the United States in late 2021, and the project was moved under the purview of this new non-profit in early 2022.
-- https://couchers.org/foundation
nabramow|8 months ago
Anyway to answer the question, we are totally separate from Couchsurfing.org!
We created Couchers in 2020 after Couchsurfing put up a pay wall, after going for-profit and going downhill for awhile.
We want to keep the original Couchsurfing spirit alive, so we started Couchers.org.
toomuchtodo|8 months ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CouchSurfing#Change_to_a_for-p...
This is the phoenix rising from the enshittification, as is tradition.
listic|8 months ago
I happen to have an account with them, and also BeWelcome (what seems to be the closest to popular alternative to the original couchsurfing.org) and TrustRoots, too. Also, the original one, of course.
supportengineer|8 months ago
SeanAnderson|8 months ago
artur_makly|8 months ago
nabramow|8 months ago
deadbabe|8 months ago
aapeli|8 months ago
I don't think so: it just takes thoughtful moderation, setting clear rules, and then enforcing them. When you make it socially unacceptable on the platform, people do a good job reporting inappropriate behavior.
I think the reason that CouchSurfing.com turned into a low-key hookup app is that it was actually a profitable strat for them. They used to monetize verification (something like $60 per verification), and my hypothesis is that a large proportion of people who ever verified paid for verification soon after signing up. By being a hookup site, it actually increased the perceived value to a certain subset of people signing up, which increased signups, verification numbers, and revenue. Of course this made the experience worse on the platform itself once people tried to use it, but they could milk that "easy way to hook up" concept for a long time (basically until the pandemic killed it).
unknown|8 months ago
[deleted]
ThinkBeat|8 months ago
NewJazz|8 months ago
wewewedxfgdf|8 months ago
Tell the reader what your product is - first.
And you can't manage to do that, then your logo link should go to your product, not back to the blog.
I gave this TWO attempts to find out =what the product is - that's the biggest opportunity most startups will get - and this company failed twice to tell me conveniently what it is and I am not trying a third time.
RyanOD|8 months ago
NicuCalcea|8 months ago
stevage|8 months ago
kingnothing|8 months ago
unknown|8 months ago
[deleted]
artur_makly|8 months ago
latexr|8 months ago
You are likely violating the GDPR. You can’t just assume consent (that applies to other areas of life), that’s the whole point.
Either you only use cookies which are essential for basic usage—in which case you don’t even need to tell users about it—or you need to provide a way to refuse everything else which has to be at least as easy as the way to accept.
Nextgrid|8 months ago
dash2|8 months ago
givemeethekeys|8 months ago
unit149|8 months ago
[deleted]
DidYaWipe|8 months ago
newcommiedeal|8 months ago
[deleted]
carabiner|8 months ago
[deleted]
chis|8 months ago
diggan|8 months ago
Rarely are UX issues there because of anything technical at all, just poor testing and poor polishing. Of course, things are way easier with a static site, since the back button Just Works(TM) in that case, but doesn't mean "overly dynamic sites" cannot have proper browser history.
eeue56|8 months ago
To be honest, as a top host in my city, the only features that Couchsurfing was actually good for was discovery. Everything else was kinda broken or slow. It added to the charm, but it definitely wasn't much better than what you're claiming here for Couchers.
[0] - https://about.couchsurfing.com/about/jobs/rails.html
stevage|8 months ago