Today it's May 14th 2021, and yesterday I could not get into my 13-year account, because again it was blocked by a banner asking for money. 2020 Bren on the Road | All Rights Reserved | THIS PAGE MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS |Privacy policy| disclosure policy, {"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}, Is This Finally The End Of Couchsurfing? So two address two open points that are of great interest (and thank you for mentioning them! https://theweek.com/speedreads/916467/facebooks-internal-research-warned-about-polarizationbut-executives-weakened-blocked-efforts-combat. The problem I have with this type of outrage is : you pretend to have as if the endorsement of the community & quite frankly have not been ignoring all the facts that dont fit in this outrage theme. This is community management at its worst. Check us out and let us know what you think, and if you have any input AWESOME, Donna Lets have a look. Giving $3 to CSHQ because CS is worth way more than that is like giving $3 to Donald trump, personally, because living in America is worth way more than that. I have always admired that nice connection to our country. Couchsurfing platforms compared: Which one is right for you? This is likely where Im heading. . Since i'm in between jobs and on a tight budget, i did not consider paying at all. There was a communal meal on offer in the kitchen and because the houses had been extended out back and there was not much of the backyard left, organic vegetables well grown in soil in polythene sheeting hung from the back wall. I only can say that thanks to CS I found the best friends in my life. Although under the right circumstances, it is pretty wonderful. When Airbnb started to become a thing, I saw it as a paid version of the hospitality platforms but that's really not what it is at all. (and I see you are from Finland) have you (or anyone) tried to get their data (i.e. even those who paid for lifetime verification are being told theyll be locked out in 12 months unless they start paying monthly again. What I do care about is who I pay this money to, and how they use it. And then around the time CS changed from being a non-profit to a corporation, something about the culture also changed. I removed my account. What is the difference between hookup and make out? Is Couchsurfing Dead 2020? - Kembrel.com I am sure someone has crunched numbers and done a machine prediction of how many would leave and how many would stay. It was a great way to get free accommodation and also indulge in living like the locals, making for an amazing travel experience. As you can imagine, the move generated a big uproar (again) from the community, including from myself and other friends of mine on the site: @couchsurfing 2/2 and we want cs to succeed as mch as u do. I just want to thank you. As soon as we logged in, we were asked to pay a monthly $3 fee to access our profiles again: All our friends lists, photos, references, groups, were suddenly held hostage behind a paywall. These Are the Best Couchsurfing Alternatives Why stay? I actively host and surf at the same time. Which led to the biggest question of all. This hit me right in the heart. The revenue from Google Ads was irrelevant. How very sad. its kind of nuts to be permanently angry that CS simply could have announced this better. I have to disagree with your statement about the paywall. If one thing is true, its that they like to separate people away from support and loving community. The current CEO, who was involved in investment banking and venture capital, before joining Couchsurfing, who names flying planes and sailing as his hobbies on LinkedIn certainly has a different approach to running a successful thriving community internet business, compared to other CEOs I know. My account was supposed to be verified well into next year. I had stopped a long ways back when suddenly the local meetups seemed to have disappeared and things seemed scant and haphazard. I had sadly already become cynical about it from experiences over the last couple years, and then locking surfers out was just the nail in the coffin. Besides, the paywall has been up for a year, but there are still many people who were not affected until May 2021 (because of being verified or having paid for lifetime subscription) and who had not even heard about it until they got locked out too! Hooking up means sexual activity. Now I know why. I found many entries for help, of 14th May then one entry for "apology", where they wrote that in a weeks time they will release another more financially elaborate post And they did not. But in the past two weeks I have seen a lot of false information and a lot of bile spew by people who didnt bother to login in the site since years. especially the recommendations at the end. I do not normally take take the time to read blogs in full, but as a former CS-member, this was a touching read all the way. Couchsurfing said last week they will remove ads as part of their new revenue model, but up until last month, we can make a reasonable estimate that Couchsurfing was making as much (or possibly more) money in ads than The Travel Channel, one of the largest mainstream travel sites. All the best to them. I was quite disappointed by the leadership. I think they could also use someone at the helm who can really push the site full time something that Couchsurfing had for its early years. While trying to turn it into a fancy Silicon Valley website, they destroyed the communities people had spent years building that made Couchsurfing Couchsurfing. The new fee is cheap. This cant be legal. I was excited to try couch surfing on my next set of travels but a little thing called covid19 came along and now it's too late. You can choose between a monthly contribution or an annual plan. Or maybe its way higher. But I think now it really has changed too much. Thank you. So much more relaxing to plan a meetup with a person whose profile interested me, rather than hoping to randomly encounter interesting people. Your email address will not be published. I found them and spent all day lounging on the beach chatting. That worries me much more than whatever Casey Fenton might have done wrong X years ago. If you are hosting the person, ask . Whether you are going to Iceland, Australia, Canada or Argentina you will find a host. I have hosted 3 surfers that didnt write my reference on time and when they did it went to personal reference, I emailed CS about it being switched and they said they dont do it (but I had one done before) and explained its done before but no response. Its a sad day but the idea of CSing lives on Newer better sites will take its place. Its impossible to get just a few thousand dollars per year from advertising with their level of traffic. Please disappear quickly. And the community was rich. Ive pretty much watched him build it from the ground up on Twitter over the last few years. https://www.zdnet.com/article/couchsurfing-investigates-data-breach-after-17m-user-records-appear-on-hacking-forum. Some CS-bashing can't be excluded, but there are enough reports from different people that I trust most of it to be true. sj armstrong on Twitter: "Is couchsurfing still a thing? Or is there I only hope that CS 2.0 will somehow revolutionize travel in a different way and appeal to a new generation. Of course you can think about a business model for CS as a selected club for people ready to meet new ones, only if you club is a real clean place, but this is not longer the case. I searched online for what was happening with Couchsurfing and found a Reddit thread and they mentioned that if Couchsurfers declined or did not answer people requesting to couchsurf, then their CS profile would be suspended. Yes, Couchsurfing is generally safe and totally legal and yes, it still exists - although the community is not as active as it was in its heyday (around the late . Trying to log-in today was still a surprise as that kind of pay-to-log-in threat is sure to infuriate most. Over the last few years there have been many incidents between Couchsurfing HQ and the community, and Couchsurfing is dead was chanted by many longtime members. So, to stop that nonsense, I quit replying to people who appeared to copy-and-paste and send out requests with a machine-gun like approach. Youll see on Glassdoor ex staff claim the new CEO had this subscription model being readied for a while. Then once COVID hit, no one was traveling and then CS became a ghost town almost overnight. Couchsurfing review - is it still worth it? - Kesi To and Fro I can still access my profile (?) In 1 years, Couchsurfing failed to monetize the site, leading to Espinoza's resignation and the uncertainty the site finds itself in today. I guess the new "owners" tend to lie. But CS was perfect for finding people who could give local context about places where I was traveling. This yearly charge kind of defeats the purpose. I know I have been a champion of the Couchsurfing brand for almost a decade, have promoted them endlessly on my blog, to many thousands of people, but as always things change and its time to explore something new. Karma is a bitch.;).. Businesses are dying. It breaks my heart to finally say it, but I have to. I used to host on warmshowers.org too but never got any visitors and my account is lost in time. 100% free. I know on a blog like mine, 100,000 page views brings in about $1,000 USD. Yes a better analogy would be corruption in a country like India. In fact for a few years, thats exactly what we were. Not for me but for future generations. In a world of covid lockdowns and closed state and international borders, it just didn't make sense any more so I disengaged with a lot of fond memories. This post (above) explains it very well and i wholeheartedly agree with it. I disagree on profit and think that hospitality exchange is fundamentally incompatible with a for-profit, which is why Im pinning most of my hopes on bW and TR. We've all couchsurfed all over the world and boy do we have incredible stories to share. One couchsurfer, a girl, would go out, come home at 3am, text me to open door, and even asked if she could bring over guys she had met. We all use CS for different reasons. There is also a fourth option, which is Facebook Groups. I disagree with paying the fee for all the reasons you mentioned. When i started using couchsurfing I spent a whole year hosting, attending to meetings, before even plan my own trips. If you log in to your Couchsurfing account today, this is the screen you will see: What's more, everyone has been locked out of their accounts until they pay the monthly fee. I started using it less and less but remember being frustrated when I logged in the 2010s and found the redesigned site that got rid of all of my old groups. Society is conservative and it's often frowned upon. Is Couchsurfing still a thing 2021? This way was greedy and malicious. But we can make a rough guess using some tools. I think theres a chance CS survives but will just be a different type of community now. When you make a contribution to Couchsurfing, you are helping to create a space where you and others may safely experience the joy of travel and Couchsurfing's unique, global community. Idea's anyone? May 27, 2020 If you're a part of the Couchsurfing community, you've no doubt heard the news. Also I'm a travel addict, a book . Personally I mostly gave up on CS in 2013. $23 million squandered over the years on CEOs we never asked for and who never talked to us, fancy offices nobody needed, being bombarded with ads on every page of the site and app (which still doesnt work properly), numerous other money grabs over the years which I wont even go into right now, all the other incidents I havent even mentioned, and finally it had come to this. Its a new team running CS right now. Funnily enough i managed to use it a couple of months ago, and i was checking the options. It's good to know there are alternatives to Couchsurfing. I've always put CS out there to anyone willing to listen, and have established strong relationships with hundreds of people and groups. Or you just dont go. This is nothing like the corruption in third world countries where developed countries donate money for clothes and the corrupt officials instead of giving it free take money from the poor to get it. But I guess we all part ways eventually. Couchsurfing was conceived by 21-year-old Casey Fenton in 1999. This is really Couchsurfing in its purest form, travellers helping travellers connected by other travellers, and you dont need a website with millions of members (or dollars) to do it. Wanted to check my message box, and I found this paywall you describe so well. Even though some of my friends thought I was a bit crazy for letting strangers sleep in my house, I became somewhat of an unofficial ambassador for CS. I was a Couchsurfer member for years when one day, my Couchsurfing profile was suspended. Been very cool to see. With all the powers vested in me, I have cancelled my CouchSurfing membership! I much admire the way you put this together. I used couchsurfing very actively for hosting, meeting, surfing at the beginning. Can you please provide us with the financial statements (ad sense reports & bank statements ) so we can verify that ? They could have well I am not going to give those greedy scum free ideas to make money ..There was a lot they could have done especially with the platform they had. Found this article today when I got locked out. Is Couchsurfing still a thing 2021? Hi there, I've been a member of CS since 2004 (yes almost 20years!) 1. If the site continues, it will be a different type of travel community. . Unfortunately, after around 2012, the typical pattern was male hosting single female. Thanks again for sharing and happy for us to disagree. In other words, they are maxxing their ad space allowance. Logged onto Couchsurfing and what do you know? * MrRational, I have friends in Manhattan who were members (not sure if they still are). There was a million other ways to monetize the site. The worlds needs people like you. So I would say $960,000 per year is almost certainly an underestimate. Bren, thank you for writing such a detailed and heartfelt account of Couchsurfing and the incidents leading up to the current state of things. If you log in to your Couchsurfing account today, this is the screen you will see: Whats more, everyone has been locked out of their accounts until they pay the monthly fee. couchers.org is growing. I am still undecided, which one to choose. For some reason, Couchsurfing just never figured it out. I miss it. I also surfed in a few different countries.
