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 :)
Is that really the case? I couch surfed years ago. From memory I think couchsurfing.com has a reputation system where if people stay at your house, you gain points that give you priority when staying with someone else. so it's kinda like a system for bypassing money in exchanging accommodation. Ideally, if many people start swarming the system looking for free places to stay, it will just mean they won't get chosen, and things keep operating as normal.
I hear you. Maybe I'm just weary of people, having lived in a city my entire adult life and yet forming few lasting bonds, that I have to wonder about the reward/cost ratio of couch surfing.
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 :)
From what I understand, couchsurfing in the beginning was mostly western college students trying to travel. As such, the chance of meeting someone similar to yourself was very high. By now, not so much.
Like the poster you're responding to, I haven't used couchsurfing in a few years - left due to life changes, and being annoyed by earlier stages of the commercialization that the article talks about. But, prior to that I semi-regularly hosted and used it in my own travels a couple times, over maybe 8 or 9 years and a few countries.
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.
I want to add my own anecdotal experience to confirm yours - it worked out well, even when I was a novice (& when hosting novices). It was also easy to not be a novice anymore - just host! There was always demand for hosts.
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.
you are right, i am describing a hypothetical situation where couchsurfing becomes mainstream. it works now, but will it still work when there are 10 or 100 times as many couchsurfers?
not everyone has the ability to host. especially young people who live in student housing, or in a shared apartment, or even still with their parents, may not be able to host, but those are the ones most likely to travel and look for a couch.
> 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.
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.
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 :)