Why this might be the end of Couchsurfing as we know it when it was great
When I first hosted someone I only met before online was back 2006 and I was recently discovered hospitalityclub.org.
It was a whole new World to me, where people agreed to share and meet up only based on love and good intentions.
There was no money involved and the rules where VERY clear: IT WAS NOT A DATING SITE.
Within the years, and thanks to a fellow traveler I have migrated to Couchsurfing, as Hospitalityclub was little by little left by many participants that were also migrating to the newest and fanciest site.
I have had many amazing experiences in all these last years hosting and being hosted by kind souls who were friendly, caring and willing to help further than my expectations were.
Every time I was able to host someone traveling in my city I was opening the doors of my home to them. I have met really interesting and people who meant a lot in my life. Was the first time I could openly share with someone my passion to travel the world and was not seen as a crazy as I was normally looked by my friends from neighborhood or school.
Meeting other passionate travelers was a blessing for me in that times and I found very encouraging meeting people following their passion and traveling overseas without knowing the local language, having a proper job or having someone to travel the world with them.
I have found some of my best friends until today through this two hospitality exchange communities. I have found even my roomies and former boyfriend through it and almost all the people I have met were really good encounters.
When the community started was kind of secret
People inside the Couchsurfing community were carefully sharing between the people they knew and thought could have the same aim to share in an open and meaningful way this ‘secret’. So it was not publicly posted in social media, newspapers or magazines what was happening inside CouchSurfing website.
Just to notice, Hospitalitylub remains a non-profit organization, so there is no advertisement related to it yet.
Later, Couchsurfing decided to change its status from a nonprofit organization to a for-profit corporation in 2011…And then everything changed.
They started to promote the site EVERYWHERE they could and in 2012 were more than 6 million people registered on the website.
With that change something has also changed in the community: was that sense of community what was lost.
The couch requests I have started to get in my inbox were not personally directed, and what pissed me off more was: People only looking for a free place to stay.
Here some examples to have some fun:
What was done and known by everybody when the site was smaller was that it was not only to get a free place to sleep at, but a way to meet other liked minded people. And the request message where used to be personally written and directed to YOU.
After that change, I’ve had to write some (almost rude) guidelines on my profile and even if they are published there almost nobody is reading them, and taking the time to read them is the least I expect from someone requesting to stay-for-free at my home.
It seems too many Couchsurfers have forgotten how to be a good CouchSurfer, and have no idea on how to behave inside the community and they are expecting:
- Dating/Hooking up
- Free place to sleep
- You being their tour guide
Related to the hooking up topic related to Couchsurfing I have seen HUGE changes within the years. Especially when going to the Meetings seems to be something very common now that most of the people are going with the idea of hooking up.
I was shocked lately in Chile when attending to the weekly meeting in Santiago. When the first tall-and-blonde guy or girl appearing at the bar, the opposite gender fellow surfers were moving like bees to honey!
It’s not that I’m all puritan and I can’t deny things can happen between people meeting each other, it’s just I don’t like this to be THE goal of attending to this meetings. It kind of change the rules of the game.
Years ago, the meetings where an awesome way to meet like-minded people without all the stress/pressure of being hunted by others trying to hook up with each other. I have attended massive and small meetings, potlucks and more and they were all AMAZING experiences.
Nowadays when I have opened my couch again it’s very sad that most of the times I receive a message requesting for my couch (that happen to be now a private room, so work to get it!) what I get is mainly copy-paste messages and not personally directed, that, for sure I’m not accepting.
Most impressive is when I tell those surfers why I’m not accepting them and they seem to be very pissed off, lol. But seriously, what many people expect is to be hosted for free without even being bit nice…C’mon!!!! And some even complaining about how much time or effort it is to write personal messages (Oh, really??)
I have a secret word hidden on my profile just to see if the person sending me the couch request have read my whole profile, and 1/10 add it to their message.
Why I think Couchsurfing is Dying
It seems that the main aim was lost somewhere with the migration of the site and some people think if you are in the community you are willing to hook up in the very first night with anybody and/or to host someone just because he tells you he/she is arriving next day to your city and it will be so great for you to host them just because they are so awesome.
I still get sometimes really nice messages from people who take their time to check out my profile and they want to ask for my couch or to meet because they truly think we can have things in common and would be nice for both to meet.
I wish more people in the community get the idea about it and help to not lose the greatest way to share with people many of us had, based only in the trust and respect for each other and not searching to meet other surfers only for personal interests.
Well, it’s dead now.
Great article! But somehow disagree…
I have been with CS for more than 7 years. I think these topics: “not a dating site” and “send me a detailed request” have been around all the time. It could be more noticeable now, because there are so many people, but I like current CS more.
When CS was relatively unknown, it was harder to find people who share my interests. And also hangouts… oh, love them 🙂 Just came back from St. Petersburg and had a fantastic time. 250+ people in a group chat gathering every day. 🙂
Ohh That’s very good to hear! I’m just sharing my own experience, but I love you are having a better one today. I still don’t lose my hope and go sometimes to meetings, it might be my own interests changed and I don’t find too many people sharing my interests in the community. But it’s being a great community! Thank you for sharing your own point of view!
Great article! Sums up our experience when we were still living in Berlin last year. We used to get many really nice request, but starting some time ago we got literally inundated with 10-20 impersonal requests every day, plus in my gf’s case those wanting to get into her pants. On the other hand, it started getting more and more difficult finding accommodation ourselves when travelling. At some point, we just tried AirBNB and depressingly enough, the requests we got there were much nicer and more personal than 99.9% of CS requests… Plus we made money which we could use to successfully find a place to stay when going on travels. For us, CS has suffered a slow and painful death at the hands of the shitloads of freeloaders and wannabe pickup artists over the last few years. CS we miss you, rest in peace.
Couchsurfing dying????? I´m agree couchsurfing is not A dating site. Is THE dating site!!! Best dating site ever.
Great post.
I used CouchSurfing for two years when I travelled through Europe. It was a great way to find like-minded hosts and meet fellow travellers. At the end of my trip, the site started changing. I can’t begin to imagine how different my trip would have been without CS as it was.
I’m grateful for CS (I even met my husband at a CS event) and I’m still in touch with some of my hosts, but unfortunately the site just isn’t for me anymore.
Thank you Amy, really appreciate your words. Things and people change all the time, but I’m really glad you had a great experience as I had too!
Your post is very interesting (and it has LOTS of good points) but may I add something and share my experience?
Premise: I am a “new generation” CSurfer, so one of the ones that got to know the website when the whole thing was already (clearly) crumbling down. I hosted once, I’ve met 5-7 travelers, I’ve never been a guest.
I am on holiday in Latvia (with my boyfriend) and after a bad experience with the hostel I had booked I decided to try again couchsurfing, since I know the place very well (Riga and surroundings) and it would have been cool to meet some locals.
Problem: my old account was verified but linked to my Facebook profile (no password) and the email provider (ovi mail) has closed down rather unannounced after Nokia became Microsoft’s property, so my email was “non existent”. Long story short, I decided to start a new profile and ask from there (not the best idea ever, I can give you that, but I thought that if I linked my old profile and explained the situation somebody would have understood).
I’ve read profiles and wrote to the ones I found interesting; knowing the “banging culture” of the new couchsurfing I have deliberately avoided single men with no or poor description or couples clearly looking for a third.
I’ve written at least 15 long, detailed, personal requests (I’ve copy-pasted the part about me since, well, it’s still me :)) and knowing that it would have been hard to have replies with a brand new profile I also offered my possible hosts to meet for a coffee downtown (so they could check I’m not a serial killer and meet me in person). Nobody answered and most of them declined without even a message.
And after having checked their profiles again (to make sure I hadn’t skipped an important part of their profile or annoyed them with questions they had already replied to) I’ve started noticing that experienced CSurfers just host other experienced CSurfers. No matter how nice you are, if you are a “beginner” there’s nowhere you can start from. Thanks to creeps and parasites, CS has become unbearably dry and exclusive.
To sum up: I do agree, couchsurfing is dying, but I believe there’s narrow-mindedness on both sides: people who are just looking for free accomodation/sex and people who remember CS’s good ol’ times and refuse to open up (they have their good reasons, I must admit) and make the community (not the social network) really bigger and better.
(But this is just my opinion, I don’t want to offend anyone :))
Gracias por esto post!
Hi Elisa! Many thanks for sharing your experience. I totally agree with you, that there’s narrow-minded people on both sides. That has been an ‘issue’ since…forever on CS. I try to not only judge in how long the person have been in the community or how many references it has on the profile and prefer to base my opinion on the message and onteraction I can get from the one requesting. But there’s different views and I’m so sad you didn’t got any reply back! Sometimes it’s harder in big cities as people get so many request they tend to make a filter based on number of references that I think is not friendly at all.
I’m still laughing about what you said….wait whaaaat? Couples looking for a third? Never found that on a profile! lol
Hi Elisa, I understand how frustrating it can be and I’m really sad to hear nobody answered your messages. To your comment “experienced CSers only host other experiences CSers”… Well I know some of my own friends hosting only people hosting themselves so I guess it must be true sometimes… but don’t give up, I’ve been on CS for more than 8 years and I still host newbies with a full profile showing good intentions and clearly making an effort to write a good CS request . Actually recently I only had newbies at home and I had a lot of fun with them. I’m happy they could start their “CS career” with a good experience and a lot tips! PS: Seriously couple looking for a third???
Yup or even singles looking for couples. Chatted with some surfers about their on-travel experience (and stories are just crazy). It seems that people are doing offers, but are ok with negative replies (still could make you feel uncomfortable =/).
I am more or less just hosting (usually travel with some group not suitable for CS, closed group/shy friends, small kids, own agenda or need for privacy).
I’ve had some great experiences on CS when traveling (and tripping.com, when they offered the same thing), all in 2010. The part I loved wasn’t the actual couch; it was walking into a built-in community of people that are interested in getting to know people visiting and cultural exchange. Of my SE Asia trip, Beijing surprised as by far the strongest CS community. The key is that it’s not really about the couch as much as it’s about meeting people right?
I tried couch surfing once in mexico, not for finding a room but for meeting some people from the city I would be spending the next four months in. I didn’t realize there was this culture of hooking up (I’m engaged) but I sure realized it quickly after some of the messages I received :/
It has definitely made me hesitant to use it in the future and if I do I think I will specifically note that I’m not looking for a hook up. Its sad that it has gotten to that point…
Hi Lexi, I’m glad you’ve had great experiences with it. I have also met great people through all this years and yeah, unfortunately some people are getting the wrong idea about it. Not bad people wanna hookup, but not the aim of this community 😉
Might be a good idea what you are thinking and be specific, tell me how it is going when you try it!
Great post, Gloria! I totally share your thoughts! I also used couchsurfing a lot (mostly as a host) when I was living in Sevilla and Berlin. It was a great tool to connect with inspiring travellers from all over the world. Right now, I rarely open my account. The spirit is lost and I am tired of putting up with guys trying to hook up or people who dont understand the concept. I really miss the real couchsurfing, would be great to be able to use it in my current trip in Southeast Asia, but even logging in with the new design and trying to find real couchsurfers is really annoying. Anyway! Loved this post <3 hope to meet you someday on the road!
Hey Ana! Many thanks for your words, appreciate it! I can tell you can still have some great experiences ‘old style’, I was couchsurfing in my last time in India and it was a great experience. I think we only need to select more who are we hosting or asking for a couch. I’m still hopefully and not lost all my faith about this 😉 Have a great time in Asia and maybe we’ll cross our paths somewhere in the globe soon!
Gloria
Can you send me an email at drew at horizonapp.co? I’m sure Dane and/or Will would love to meet you in Santiago.
Gloria, it looks like this is, unfortunately, a road without return…
I agree with the above commentator that now you have to look for the network inside the network. To be honest in my case it works! After almost 5 years of experience (mostly hosting people – i only have a couple of experiences receiving the hospitality of other members, and one of them in Santiago!) I think that i can recognize the people i like to host and meet.
I’m also sad about the dying network i love, but i think that there is nothing to do anymore. I plan to continue receiving selected members until the bad experiences become more than the good.
The meetings, yes in some cities had loose their quality and the spirit but it looks that on other cities still working (from my personal experience).
The only i can think that a member can do to help is invest time and energy creating events and activities and trying to keep the spirit up. But this is not always possible, since you have to invest too much and in most case the “return” is too little.
Hey @filoaman Many thanks for your words!
I really hope it is not a road without return and more people are getting what this should be: a place to find for meaningful encounters with other free spirits.
How cool is it you where hosting a lot and having good experiences! You were living in Santiago too?!
I really wish this network is still not dying and we can keep having meaningful encounters with other like-minded people, for sure I am very selective now, but that doesn’t mean once in a while I still get some request and great people to meet up to 😉
Hi Gloria, [no secret word to report ;)] but how sadly very true the words you write…
I have been a CSer since early 2007 and I’ve hosted quite a bit… [2550+ people] and nowadays [in 2015], I find myself having to say no to 98-99% of people.
I’ll skip the criticism of CS going commercial [something that was totally unnecessary ] as the root cause of CS’s decline because let’s be honest, the decline started even prior to that – it just was accelerated by it. While it is true that there have been ‘a few positive’ aspects to the commercialization of CS – the only one that truly comes to mind is the more reliable functioning/stability of the website, everything else has contributed to the erosion of CS… and most particularly to its community.
Without a strong, focused and connected CS community going roughly in the same direction, it is no surprise that with CS’s popularity having grown [thanks to or because of the media], the ‘natural’ filter brought on by the community to self-correct itself is no longer there…
I have made life long friends from my CS encounters – the kind of people where you may not speak to them for a few months and you just pick up the conversation as if you spoke just yesterday… and for that I will always be grateful to CS v0.9 for having introduced me to them but while most things improve with age, it feels and has felt that this CS v2.0 that has been forced on us is just headed straight for the wall at 999 miles an hour with no possible survival.
I realize that change is ever happening and I’m not for stopping change but there’s good change and then there’s bad change… and so far we have seen way too much bad change…
The only viable solution that I see – while perhaps crazy by some standards is to open a conversation with the investors of CS who invested some 20 million to date into commercializing it… and telling them ok we’ll raise 20 million dollars [or some number in that neighborhood], which is more than you’ll ever get for it with how messed up this whole thing has become and you exit CS and give it back to a Benefits Corporation that we’ll establish… so how feasible is that… well there are theoretically 7 million members so that would be about $ 3 per person – we all know 7 million members is BS so even if it’s only 2 million members, that’s only $ 10 per person to get back what was once an awesome community – seems like a small price to pay don’t you think?
I want to get back to a time or better yet, move forward to a time when connections are meaningful, purposeful, and worth missing sleep over because you stayed up all night talking about adventure, travel, or playing board games ’til way too late… and where the idea of having to educate someone on what a proper CS request is is a very rare occasion…
Now wouldn’t that be wonderful… one can dream….
Hi Exlemor, I really appreciate your time to share your thought here! Well, you DO have a massive experience on hosting CS’rs! I totally share what you say here and agree in many points. I guess was kind of inevitable to change the status of the website being one of the biggest trafiic-web in the whole WWW was only matter of time some would like to make some money on that, and no worries on it…just the way it was done, with only little respect to what was bringing all that beautiful traffic: the couchsurfers.
I also wish we can keep having all kind of amazing and meaninful experiences as many of us have had and was the reason why we many started on this, not for saving some bucks. The funny part is most of the times is not even comfortable to sleep in someone else house! But the point here is having meaningful encounters with people in the same page as you.
I also assume is matter of statistics…more people=more variety, and easier to find freeloaders.
But well’see, for now I still keep on it, hosting-meeting people when I think is worth it, and once in a while getting awesome messages that makes me thrill and wish to meet that surfer ASAP!
Keep on dreaming as the world is a better place thanks to people who dare to dream!
Hey Gloria
I believe Couchsurfing is one of the coolest initiatives to have been started in the last 10-20 years. It’s unfortunate to see what’s happened to it.
Looks like you are from Chile. We recently went through Start-Up Chile, and been working on a private hospitality exchange app (Horizonapp.co) for the past year. Would have loved to meet in person while I was down there (July 2014-Jan 2015). We still have two team members in Santiago.
Hi Drew! I totally agree with you. CS has been one of the greatest things happening to many people in the last years, why I hope it can keep been as cool or better, I’m all positive!
and you’re right! I’m from Chile and I’m happy for you and your start-up opportunity, it’s being a big thing and growing a lot! It’s a shame we didn’t meet, maybe I can meet your team 😉
Hola Gloria!
He leído y estoy totalmente de acuerdo. Podria escribir lo mismo. Mi recorrido es similar: Empecé en el 2007, y he sido mucho más “host” que “guest”. Y con el pasar de los años me han llegado cada vez más y más solicitudes de tipo impersonal “copy-paste”. Por otra parte, tampoco me han agradado los cambios que han resultado de la transformación de esta idea magnífica de Casey Fenton en un negocio.
Hoy en día, todavía tengo mi cuenta, pero poco más.
Hola Daniel! Muchas gracias por leerme y lamentablemente muchos sentimos cosas similares en cuanto a CS, yo aún mantengo mi cuenta, hospedo gente y cuando viajo también contacto CS locales para compartir. Intento explicar a los nuevos usuarios que creo no tienen claro a veces por qué a muchos nos incomoda el copy-paste para ver si es posible mantener la comunidad viva 😉
Dear Gloria, your post is quite accurate and what you’ve been experiencing I agree unfortunately 100% : the too short copied & past messages not even saying hello with your name, the people getting angry when you try to give advice, the meetings where it’s almost impossible to find genuine travellers, etc. I’ve been a couchsurfer for 8 years, hosted/surfed with more than 200 people all around the world and many are still good friends, an ambassador in Paris for 5 years, organized hugged events with people that are now my best friends, and by looking at all of these new disappointing experiences I should say the same…
No, I want to tell people and especially the new members that if they are truly interested in the community and meeting like-minded people while traveling or hosting at home, it is still possible! my motto at the moment? Find the network within the network! Somehow within all the terrible messages and empty profiles on the website, the good ones stand even more. I’ve been thinking about writing an article about this idea for a while with my experience from the past 2 years and new tricks with the “new” Couchsurfing. I want to explain why I remain optimistic while being very realistic.
Well if you look for a couch in Edinburgh, you know you can look for me 😉
Many thanks for your time and sharing your feelings about this topic. I can see I am not the only one feeling like this and I certainly really wish to keep being optimistic. I still do receive once in a while great request that I’m more than happy to accept and I hope the new members can get the aim and keep with the amazing community it was back then 😉
I can’t wait to visit Edinburgh! Maybe later this year, I’ll might let you know!
Cuanta razón… Es una pena, pasó algo parecido con un grupo de facebook para Nómadas que sigo… pasó de ser una web para verdaderos nómadas, viajeros errantes que intentaban vivir fuera del sistema a una web con 60.000 personas preguntando por hoteles y tours… 🙁
Creo que con las redes sociales es muy difícil de controlar que algo así pase y poder mantener una red social pequeña… de todos modos espero que los que apreciamos como era Couchsurfing antes nos encontremos en alguna otra web parecida, como Trustroots y similares. 🙂 🙂
Saludos linda 🙂
Muchas gracias Marina por tus palabras! Es cierto en que es difícil cuando la cosa se vuelve masiva y muchos llegan con una idea diferente a cómo fue la idea inicial.
He intentado con otras redes similares, pero la verdad están tan en pañales que en la mayoría de las ciudades en que he buscado conexxiones no hay nadie inscrito aún. Entonces, tal vez sea sólo cosa de tiempo hasta que los CSurfers indignados se muden hacia otra plataforma 😛
Muchos saludos para ti también!