
The improbable rise and fall of Couchsurfing - uladzislau
http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/13124/life-and-death-couchsurfing/
======
tacon
According to a recent Mixergy interview with founder Casey Fenton,
Couchsurfing tried for years and years to be approved as a 501(c)3
organization (basically, a charity) so they could receive grant money to
support cultural exchanges. Eventually the IRS gave them a final, non-
appealable determination of non-status. Apparently, the cultural exchange
aspect was not a strong enough reason when most people probably couchsurf to
save money. So their business model was broken, and they had to stop being a
non-profit and become for profit, which, at that point, costs $1 million to
convert. I presume this is because non-profits must give away their assets to
another non-profit if they cease operations. So $1 million in VC dollars plus
other investment converted them into a for profit. Alas, not with such great
results. I think it is unfortunate the way the meme has spread that the
founders were just making a money grab.

[http://mixergy.com/interviews/casey-fenton-
couchsurfing/](http://mixergy.com/interviews/casey-fenton-couchsurfing/)

~~~
netcan
I wonder if in the case of an international-by-default internet organisation,
there might be some international workaround. Maybe they could have registered
the business elsewhere or even physically moved to another jurisdiction. Maybe
they could have formally merged with an existing cultural exchange non profit
like the various 'year abroad' exchange organisations.

If a for-profit company, quasi-nonprofit or organisation without a well
defined status wants to operate as a non profit and they seem to be getting
results... It seems a terrible waste not to help that exist, as a society or a
legal system or whatnot.

If you have a million to spend on converting from non-profit to something else
(or was that contingent on converting into a US for profit?), perhaps there
are other options out there. What's the distinction between for profit and non
profit in a "favourable" jurisdiction like Isle of Mann or The US Virgin
Isles?

It sounds so needlessly wasteful.

~~~
eli
Are all tHe employees and assets going to be physically located outside the
U.S. too? Otherwise IRS still wants a piece. If it were that easy to avoid
taxes everyone would do it.

~~~
netcan
Aren't non profits allowed to pay foreigners salaries, subject to local rules?
Do US non profits pay local corporate taxes when they operate abroad?

~~~
cplease
They may or may not, depending on their domestic status with regards to the
country of operation.

Foreign corporations, for- or non-profit can operate in the USA. But they need
to register in their state of operation in the U.S. as a foreign corporation.
And unless they get a determination of tax-exempt status from the IRS, they
would be subject to U.S. corporate income tax with respect to their U.S.
operations.

Even U.S. corporations have to register as foreign corporations to operate
outside of their state of incorporation.

------
personlurking
I've been going to CS meetings for years and they've always seemed the same to
me. Half residents (foreign and local) and half travelers. Most are there
because their life, or the times, don't allow for making easy friendships,
thus they get several of the benefits w/o the commitment.

At this point, personally, I end up making a few 'friends' and then sitting at
a table or in a small standing group with half friends and half travelers. The
friends part means I don't have to ask those hostel-type questions to every
single person I talk to (where are you from, how long are you here for, what
are you doing here, when are you leaving).

After some time, no matter the city, I start to realize who has been hooking
up with/is interested in whom, and often times, one realizes most are there
for a combination of this and the easy social aspect.

...

As for the site, their new redesign messed up a lot of functionality and
completely did away with crowdsourced data from the communities. The CS city
groups have totally become a "let's go get drinks since I'm in your city for
two days" type thing, not to mention travelers are constantly asking the same
questions and since CS took out the search function, including the previously
mentioned deletion of years of crowdsourced info/tips, the site & quality of
content has just gone downhill.

~~~
listic
What do you mean by 'crowdsourced data from the communities'?

~~~
personlurking
After the redesign, links to groups were deleted (meaning they restructured
the URL hierarchy and how one part of the site connects to the other). That's
almost fine, as long as they implement a nice search functionality and allow
access to hundreds of backpages of user-created posts for each city group,
etc...only they didn't. They totally deleted all that crowdsourced data (the
posts) and threw the search functionality in the trash (search is a horrible
user experience now).

In summary, by crowdsourced data, I mean when someone asks where the best park
is (for ex), they might get several viable answers from locals. After a few
months, this post gets buried but with search it can easily be found again.

------
dejv
CS is great example of how the growth can kill community. Even five years ago
CS was kind of underground community of travellers, hippies, hitchhikers and
odd people like that.

Then the VCs come in and mainstream media started to write about the site,
which brings new crowd of people. Now it feels like dating/hookup site and
meetings are now mostly expat gatherings of weekly drinking party of local
english teachers.

I used to be active member of community, surfing over 5 continents, attending
meetings in many many cities and countries. I don't surf anymore, but I do
visit some meeting from time to time and I can tell how the vibe is completely
different, also the long time members are gone.

~~~
kaybe
Do you have any idea where they went?

~~~
dejv
Thats a great question. I don't think there are (and going to be) community in
the same style like CS.

~~~
kaybe
Why do you think that (for the future)?

------
contingencies
I hosted lots of couchsurfing type people, on I believe a pre-CS network in
the same light, circa 2005. Can't remember the name. Later, I joined CS. There
were some great characters that turned up in my house in Qingdao, China (right
by the ferry-ride to Korea) .. global cycle-tourists, Japanese-American
documenters of vanishing island dance traditions, and a schizophrenic East
German woman. The latter was our last guest due to the difficulty of the
experience. I never actually stayed with anyone else, only provided a room and
sort of free tour guide services which is a big unmentioned portion of what
these networks are/were.

I still get emails from CS though .. including one this morning from a
Canadian who typically laments, in English: _I have had a great trip so far
but unfortunately have not got to meet and connect with many chinese people
due to language barriers._ Imagine that.

(Edit in reply to Michael below (out of posts): From the statistics at
[https://www.warmshowers.org/country_count](https://www.warmshowers.org/country_count)
it looks like Europe by far holds the most numerous number of members in the
smallest geographical area, ie. it should be easiest to navigate solely by
WarmShower hosts in this region.

Typical living costs for cycle touring Europe are 5 (stretch but possible) to
10 (feasible) to 15 (comfy) EUR/day for food. If you can budget 20 you can get
drunk too. Add 5 for museums, I reckon you're good. 25EUR is about 28USD. The
exchange rate is the best it has been in 10 years. Go now!!!)

~~~
nether
If you want to host more cyclists, check out WarmShowers. It's still in a
nascent stage with a decent community thus far.

~~~
HKimmel
WarmShowers sounds like some sort of sexual fetish. No thanks.

~~~
cyrus_
I don't know how to put this nicely, but warding off people with reactions
like this seems like a feature, not a bug.

------
arnfred
While it's true that couchsurfing.com isn't what it used to be, I don't think
the same can be said about the individual couchsurfers.

It's a bit too easy to lament how the quality of surfers has gone down as the
community size has grown. While couchsurfers today are a more diverse crowd I
think exposing the idea of couchsurfing to people who aren't you stereotypical
backpacker is not necessarily cause for lament. Sometimes all it takes is a
nudge in the right direction for them to become involved too.

I was active myself on the old site and after a couple of years break I've
decided to start again now that I have the space to easily host. During the
few months I've had visitors stop by my flat here in Edinburgh I've had the
pleasure of meeting a great amount of very different and almost always
interesting people ranging from poor students on their first couch surfing
trip to a guest hitch hiking overland from China to classical musicians from
London to a travelling Blues Dance teacher.

Being in a cultural hotspot like Edinburgh I naturally receive a lot of
requests, many of which looks blatantly copy/pasted. However since I decline
most requests for lack of time anyway it's not much effort to filter through
and find the people who seems like they are interested in meeting me and
invite them in.

So at least speaking from my own experience I don't think there's any cause
for alarm over the quality of the people on couchsurfing. But then again, I
always found the meetups to be dreadful. As for the site itself I find the
redesign annoying and wouldn't mind switching to a better site if any good
contender came up, but so far the community on CS however much in decline is
still much more active than any other site I know of.

~~~
pcpolice
I'm almost scared of suggesting it since it might get destroyed by marauding
infidels, but I am a fan of bewelcome.org. It is much smaller, of course. They
run OSS!

------
frequent
I can’t really share some of the sentiments – I'm using CS for a few months
now, host plenty and so far have had no problem finding a couch in popular
places (London, Berlin) with reasonable due diligence when picking guests and
hosts.

I think a lot of the criticism is just life-cycle rooted. Sites grow, evolve
and users of the "first hour" no longer see "their site" as what it once was
and leave. I could say the same for... Ebay, for example – used to be fun to
browse and sell. Now there are commercial sellers galore, millions of products
and all the magic is gone. But that’s my personal perception. The site still
works. Just not for me, so I have moved on. Doesn’t qualify calling Ebay
"fallen" imo.

------
seattle_spring
I had an informal interview at Couchsurfing's SF office a few years ago.
Having met the people behind today's CS, it all made sense why the site had
completely lost its magic.

The employees I had lunch with spent most of the time dogging on the
"technically incompetent hippies" that founded the company. The recruiter
balked at my question about why they switched to Ruby on Rails, saying that,
"anyone who thinks Ruby doesn't scale frankly doesn't know what they're
talking about." My intent wasn't even to question the validity of the
question, but the guy immediately got defensive.

Everyone I talked to was drunk on the "startup culture" they were trying to
latch onto. Every person talked about the great monetization opportunities.

I had felt that CS had lost its magic many years before this interview, but
the people running the company were the nail in the coffin for me.

------
jakobegger
I always thought that the main attraction of couch surfing was the fact that
you got a free place to sleep. Sure, meeting locals is a nice side effect, but
for many people the fact that it is free is the thing that enables travelling
in the first place.

We've hosted a bunch of people, and it's usually young people with little
income (often students). And Couch Surfing works great for that: The website
matches up people who look for a free place to stay with people who like
sharing their place. And despite all the politics, couch surfing still works
great for that!

------
imd23
I have been hosting 30+ people in Montevideo, Uruguay since 2011 and while I
find CouchSurfing not as beautiful/user-friendly as AirBnb I really don't
care. And I am a designer. The community at least in my country is and still
really strong. I haven't had a single problem whatsoever and It really changed
me for the better in an immeasurable way. Maybe other startup can hit the nail
on the usability, credibility, signal-to-noise ratio. As a host who receive
+5req / weekly, the main filter is always yourself. You need to do your due-
diligence (aka stalking) and set your own rules. There's way more good people
than bad people. Fortunately I haven't find one of the latter.

TL;DR; Join. So far there's no other community like couchsurfing, take the
best of it. It will impact you deeply.

------
jdietrich
Hospitality organisations long pre-date Couchsurfing. Servas, the oldest such
organisation, was founded in 1949 as part of the peace movement and now has
over 16,000 hosts worldwide. Servas has avoided most of the issues that have
afflicted Couchsurfing by requiring new travellers and hosts to be interviewed
and vetted. Prospective members are expected to share a belief in
internationalism, and use the network to build meaningful cross-cultural
connections.

~~~
drewmeyers24
Are you a Servas member?

------
mangecoeur
I think the original couchsurfing spirit is fundamentally incompatible with
the startup "guzzle money and grow" mentality. For a successful community you
need to keep things local to build trust networks - this is fundamentally a
low profile operation, not something that's going to scale massively and make
a big splash, because it involves tight groups on small scales. I think the SF
startup scene just doesn't have the mentality to make that work - everyone is
chasing the Next Big Thing (emphasis on Big), so a community website that, for
example, makes it's mark in a handful of German cities isn't what founder CEOs
and VCs are looking for.

------
roberts_vc
BeWelcome is frequently on the verge of collapse, and IMO is simply too small
and unreliable to be of genuine value. It serves mainly the French folks who
set it up nearly a decade ago, as a form of protest against the founder of HC.
Some sort-of funny criticism is here: openbw.blogspot.com

If you want to see a _really_ ambitious CS-replacement project, sign-up at
trustroots.org! These guys are experienced travelers and hosts, and very
skilled and up-to-date, professional coders. They invested years of unpaid
tech talent into CS and BW, before finally starting their own site last
winter.

[https://github.com/Trustroots/trustroots/](https://github.com/Trustroots/trustroots/)
Got some MEAN skills? Get in touch with them!

------
drewmeyers24
Hey, it's Drew from Horizon (one of the new apps mentioned in the article).
Just wanted to let everyone know, if you're interested in hosting/surfing
among the HN community, there is a private hacker news group that is available
by using the following group unlock code: hn2015#$

------
sagivo
i used couchsurfing myself, as a host and guest all over the world. one point
the article didn't talk about - Airbnb. once people realized they can charge
money for the empty room/couch they ditched couchserfing. i find it too bad
because in a way we all hurt ourself by charging each other. there was
something magical about the vision that says - host someone from other county
for free and next time you'll visit there you have a free place too.

~~~
ShellfishMeme
Together with my friends, we are living in a large apartment, so there's often
one room empty or extra space for people to sleep. We used to frequently host
couch surfers, but in the end we have made the most friends and had the best
experience with airbnb priced to just cover the room rent.

We found it to greatly reduce conflicts between guests and hosts, and actually
get people more engaged in our small community.

With couch surfing, I often had thoughts like "I pay for your room and you
can't even put your dirty dishes away". Since we offered the room for free, we
kind of expected some sort of autonomy from their side to help us out in the
household or maybe cook some dinner for everyone if they stay longer than one
night. They often expected that we would go explore the city with them and
give them a lot of attention.

On airbnb that problem somehow mostly vanished. If things with the guest
aren't great, at least you get paid. Thus you also don't need such a strict
screening process anymore. Due to this, there seems to be much more diversity
regarding the types of people we get to meet.

Many of them actually just want a quiet room to sleep in, and it's absolutely
fine. Some people however really get involved and become good friends.
Especially when they stay longer (which almost never happens on couch
surfing), the fact that they pay rent just like everyone else seems to make
some of them much more open to suggest improvements and be proactive.

We've met a lot of diverse, interesting people through airbnb, some of which
ended up staying for a long time, some coming back regularly. On couch surfing
we've mostly met the traveling couple, group of friends coming here to party
and young backpacker stereotypes.

What killed couch surfing for me personally though, was that no matter how
many people I've hosted, I could never find anyone who would host me when I
was traveling somewhere. That really destroyed the magical vision for me.

~~~
pcpolice
> What killed couch surfing for me personally though, was that no matter how
> many people I've hosted, I could never find anyone who would host me when I
> was traveling somewhere.

So much this. I've probably hosted easily 30-40 different groups or
individuals (which is perhaps not a lot by CS standard, but fine, I've done my
dues, no?), and I have only been able to surf 3 times, of which 2 were
arranged by the attractive young lady I was travelling with (I am not 100%
serious, that is sexist, but I suspect this dynamic does play a role). On the
other hand, I have frequently sent out 20-50 reasonably personalized surfing
requests, depending on popularity of destination, etc. Of course you'll have
to take my word that I didn't just copy and paste a one-liner like "Hey I'll
be in your city from x to y July, can I stay at your place?", but still, CS is
dead to me, I don't even try to surf any more.

Another telling thing is that in many popular destinations (New York most
recently for me) the first two pages of search results include predominantly
photos of muscular males posing without t-shirts. Somehow I didn't feel drawn
to that. :(

Great idea, tragedy of the commons?

~~~
ikonst
For me, it greatly depends on the location. At locations where hostels are
readily available and cheap, I had easy time couchsurfing, e.g. Mexico, and
had a very good time (that was last summer, 2014). In SF, yeah, good luck, and
better be a handsome girl/guy (and maybe get some unwanted advances).

Though, actually, back in 2010 I did find a CS host in Brooklyn, NY within
maybe 5-10 requests, so YMMV.

Israel, I've been told by my guests, is very easy.

------
guard-of-terra
Their redesign is awful also. I stopped coming since it now requires 3x clicks
to do the same.

------
marincounty
I was curious as to why the non-profit model didn't work, and was surprised it
was registered in Deleware. I am automatically a bit nervous when a California
based non-profit registers in Deleware. Sorry, but I want to download those
free previews on www.guidestar.org, and find out who is on the BOD, and who is
making the most money in the 501c3. If I can't find the detailed financials; I
don't donate.

Why would a non-profit register in Delware:

"One advantage provided to corporations under the DGCL is flexibility in
internal structure. Unlike some states such as New York, the DGCL requires a
corporation to have only one director. A nonprofit corporation in Delaware
must have members, but directors can serve as the only members. Unlike
California, there is no requirement for a majority disinterested board.
Finally, Delaware does not require the naming of corporate officers.

Delaware also generally applies less cumbersome regulation to the formation
and operation of nonprofit corporations than some other states. Unlike New
York, which requires in certain circumstances the approval of various state
agencies prior to the formation of a nonprofit, an individual can form a
Delaware nonprofit corporation simply by filing a certificate of
incorporation. Delaware also does not require nonprofit corporations formed
under Delaware law to register with its Attorney General’s office or file
annual separate financial reports to the state (though if the nonprofit
operates in Delaware, it may be required to file a copy of its federal Form
990 with the Delaware Attorney General). Finally, unlike some states, Delaware
does not require any state government approvals for nonprofit corporate
changes such as amendments to the certificate of incorporation, mergers, and
dissolutions."

Looking at the Federal From 990 is important--IMHO. The public shouldn't have
to pay to see that informantion. I don't know if couchsurfing even filed
990's? A disinterested board is important--for any non-profit--IMHO.
Registering with the attorney generals office is important--IMHO. My point is
if you are a San Francisco non-profit register in California. If you have a
good cause, and all financial information is open public viewing; you might be
surprised just how much money you raise?

[http://communityenterpriselaw.org/2014/01/is-delaware-the-
be...](http://communityenterpriselaw.org/2014/01/is-delaware-the-best-place-
to-incorporate-a-nonprofit/)

~~~
subaculture
Well, maybe its time to sign for BeWelcome (non-profit)

[http://www.bewelcome.org/](http://www.bewelcome.org/)

Can BeWelcome be sold?
[http://www.bewelcome.org/wiki/Can_BeWelcome_be_sold](http://www.bewelcome.org/wiki/Can_BeWelcome_be_sold)

Differences with Other Networks
[http://www.bewelcome.org/wiki/Difference_with_other_hospital...](http://www.bewelcome.org/wiki/Difference_with_other_hospitality_networks)
No.

