The Death of Couchsurfing? - James Hopest - Medium

Users have essentially had their accounts frozen unless they pay the fee immediately.It’s not the $15 annual fee people are angry about but the way they ask for it.The bosses of Couchsurfing know how much these old connections mean to some members, so in one final hustle have blocked messaging and even referencing, forcing those who have no other communication links to sign up for at least a month to speak to their friends, and hoping for a little bonus before the gentrified party is over for good.It also means those that use the site only for hosting, in other words, offer their homes to others for free, have to pay the fee too.This should kick out the remaining ethically-minded members. Its apparition will live on in the memories of original users, their profiles as tombstones representing an age — however brief — where three great things: the internet, travel and the human spirit combined to create an enviable community accessible to anyone with an internet connection.Considering the incredible stories, the global relationships and shared interests of locals, there is little doubt that Couchsurfing changed the world. Over the last years, the true community still struggled on, creating events and meet-ups and ignoring the new requests from creepy men with empty profiles, while in the background $22.6 million was quietly being squandered to turn Couchsurfing into the next trendy startup venture.Now that the money is gone and the management has rotated more than the roulette wheels in Vegas, we can see how well that all worked out.Many community organisations (wikipedia.org for example) which respect their user-base — indeed realise they are their user-base — have resorted to reaching out to their members in search of aid when times got tough, financial or otherwise.