I just shared these thoughts with a friend and thought you might wanna read them as well. I was replying to an article bitching about the fact that Couchsurfing just started to ask for a fee in order to keep using the platform:
"As a member of Couchsurfing since 2007 and especially being 95% of the time a host and only 5% a guest, I can have a sound opinion on this. Before we talk about misuse of CS administration we have to be honest and admit that the main problem of CS, like most if not all famous internet platforms) is the members themselves. I was glad to enjoy CS back in the day when not many people knew it therefore there was a good percentage of people in it who were there for more positive reasons than just travelling for free or dating. I am fine with keeping travel costs low and also fine with dating but living on your host's expenses and making someone else uncomfortable is another thing and the majority of the people who kept entering CS through the years unfortunately didn't care for both that much if any at all. It would happen sooner or later. You can't keep an open internet platform neat for long.When I got that email from CS asking for fee I didn't care for the amount of money they asked for but mostly about the fact that they had an undisclosed list of countries that would still be able to join for free due to financial reasons. I emailed them to clarify who will be the ones that I would still have to pay so that they could be hosted and they didn't want to tell me where my money will go. I proposed them to charge each country based on its financial situation, same as they did back in the day when I paid to verify my profile. They still kept that list secret.At the moment I am curious to stay in CS and see how it will be like without all these profiles that deny to pay this very low amount of money (2 beers per year or so) for a platform that (theoretically) can offer you priceless times like the people I've met through the years (including you Catherine of course). Even the writer of this article seems to not have paid his verification ever (hence he was asked the fee to continue using CS).Long story short, I don't care that much whether CS has profit or if they ask me a symbolical fee to keep using their site. Most of all I want a decent platform, filtering out the ones misusing it with an active team responding to any issues members have. I don't get the feeling that CS cares that much about any of these but I'll give it a try for some time to see how it goes. My guess is that it will become a ghost town. Even this is not bad if we few nice people can still meet out there 