[HN Gopher] Couchers is officially out of beta
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Couchers is officially out of beta
Author : laurentlb
Score : 122 points
Date : 2025-07-02 18:05 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (couchers.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (couchers.org)
| bluesmoon wrote:
| Wait, is this a rebrand of couchsurfing.org?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://couchers.org/issues
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CouchSurfing#Change_to_a_for-p...
|
| This is the phoenix rising from the enshittification, as is
| tradition.
| bluesmoon wrote:
| yeah, that's about the time I quit couchsurfing and limited
| my interactions to community meets. Then it pretty much died
| out. I couldn't tell if this is the same folks trying to do
| it right or different folks who believed in the original
| mission of CouchSurfing.
| vintagedave wrote:
| It looks completely different and is a non-profit:
|
| > Couchers, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization ...
| [incorporated] in the United States in late 2021, and the
| project was moved under the purview of this new non-profit in
| early 2022.
|
| -- https://couchers.org/foundation
| gardnr wrote:
| Couchers has the same color "theme" that Couchsurfing had in
| ~2010.
|
| Couchsurfing started as a 501c3:
|
| https://blog.couchsurfing.com/a-letter-from-co-founder-
| casey...
| nabramow wrote:
| Volunteer dev for Couchers here, crazy seeing this pop up here!
|
| Anyway to answer the question, we are totally separate from
| Couchsurfing.org!
|
| We created Couchers in 2020 after Couchsurfing put up a pay
| wall, after going for-profit and going downhill for awhile.
|
| We want to keep the original Couchsurfing spirit alive, so we
| started Couchers.org.
| listic wrote:
| Another project.
|
| I happen to have an account with them, and also BeWelcome (what
| seems to be the closest to popular alternative to the original
| couchsurfing.org) and TrustRoots, too. Also, the original one,
| of course.
| carabiner wrote:
| It's been in dev hell for a while. It's very basic in features
| vs. Couchsurfing and is mired in organizational issues for
| several years. They don't support having multiple pictures per
| profile for example. The struggle seems to stem from an
| overengineered trendy tech stack (python, django, reactjs)
| whereas CS was PHP. There was a bunch of interpersonal drama
| among the devs on top of self-obsessed bureaucracy that halted
| development for like 5 years.
|
| Try clicking any of the username links in OP post. Prompts for a
| login that promptly breaks the back button. Lots of issues like
| this due to an overly dynamic site.
| chis wrote:
| I seriously doubt their website failed because they used django
| and react, that's gotta be the most common tech stack of all
| time.
| diggan wrote:
| > Lots of issues like this due to an overly dynamic site.
|
| Rarely are UX issues there because of anything technical at
| all, just poor testing and poor polishing. Of course, things
| are way easier with a static site, since the back button Just
| Works(TM) in that case, but doesn't mean "overly dynamic sites"
| cannot have proper browser history.
| eeue56 wrote:
| The "trendy stack" comment seems misplaced. CS is famously
| written in Ruby on Rails, not PHP, perhaps one of the most
| "trendy" stacks at the time[0]. Coincidentally, CS is also
| awfully slow with frequent errors. Managing all my guests when
| my city was in high season was usually much easier to do via
| WhatsApp.
|
| To be honest, as a top host in my city, the only features that
| Couchsurfing was actually good for was discovery. Everything
| else was kinda broken or slow. It added to the charm, but it
| definitely wasn't much better than what you're claiming here
| for Couchers.
|
| [0] - https://about.couchsurfing.com/about/jobs/rails.html
| daft_pink wrote:
| I hosted couchsurfers and it was fun, but i stopped when i
| started getting detailed reviews about random shit about my home
| after people left.
|
| Letting people live in your house in the central business
| district of a top tier city and then having them comment on your
| towel designs.
|
| It's not a hotel. I'm so over it.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Couchsurfing really went to shit towards the end (2020 when
| they went from "we will always keep our core service free" to
| locking you out of your account unless you paid them overnight
| without any warning)
|
| I think reviews criticizing aesthetic choices or even
| cleanliness would tend to be taken with a grain of salt, but
| also I hosted people (and couchsurfed) from 2005-2020 and
| managed to avoid bad reviews, so perhaps if I personally had
| received a slew of silly bad reviews over silly things like
| that I would have abandoned it earlier.
| daft_pink wrote:
| Yeah, I really doubt any one turned down the opportunity,
| because of the criticism. It was just one review mentioned it
| and the next review disputed it. It just became a train of
| reviews. I just became annoyed by it and it made me wonder
| why I was bothering.
| k__ wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| I had the impression it slowly transformed itself to a hook-
| up community and that attracted a different crowd than
| intended.
| mattigames wrote:
| Reviews in these kind of sites should always be moderated
| before it reaches the hosts, if not by a moderation team (due
| lack of fund) then at least other users, e.g. 2 out of 3 other
| hosts that mark the review as helpful and within the spirit of
| the website.
| UltraSane wrote:
| "He has the ugliest towels I have ever seen! I still have
| nightmares about them! 1 star!"
| yrcyrc wrote:
| Very fond memories of couchsurfing met very nice people both as a
| traveler and a host. But this was long ago. Not sure this will
| ever work again though
| specproc wrote:
| Hosted loads for a while, a brilliant time. We were living
| somewhere unusual at the time, everyone that came through was
| interesting, intelligent and fun. Zero bad experiences. Made
| some friends for life.
|
| My flatmate at the time ended up marrying a couchsurfer we'd
| hosted, after reconnecting many years later.
|
| We all got sulky and huffy when they started charging and
| stopped engaging, but the sad thing is we just got too busy.
| Couchsurfing was like hosting a party constantly, and as work
| picked up I found it harder to engage.
|
| Still seems to be a community there. I found myself in Split a
| while ago and stumbled upon a meetup, had a great evening
| unexpectedly.
| dkersten wrote:
| I lived in a house where one of my housemates was also into
| couchsurfing and for a few month in summer and early autumn
| 2008, we were _very_ active hosts. One weekend while there
| was a CS event on in my city, we hosted 12 people at once.
|
| In 2009, I was living somewhere I couldn't host, but my
| primary social group for that year was other local
| couchsurfers -- we used to meet up twice a week. One of them
| got married to one of my friends. Others I kept in touch with
| for many years.
|
| I haven't been part of it in a long time, but I haven't many
| fond memories of the couchsurfing community. Like you, I
| didn't have any bad experiences.
| nik_0_0 wrote:
| Never hosted or surfed, but joined the meetups in a couple of
| different cities when traveling, and it was great every time.
| (This was 2013) Seems like it just had a nice group of
| people.
| simonhfrost wrote:
| What's changed? Did you get older?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I wonder how much of it is down to the _internet_ changing -
| similar to the eternal september, or overtourism.
|
| Couchsurfing used to be a relatively niche thing which
| allowed it to work and thrive. The percentage of freeloaders
| or bad actors was low enough not to be a problem.
|
| But now with more people being aware of it/its alternatives,
| the percentage of bad actors would increase too (and maybe
| not even proportionally to the number of good actors).
| maqnius wrote:
| After CS went downhill, I created accounts at most of the
| alternatives around. I just leave it there, offering our living
| room.
|
| I'm not living in a very touristic area, but every other month,
| I get a request for a night and if it fit's in my schedule,
| I'll accept. It's been only nice experiences so far and no one
| gave me the vibe of seeing it as a cheap alternative to hotels
| only. Most people ask on bewelcome.org by the way.
|
| I just like that even though I stay in my bubble most of the
| time, I get the opportunity to spend some quality time with a
| stranger. Especially because those strangers are often on some
| kind of a mission, else they typically wouldn't come to my
| area.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Michael Sandel's book had a good section on Airbnb killing couch
| surfing. Maybe the one thing Airbnb really did do.
|
| Another POV is, everyone is fatigued out of selling to customers
| who cannot afford to pay more. In this space: Trusted House
| Sitters is like having a homeless person stay over. Couchsurfing:
| is it similar?
| nabramow wrote:
| IMO AirBnb and Couchsurfing have to entirely different aims.
|
| AirBnB is about the space itself. You pay for the space.
|
| Couchsurfing is about the people sharing the space with you,
| cultural-exchange, etc. You do not pay, it's more about
| connecting and meeting with people.
| artur_makly wrote:
| I met my ex wife in CS.. those were good times before they went
| corp
| artur_makly wrote:
| In 2008, I met my ex wife on CS.. those were good times before
| they went corp later. Also had many fun trips through EU with it.
| Glad to see it back!
| nabramow wrote:
| Volunteer dev for Couchers here. We're actually a totally
| separate website from Couchsurfing. Different team, different
| tech stack, though we hope to keep the original vibe of CS
| alive! You can find us at couchers.org.
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| Note to all founders:
|
| Tell the reader what your product is - first.
|
| And you can't manage to do that, then your logo link should go to
| your product, not back to the blog.
|
| I gave this TWO attempts to find out =what the product is -
| that's the biggest opportunity most startups will get - and this
| company failed twice to tell me conveniently what it is and I am
| not trying a third time.
| kingnothing wrote:
| It's in bold in the 3rd paragraph, but that requires you to
| know what couch surfing is in the first place.
| NicuCalcea wrote:
| Did they change it in the last hour? The logo sends me to the
| homepage, not the blog.
| stevage wrote:
| I don't think the blog post was written for Hacker News.
| aapeli wrote:
| I'm one of the Couchers founders and wrote this blog post (and
| incidentally spend way too much time on HN), awesome to see this
| show up here!
|
| This launch is the culmination of a huge push from our volunteer
| team to clean up a bunch of core features and make the platform
| easier to use. We are also launching a new branding strategy and
| new landing page.
|
| Quick plug: we are looking for senior React Native devs to join
| us and help us get a mobile app out, as well as React/Python devs
| for frontend/backend. Everything we do is open source (under
| MIT): https://github.com/Couchers-org/couchers/
|
| Happy to answer any questions folks might have!
| jonp888 wrote:
| Alternatives to Couchsurfing.com such as BeWelcome and
| WarmShowers have been around for many years, decades even and
| have users counts into 6 figures. They've remained non-
| corporate but never managed to reach mainstream popularity like
| Couchsurfing.com did.
|
| What are you hoping to achieve by launching another hospitality
| sharing site that the other established non-profit sites
| couldn't?
| pentagrama wrote:
| Have in mind that this project is not
| https://www.couchsurfing.com
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Oh, so couchsurfing is still up. I assumed this was a spiritual
| successor.
| nabramow wrote:
| Oh hey, volunteer dev at Couchers.org here. How cool to see this
| pop up on Hacker News!
|
| For the n00bs: I think the best way to explain the concept of
| couch surfing is to imagine visiting a friend in another city --
| they show you around, you have a great time, and you crash on
| their couch, or guest room or whatever. With Couchers, it's just
| like that -- except you're meeting that friend for the first time
| (via Couchers).
|
| Anyway come join us we're fun lol.
| Dowwie wrote:
| The Summer after graduating high school is sometimes used to
| travel, taking extended backpacking trips or other. Couching
| could be a big hit for this demographic that takes a cultural
| immersion.
|
| I see 900+ Couchers registered among a few of the New York City
| boroughs. My impression is that this means someone can live in
| NYC for an entire Summer, couch-surfing the big city and
| establishing a real connection with at least 60 hosts. That would
| be quite an experience, with many stories to share.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >, couch-surfing the big city and establishing a real
| connection with at least 60 hosts. That would be quite an
| experience, with many stories to share.
|
| Sounds like my idea of Hell, but i'm introverted.
| -mlv wrote:
| Top locations have way more people interested in couchsurfing
| than there are people hosting, so probably not feasible.
| hallak wrote:
| I am a couchers host in NYC and don't actually get too many
| requests! I host someone about once or twice a month.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Are Couchsurfing type apps inevitably doomed to just becoming
| low-key hookup apps?
| aapeli wrote:
| Couchers founder and wrote the article.
|
| I don't think so: it just takes thoughtful moderation, setting
| clear rules, and then enforcing them. When you make it socially
| unacceptable on the platform, people do a good job reporting
| inappropriate behavior.
|
| I think the reason that CouchSurfing.com turned into a low-key
| hookup app is that it was actually a profitable strat for them.
| They used to monetize verification (something like $60 per
| verification), and my hypothesis is that a large proportion of
| people who ever verified paid for verification soon after
| signing up. By being a hookup site, it actually increased the
| perceived value to a certain subset of people signing up, which
| increased signups, verification numbers, and revenue. Of course
| this made the experience worse on the platform itself once
| people tried to use it, but they could milk that "easy way to
| hook up" concept for a long time (basically until the pandemic
| killed it).
| supportengineer wrote:
| Is this some sort of database, of couches? A couch base, if you
| will?
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| But not to be mistaken for couchDB
| konsalexee wrote:
| Nice I was loving Couchsurfing until they started aggressively
| monetising it. Had really great experiences with hosting people!
| Hope Couchers will revive the great experience of hosting people
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Oh, how I disagree with the pitch. Give me transactions, baby!
| I'll build my own connections. Money talks!
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(page generated 2025-07-02 23:00 UTC)