[kalvin]

[Ridejoy] I've also used CL rideshare, and many of our users did too. CL rideshare works great for the people who keep using it (by definition). It doesn't work so well for most people-- if you feel especially vulnerable (are you male?), or if you want to share a ride without having to spend tons of time on coordination, ahead of time and day of (CL: ~50 back-and-forth SMS, Ridejoy: a few screens).

I love Couchsurfing-- and it "works fine"-- but I was also glad to see Airbnb succeed.

[gkop]

> I love Couchsurfing-- and it "works fine"-- but I was also glad to see Airbnb succeed.

Funny you should mention Couchsurfing. I would say that it used to work fine... several years ago... before they went for-profit and rewrote it completely. Sure the old app wasn't sexy but, like Craigslist, it solved the problem with minimal friction. The new Couchsurfing attempts to be more sophisticated but reduces global transparency and tries to take more control over the process, in the vein of Zimride or Airbnb. I can no longer be bothered with Couchsurfing, and it seems I'm not the only one: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=couchsurfing.org

[n1c]

The trend for 'couchsurfing' is a lot less scary looking: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=couchsurfing%2C%20cou...

[latj]

"I can no longer be bothered with Couchsurfing"

Maybe you changed, not couchsurfing.

Airbnb added a reputation system which is really what was needed.

[graeme]

What changed exactly? I've been couchsurfing since 2008, and hosting since 2012.

I've been hearing a lot about the changes that came with for profit management. But I haven't noticed any difference. Granted I never went to many local meetups.

I'm genuinely curious: could you be more specific about what negatives you've noticed?

[manuelflara]

As a long time CS user, I see two changes:

1. This one I haven't experienced so much being male, but I've heard from it enough to believe it. When it was more niche, there were pretty much just travellers on the site. Now that it's quite more mainstream, there are a lot of guys just trying to pick up chicks on it. I personally don't care if two CSrs hook up, but I've heard enough stories of male hosts either being too aggressive with their female guests or just plain old kicking them out when they realize they won't sleep with them, to make me cringe. I think the landscape for single women using CS has changed.

2. The new website is absolutely horrible, less usable, lacking lots more info (they deleted the old wikis with tons of user-generated content), the groups are less useful, etc. All this is kind of funny because I used to dislike the old one. Now all I wish is they rolled back to it. I just don't know what the hell they were thinking with all these changes after they raised investment.

[toomuchtodo]

http://www.businessinsider.com/couchsurfing-the-best-hook-up...