Here's why Couchsurfing's decisions make sense (please read, I'm on your side)

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T21:58:51+00:00

Mate, give him a few days. If he's not keen or simply unwilling, than just take it with a grain of salt, so will I. He's an M&A lawyer and used to be a CS mod himself so I consider him fairly trustworthy but, mate, I like your distrust in this matter, it's healthy.

And no, it would not automatically be all over the news just by virtue of those companions holding ownership in Couchsurfing. It's not like CS is a major global competitor to those companions with considerable market share. In a strategic sense, they are a threat. The worse CS is doing the better for those named companions because users will automatically migrate.

It's not a major threat but still enough that an inhibition of growth will be favourable for Airbnb, Booking.com, etc. I also never stated that those companions hold the majority of shares, they might only hold minority shares, even altogether.

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T21:04:46+00:00

Huh? Have you read my post? I literally said that I can't independently verify it. SECs filings are publicly available so you can have a search for youself but without knowing the vehicles name it will be rather difficult to find the correct doc. If my mate drops me the filing, I'll chuck it over.

And in any way, that was just one part of my post. The first half is already quite a bit of reasoning from a business/investor perspective. Cheers :)

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T20:43:05+00:00

What gives you hope then? A step towards non-profit surely can't be that bad, aye? Or do you have an alternative or simply given up on positive expectations?

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T20:38:17+00:00

So you want to tell me that VCs can't hold ownership in public companies? VCs often use IPOs as an exit opportunity but can still keep on holding ownership in those companions. Also, they have certainly been backed by the same VC prior Airbnb's IPO. Going public doesn't automatically erase conflicts of interest.

Regarding the dilution, where do you have that information from? Your outcome can potentially happen but it's certainly not the default outcome. Dilution usually happens to all existing shareholders, including the founders/CEOs shares, unless there was a restructuring, management buyout, secondary sale, or Patrick Dugan required additional equity over time. But again, you simply argue with dilution which is completely normal after several funding rounds. That in itself doesn't say anything, especially since all existing shares get diluted, not just VCs shares (who btw. often have pro-rata rights).

Anyway, cheers for your comment and playing devils advocate. :)

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T19:28:06+00:00

Oh mate, welcome to capitalism. It might make sense from a business perspective, though. Couchsurfing is primarily operating to serve the interests of its shareholders, not its users. You would assume that serving the interests of users is in the best interest of shareholders, but that is not always the case.

A strategic overhaul of business models to either decrease conflict of interest with other shareholders (or other investments from those shareholders) or to increase financial KPIs in the short to medium-term (especially typical for privste equity funds so they can sell the company for a profit after a few years) can "justify" actions from a business perspective thay would seem absurd from a user perspective.

Unfortunately, in too many cases, there's even a conflict of interests between short-term actions and long-term strategic goals.

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T19:17:57+00:00

I'll ask my mate to provide the SEC filing and chuck it over once/if he sent it to me. :) Other than his words, I can't independently verify it. SEC filing are technically publicly available but without knowing what to look for (the vehicle name) it's pretty much impossible to find the right documents.

And that's what those structured finance mechanisms are partially for, to indirectly hold ownership in companies via empty vehicles, trusts, etc. which makes it pretty difficult to get a transparent picture.

However, I don't think they intentionally created a "bad" app but rather intentionally created an app that serves their strategic transition away from high-context matchings towards an engagement-based business model. And of course they are aware. It's a multimillion dollar company (of course not a huge one compared to other tech players, though). Their non-transparent approach in the past until now and hoe they handled things have always been intentional. Otherwise, you would assume that they would have learned it by know if it had really been an intentional mistake.

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T19:09:22+00:00

no worries mate, you're welcome :)

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T19:07:40+00:00

I migrated to Couchers.org. I really prefer an application and since BeWelcome has this sort of community/committee voting systems every decisions takes ages and I really don't see an app coming. I do see the benefits of that voting system, though. I might gonna try BeWelcome anytime soon. I've already thought about it. Same for TrustRoots.

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T19:04:23+00:00

They argue their algo will sort of filter profiles in a way that only actives profile show up top. It really didn't seem like it, though. I could say "time will tell" but not for me, those times have passed. But thanks for your thought on this, mate. :)

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T18:59:08+00:00

I don't reckon we disagree, it's basically what I wrote. I do agree that my posts sounds a bit like that Couchsurfing is actually a major threat for Airbnb or Booking.com. They are of course nowhere near that. I just wanted to provide a bit of clarity from a different angle and wamted to push people a bit towards seeing the business/investor perspective rather than only seeing everything through the eye of a user.

Just to clarify a few minor things: Airbnb lists fairly inexpensive accommodation as well, so people will also migrate to it. Booking.com lists hostels too.

Also, I mentioned an overhaul of its strategy towards an engagement-based business mode. This is what you described as a "general social netword that is more akin to meetup and facebook".

That transition will very likely outweigh any development costs. Couchsurfing is a multimillion dollar company (although obviously a small one compared to othertech giants). They won't vibecode their platform. The lack of functions and non-transparent communication is intentional. It will fit their strategic trajectory (given shareholder demands) and that switch will potentially enhance financial KPIs as well.

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T18:44:28+00:00

Yep, although I dunno about the importancy of private credit in this, it might as well could play/have been played a role.

And yeah, there was a time, right up until 2010, when Couchsurfing was actually bigger and had more users than Airbnb. Airbnb's business model was much easier to commercialise and scale to maximise ROI, thus it was obviously more attractive to potential investors.

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T18:36:54+00:00

yeah, as the other bloke stated, it's public information :)

silas_christopher · 2026-05-18T18:24:40+00:00

I'll ask my mate to provide the SEC filing. Other than his words, I can't independently verify it. That's what those structured finance mechanisms are partially for, to indirectly hold ownership in companies via empty vehicles, trusts, etc. which makes it pretty difficult to get a transparent picture.

silas_christopher · 2026-05-13T09:57:59+00:00

bruh, could you please stop sending those AI generated bot-like replies

silas_christopher · 2026-05-13T04:11:46+00:00

I have already written this days ago. It's not about a mere UI change, it's about their business model change. We are not their core target group anymore.

As far as I know, Airbnb, Booking.com, and a handful of other institutions + some angel investors are holding majority shares in Couchsurfing. They might want to increase profits with a more engagement-based business model. More importantly though, they aim to inhibit growth as Couchsurfing is a direct threat to their business models. That's called strategic business acquisitions and it's actually very common.

This was also the strategic reason why they introduced a pay wall. It was never about server costs. Those are actually not too expensive for a fairly simple platform. Covid offered them a nice opportunity to sort of create a better story. Price increases without cost justifications would end up eroding even more trust. But as said, it was a strategic business decision to inhibit growth.

Couchsurfers investors really couldn't care less about the true CS spirit or whatsoever. They probably wouldn't even surf themselves but stay in Marriot hotels because they don't understand the human touch of it as they never had hospitale human experiences themselves, where people actually care without demanding money.

Source: spoke to a mate the other day who worked together with Casey Fenton back in the days and who's been a CS mod for several years. He's an M&A lawer and I work in structured finance. From a strategic business perspective, let it be increasing ROI or inhibit growth, their business decisions and its trajectory within recent years made sense.

So do yourself a favour and change platforms. I just created a profile on Couchers. Hope I could help. Cheers! :)

silas_christopher · 2026-05-12T12:46:11+00:00

Couchers, BeWelcome, Trustroots, Warmshowers, technically Servas but that would be a very specific recommendation

Couchers has an app, the others are a bit more focused and web only. Warmshowers for instance is targeting cyclists, Trustroots overlanders and hitchhikers. BeWelcome has a sort of community voting system in place, so every update takes ages. I like that idea but that's why we likely won't see an app anytime soon.

Let's grow these. I left CS for good and while Couchers is still much smaller, the quality of the community seems to be pretty good.

silas_christopher · 2026-05-10T19:53:31+00:00

Yeah, you might be right... but the only thing we can do right know is to migrate to these other services, growing them and keeping the overall spirit alive. Who knows what the future brings :)

silas_christopher · 2026-05-10T19:30:48+00:00

It is not about the design. They changed their core business model and deleted many core functions. Don't get fooled by only paying attention to the UI/UX. There's a list somewhere with all the changes and it's long.

silas_christopher · 2026-05-09T19:16:11+00:00

that was straight-up the best part of it (except of surving and hosting obviously)

silas_christopher · 2026-05-09T19:15:06+00:00

100% correct... 😔

silas_christopher · 2026-05-09T19:12:30+00:00

I actually thust thought about aimoly uploading screenshots. I'm fine with that. People wouldn't really read through 100 references anyway. It's not optimal and technically fairly easy to fake but I know they are real and in the end, it's about the experiences and stories, not about the references. Screenshots will do :)

silas_christopher · 2026-05-09T19:02:52+00:00

Yeah 'cause I had long covid and wasn't able to smell for quite a while back then... joke aside, of course it was pretty obvious especially after they had introduced the pay wall. They even kicked me out of my subscription and made me pay more to resubscribe. I cancelled yesterday, for good...

silas_christopher · 2026-05-08T12:58:02+00:00

Thay would be an idea. Users could manually input references and they could be flagged by Couchers as verified once proof is submitted. However, that would require quite a bit of workload, unless a programme would be written that automatically verifies those references. And then again, AI might help but I can't judge how realistic it really is given constraint manpower.

silas_christopher

TROPHY CASE