What are /r/couchsurfing's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

www.trustroots.org

www.bewelcome.org

Neither has nearly as many members as couchsurfing, but I've had a bit of success with both, and both seem to be growing.

Thanks!

The travel budget depends on you. For Europe and Eastern Europe it was about 6ish months and I went through around 6000$ Canadian. Phillipinnes was actually fairly expensive for Asia and by the time I got to Australia to do working holiday I had about 2000$ left. By the time I left after 10 months I was back up to 12,000$ and the rest of the time was in Southeast Asia so it was gravy.

The camera I used was the Sony RX-100 (first generation). I think they are up to the fifth now. I managed to snag it on sale on amazon for like 400$

Netflix has never done ridiculous shit like try to hold my account hostage, trying to make me pay fees before I could download, say, my history/content.

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Netflix hasn't, without prior notification, deleted groups and posts that ambassadors and others worked on for many years, simply because they wanted to monetize their content. Shit, even a simple 30 days before warning would have helped.

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Netflix hasn't cancelled peoples' accounts simply because they talked about use of other apps.

CS has done that and many other horrible things. See this and the Better Business Bureua ratings:

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https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.couchsurfing.com

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If Netflix did that, they'd also be hated.

They are still sending me these notifications, messages and even couch requests even though they suspended my account for no reason (they are still ghosting me to this day) and even though I'm behind the paywall as well. It's redic.

I'm done with CS. Now I'm spending my time on BeWelcome and Couchers.org too. They're still building the site, but it's usable and I've actually already received a meet-up request and a hosting request. Hosted my first person on Couchers last week and it was great!

I'm just going to leave this here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homophobia

Notice the part where it doesn't mention anything about being uninterested in gay sex?

Not that it matters, you have to be trolling.

You have been been recharged for verification. if its within the last few days, email [email protected] and ask for a refund. Many others have faced similar issues: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.couchsurfing.com once you get a refund 9knock, knock), email them again to send you a copy of your data, and ask for account deletion.

Go or the free alternatives: TrustRoots or BeWelcome. It is of course more difficult during pandemic. But BW and TR will not rip you off like CS will do. The monthly fee is just the beginning of money spent on CS. They wil aks you to "verify" yourself, and then take €50+ from your credit card (opsss). Check user reviews on places like Trust Pilot

getting impossible to get refunds..and issue getting bigger - https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.couchsurfing.com

getting in contact with your bank the best way, and leaving reviews on yelp, trustpilot, app playstore etc

>contact CS

you think its business as usual in couchsurfing office in San Francisco despite the lock down? and what about this https://thenextweb.com/growth-quarters/2020/04/09/how-travel-tech-companies-aim-to-survive-the-coronavirus-pandemic/ zero income for the cs company some say maybe 12 months now,no new members no money from verification last funding 2012 no travel related ads but it costs a lot of money to keep the site in the air,so do you think you help them survive if you keep contacting them or write reviews?

Another interesting thing I just noticed: couchpoint.com is using an invalid security certificate. This means that any information you submit on that site is probably being sent unencrypted (in clear text) and can be intercepted by anyone on the internet. Extremely unprofessional, especially when LetsEncrypt offers free SSL and TLS certs.

These verify with a credit card (rather than pay for verification) is becoming a big concern - https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.couchsurfing.com

Here are their traffic numbers: https://www.similarweb.com/website/couchsurfing.com

25 million page views per month up until Covid hit. I have multiple sites with Adsense, RPM is usually around $1,200 per 100,000 page views. Feel free to verify that with many other Adsense owners with a simple Google search (it's actually higher for most people because they place a lot more ads than I do).

So around $300,000 per month. $3.6 million per year. Probably way higher because with that level of traffic you usually negotiate a higher rate.

Now could you please share the links of the "bunch of sites" you looked them up on? I don't mind if they're subscription services, I'm a webmaster so have paid accounts on several SEO sites so I probably have access.

I'll wait.

Who told you this story? I am sorry, It was all a bit different. The founders couldn't realize their ideas about hospexp within the slow moving BW community so they founded their own one. The focus on hitchhikers was chosen, because they were part of that community. AFAIK they aren't afraid of normal people.

To cite the FAQ https://www.trustroots.org/faq

Is Trustroots exclusively for hitchhikers? No. Trustroots is for everyone.

But don't be afraid, TR will not become like CS, as they don't have a commercial entity which focuses only on userbase growth.

I posted this before but it looks like I accidentally deleted it, so I am reposting. Basically, the OP's situation happens all the time. This subreddit is filled with stories of users claiming they were falsely banned from CS. CS uses SIFT Software to automate bans. According to that link more than of bans, or "deactivations" as they call them, are automated by SIFT. The SIFT software looks for a variety of clues such as the obvious duplicate names, email, IP, and MAC addresses. The SIFT software also looks at matching photos, clicking and search behavior, similar phrases in profiles, and more.

To beat the SIFT software, which is full of fallacies because innocent users are booted from CS for no reason, there are several things you can do. Set up a new account with a new email using the Epic Browser (which includes a VPN with several locations to choose from), or some other proxy that will give you new IP address. Alter your name a bit maybe with a hyphen or spaces between the letters. Post different photos and change the text of your profile completely. You may have to use a different device as well if your MAC address has been flagged, because once you login from your previously flagged IP or device, you will get banned again. Also, watch your clicking and search behavior. If you are always searching for solo girls traveling in your city, that search behavior may also get flagged. You basically have to amputate your foot and get a prosthetic so as to change your digital footprint. :-)

i have been working on a kind of definitive guide for couchsurfing based on my own experiences - https://sites.google.com/site/couchsurfinghelp/home

in response to your already answered questioned: i have two spare keys to my place. one barely hidden by the front door and another they can leave in the mailbox. i want them to come and go as they please since i won't kick them out if i'm heading to work. will they steal from me? probably not... the reference system deters people from being douchebags.. a negative reference can make it difficult for them to get a future couch.

since it's been a month since you posted this... have you done any hosting yet? I've hosted 15+ people so far.

Why are some people who paid lifetime verification still getting the paywall? Plenty of those complaints over on the Google Play Store reviews for the CS app.

Also, why didn't CS specify in their blog posts that users who are verified through hosting will not have the paywall until that verification expires? I don't see this on the blog either.

Yeah, I've been using couchsurfing for almost 7 years but got fed up with the creepy dudes (I'm a dude and I'm still fed up). Anyway I'm doing my part to solve the problem. I made a new app called Oodymate which is for meeting people over a meal when traveling. Primarily we are focusing on Asia for now (Tokyo, Bangkok, etc), so if you are traveling there, feel free to check it out!

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oodymate-travel-food-social/id1443444918

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oodymate.travel.no.meetup.couchsurfing.tripadvisor

I don't know how other people handle this, but if you're worried about that kind of stuff I would recommend a sleeping bag liner / inlet (something like this). You can also use it in hostels or in a down sleeping bag, it weighs next to nothing, and I nowadays bring it whenever I travel.

If you live in Europe you can get them incredibly cheap at decathlon. I also feel like this reduces the risk of bedbugs in really bad hostels (at least that's what I tell myself).