Couchsurfing in financial difficulty

I’ve never used it, but heard it mentioned the odd time here (I think!). Looks like they pulled a Cheskyesque stunt on their members, the vast majority of who didn’t pay a bean previously.

Their initial email:

Which was swiftly followed by:

JF

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Add couch surfing to Businesses that will likely disappear (or be reinvented) in the Pandemic Era

  • Buffet restaurants
  • Event ticketing services

Others?

Thinking locally in the nearest seaside town, lots of small independent bars, small restaurants and takeaways, music venues and the community theatre/arts centre.

At least our village pub next door is independently owned and mortgage free. It might survive

Just in the last 2 days our area was told of these closings;
1 major national retailer (Pier 1 Imports)
1 small art gallery (2 years old) - will try to go online
1 small independent bookseller - 46 years in the community

A GoFundMe was set up for a video game store - raised enough for 2 months rent so hanging on by their fingernails.

Education.

I suspect some businesses will only be temporarily changed. Then, as some say, we will just get used to higher rates of death. Just as people accept the death rates of driving, gun ownership, smoking, alcohol, we will simply accept that we live riskier lives.

Note: I’m not advocating this acceptance, simply stating that it may be the way things go. I find the non-chalance about covid deaths to be as awful as they are about other causes of death.

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Good God! I’d forgotten all about them. If they are/were the same outfit we had in London, I have a load of furniture that I bought from them in about 2003/4, when I bought a house in France. They went bust in the UK post the banking crash in 2007/8. I loved their stuff.

My son uses them @JohnF and I don’t think there is anything wrong with them introducing a membership model - think it is more the way they communicated about it.

Why anyone would want to couch surf at the moment is another matter :slight_smile:

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As I said, never used them personally so my knowledge of how they operate is minimal, but I agree, charging a nominal fee seems perfectly reasonable to me.

It’s their members (right word?) that seem more upset at having to pay, even such a pittance they are now charging, when previously it was free.

JF

I am sure they are :slight_smile:

I think part of the problem is that they didn’t share the financial problems they were encountering with their members and then suddenly members were finding they had to pay if they wanted to use the platform.

Hope it survives.

Not to go AWOL here, but I couldn’t agree more about the nonchalance. The US seems to have forgotten how to mourn as a nation—

That being said, I’d like to report an upswing in neighborliness in my area and I haven’t heard of any closings. Hope it sticks—

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So much for All Lives Matter.

I got to know one neighbor as he rebuilt the rock wall between our homes. Def a plus.

First major operator showing signs of major difficulties:

JF

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damn i just joined them to advertise one of the rooms that was airbnb before
just paid them £50 ontop of £2.39 monthly - does that mean I have to cancel now and ask for refund

Why would you pay somewhere to advertise your rooms for free? @Antonia_Clare_Grant