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CouchSurfing is now for profit

It’s been in the air for a while. Finally the announcement came yesterday. 7.6 million US$ of funding. I personally have a big question about how this happened, I have volunteered to a non-profit, what happened to that work? There’s still quite a bit of code that I wrote for a non-profit that is running the for profit company right now…

A reason for me to change my couch status to YES!
And I added the following message…

I host so my status is YES but unfortunately not through the for profit company CouchSurfing. Contact me through a genuine non profit hospitality exchange network instead: BeWelcome.

I also encourage you to copy and adapt this message on to your couchsurfing profile.

3 Responses to “CouchSurfing is now for profit”


  • It’s all going commercial. They even have a TV show…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B52C9c3QzlA

    It happens in the open source world too. A big company buys open source software, changes the license. Then some people fork the old version before they changed the license and do their own thing.

    I can’t find anything on bewelcome.org…
    * Browse country: click into the cities eventually I end up at a “WikiForbidden” page.
    * Map search: use the first example “boston, UK”. Not even New York, USA works. I can’t only see something if I type in a country’s name.

  • You worked for free to enable a not for profit develop and grow.
    After you helped it grow it is converted in to a for profit.
    You (and other volunteers) invested time and so now deserve cash or stock for that..

    Can you (with other volunteers) take them to court to demand this?
    You after all helped build the company for free..

  • Phil, it’s possible to take anyone to court for any reason. And this would be quite a valid. But I think energy is better spent in other ways. That said, if someone wants to lead this effort I’ll be very willing to testify in court and receive cash and/or stock, oh and also without going to court of course (Casey, Dan, if you’re reading this… ;)

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