u/Saab340B

It's a compelling story:

• the shadowy, secretive CEO...
• the apparently in-progress demise of a beloved community that's been around for more than two decades...
• the app that was famously "not a dating app" (yet had dealt with related incidents in the past), now actually modeling itself after dating apps...
• the near-universal rejection of a revamp that was done without any input whatsoever from members of the community itself, and that took away so many essential features in the process...
• the non-profit "competitors" that may or may not be gaining traction now (including Couchers.org's well-timed launch of their app), and the contrast with the now-corporate Couchsurfing's own origins as a non-profit...

among other aspects of this whole disaster.

Any journalist or blogger who wants to write about this would have tons to work with – so many threads here over the last two weeks detailing so many different issues (including issues relating to privacy, safety, or even just the ability to simply use CS for its basic intended purpose), plus there's the "investigative journalism" aspect of trying to actually track down info about how this mysterious company is being run now, etc.

We'll never get our old beloved CS back – but maybe some bad press can get them to bring back at least some of what they took from us?

(Personally I've shifted to the alternative platforms already, but I'd be willing to switch back if Couchsurfing were to fix all the major issues that have been discussed ad nauseam here by now, and I don't think I'm the only one.)

If this were 10-15 years ago, I'm sure people would have been talking about this in online travel forums or wherever. But obviously SO many people had already left CS (due to things like the implementation of the paywall), that this news doesn't even seem to be getting discussed anywhere outside of this subreddit and maybe a Facebook group or two. From a quick search, the news doesn't even seem to have been mentioned/shared yet on any other relevant subreddits (like r/solotravel or whatever).

Maybe if more people were talking about this fiasco, the negative publicity might lead to at least some things getting changed? Or maybe not, who knows? But I think it's a story that deserves to be told...

Couchsurfing has blocked comments from its posts on Instagram (and has been silent on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) since the new app was rolled out... but fyi, I found this response (from Mike Joy who works for CS as "Community Manager") on the company's Tiktok to people who think that the new app is crap compared to the old one (in other words, basically everyone!)

There are a few other posts from him there as well, so it seems Tiktok is the only place where CS is being active on social media now, and where you can potentially interact with someone from the company to some extent.

Hey guys, I requested a copy of my data from Couchsurfing shortly after the disastrous update, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. It's been at least about a week already, and I haven't received anything yet.

I guess the company still has plenty of time left before they're in violation of any laws... but I've only previously requested data from 2 other companies, and both times they sent a download link within a few days, so I don't know if this kind of delay is normal.

I'm not sure if it's just taking them so long because it's a ton of data from sooooooo many years of heavy activity, or if they just haven't fulfilled any of these requests that were made since the update. I'm guessing it's the latter (they've probably got a ton of more urgent things to deal with given the recent shitshow!) – but I was just wondering if anyone else who requested their data actually has received it.