> In contrast, BeWelcome, a similar but much less popular platform, covered their finances with less than $10,000.
The costs of running such a platform are not high. And Couchsurfing operated for free for at least a decade: they relied on donations and volunteer work.
In the end, some of the founding volunteers decided to sell out the Couchsurfing code and community to investors. These investors want their money back. Of course Couchsurfing now has paid staff, but it's not required for operating the website: it's required for userbase growth. And neither the new user fee is about the operating costs: it's about investors getting their money back.
> In contrast, BeWelcome, a similar but much less popular platform, covered their finances with less than $10,000.
The costs of running such a platform are not high. And Couchsurfing operated for free for at least a decade: they relied on donations and volunteer work.
In the end, some of the founding volunteers decided to sell out the Couchsurfing code and community to investors. These investors want their money back. Of course Couchsurfing now has paid staff, but it's not required for operating the website: it's required for userbase growth. And neither the new user fee is about the operating costs: it's about investors getting their money back.