Wow! I've hosted a good bit and that's completely different from my experience.
> Women would be surprised that I had a bed just for them
It sounds like you were taking a lot of the desperate people on the site that aren't mostly in it for the cultural exchange but to save $5. Because here's the thing - everyone's profile has a section detailing what kind of room/bed the Couchsurfer will get. A "shared bed" is a red flag the size of Russia.
That's the other thing: I like to read the CS profiles of the guys accused of being creepy. 95% of the time, it's VERY obvious who they are. Guys will have "sex" in their interests, only have a shared tiny bed, or pictures of them shirtless, or 100% references from young women, etc., etc. That's the beauty of Couchsurfing - if you see a profile that you're not 100% confident in, then just move on; there are fifteen million people.
The real problem on Couchsurfing stems from people not reading each others' profiles. People get greedy, see a way to save on hotels, then send out copy-paste message spam that's not unique to your profile. I only host people who send me a message personalized to my profile, and even then that's after a lot of reading their profile, references, etc. I simply ignore the copy-pasted messages - if you don't care who you end up with, then you're not Couchsurfing for the interesting experience, you're doing it to save a few bucks.
If you don't read profiles and carefully select, then you're basically rolling the dice. This is the #1 cause of bad Couchsurfing experiences.
TL;DR: if you choose a host without reading, Couchsurfing just becomes Omegle IRL.
(If you're a woman reading this and want to Couchsurf 100% safely, you can do things like only surf families, other women, places where you'll get your own room, etc etc.)
Couchsurfing was founded after Casey Fenton had a plane ticket to Iceland but no money for a hotel. So, he spammed the University of Reykjavik's e-mail directory asking to stay on someone's couch. Aiming to save money on accommodation has ALWAYS been a thing on CS. Yes, it is great when cultural exchange and friendship arise on top of the exchange of free accommodation, but it doesn't happen with every guest or with every host.
Also, as a 2005 signup, I can attest that copy/paste requests have always been a thing. In fact, initially they were the norm. Back when travelers used internet cafes and were paying for every minute, it was understandable that they needed to send out a wave of requests quickly without being able to personalize them. Even now, I prefer copy/paste as a host because I can sympathize with travelers and don’t want them to jump through silly hoops.
Yeah, I know how the site started :) But Couchsurfing is a lot different from the CS of nearly two decades ago. It's several orders of magnitude bigger, and it's got many, many travelers who never host, only surf, with an ungrateful attitude who see you as a free hotel. I saw downthread you said you switched to other platforms (which is great, they need to grow!) but they are a lot different from 2020 Couchsurfing, where I get a constant flood of messages and regularly get messages from people essentially demanding a free hotel and food, occasionally for the most ridiculous of reasons (like that they're here for a conference and want to pocket the reimbursement.)
And I have no problem with people that want to save money, but if that's the - only - thing they're using CS for, with no interest in ever talking to me, then I'm just not going to host them.
It's admirable to take in anyone, but it's pretty rare. The vast majority of hosts I know (and have surfed) will only take people in who have read their profiles.
Like I mentioned, there's a safety component to this (for men as well!) but also a practical side - many people live a good bit outside the city they're listed in, some people go to bed early or late, some people play music all night, some people are nudists, some people have a shorter sleeping spot (couch/bed/etc)... If you don't read profiles you're just rolling the dice - even if you just want a free bed!
By the way, I think I'll try to be more active on BW/Trustroots (hosting mostly.) Any advice for how to get my profile seen? On CS I get absolutely flooded with messages (and often get great, well written messages) - on BW and Trustroots I've gotten nothing.
Again, as a member for many years, I constantly heard year after year "CS is different than it used to be. There are so many freeloaders now!" But when I signed up in 2005, two of the demographics sending me requests were academics coming to town for a conference, or e.g. guys whose girlfriend kicked them out and they needed a place to crash. I didn't see this change significantly in the years before I bailed in 2016, and I always found it easy to ignore them and host backpackers.
Really, for me the negative change in CS over the years was the explosion in hosts who were sedentary. If you don't do shoestring travel as a lifestyle yourself, you won't be able to sympathize with your potential guest's needs. For a site that, in Europe, spread initially through the hitchhiking community, I was appalled to see so many CS hosts by 2008 who looked down on free travel, and threw around words like "freeloader".
I also can't agree with people complaining about guests who need their hosts to feed them. If they are ordinary backpackers who just budgeted poorly, that is one thing, but if they are intentionally trying to live on no money, that is another thing entirely. Among the freespirited alternative traveler community who founded CS, there have always been people traveling by providence, and they have been among my best and most memorable guests. Their stories and positive attitudes far outpaid the pasta and salad I made for them.
Finally, you can't assume that guests who write a non-copy/paste request actually read your profile. Sure, they may have quickly scanned your profile for things they can mention in a request, but that doesn't mean they care about the details. For years I could only offer a mattress on the floor and clearly said so in my profile, and yet so many of the guests who wrote ostensibly personalized requests either didn't catch that, or when they accepted my invitation and arrived at my home they complained about it. Again, writers of copy/paste are just as likely to be appreciative or not.
As for getting requests on BW or Trustroots, either live in a place where many travelers want to go to, or become a superhost whose house is open to all travelers and word of the good vibe there attracts people to your region even if initially they don't know what to do there. Those are your only options, really. However, this looks to be the biggest wave of CS refugees ever, so you may start getting more requests regardless.
This isn't even the case though. I heard from many people and stayed with some people where you would get there and they would be like "yeah i dont have that anymore". couch surfing also became super obnoxious in some places. Like in Berlin I would host anybody, but in Tokyo basically nobody would host you unless you could demonstrate your awesomeness some how either by cooking a 10 course meal, being super model hot, etc.
I don't think you are wrong, sometimes it is obvious you are walking into a bad situation, but wtf is the point of couchsurfing if its not to save money? lol.
TBH I think the real problem with couchsurfing is that it was more of a passing fad, cultural phenomenon rather than something that will stay forever. My guess is someone will come up with a more clever solution and the generation that used couchsurfing will keep using it and a new generation of travelers will use the new thing.
It's very frustrating to spend a lot of actual energy and time on trying to reduce sexual assault on platforms like this - only to get sniped for supposed "victim blaming" by an anonymous person on the internet because I didn't virtue signal hard enough.
You want a virtue signal? Here you go: sexual assault is the fault of the assaulter, not the assaulted.
Unlike most people passing by this thread, I have actual experience with this topic. I'm close to several women who have Couchsurfed solo, and I have hosted countless young women (men as well, of course.)
If a discussion about American gun deaths came up, it would not be victim blaming to explain the context and the source of most of these deaths.
My comment had several purposes. One was to explain the most common reason for sexual assault on the platform. Another was to help people getting into Couchsurfing. There will undoubtedly be a number of HN users joining Couchsurfing as part of this thread, and I wanted to pass along valuable safety information to any women among them.
> Women would be surprised that I had a bed just for them
It sounds like you were taking a lot of the desperate people on the site that aren't mostly in it for the cultural exchange but to save $5. Because here's the thing - everyone's profile has a section detailing what kind of room/bed the Couchsurfer will get. A "shared bed" is a red flag the size of Russia.
That's the other thing: I like to read the CS profiles of the guys accused of being creepy. 95% of the time, it's VERY obvious who they are. Guys will have "sex" in their interests, only have a shared tiny bed, or pictures of them shirtless, or 100% references from young women, etc., etc. That's the beauty of Couchsurfing - if you see a profile that you're not 100% confident in, then just move on; there are fifteen million people.
The real problem on Couchsurfing stems from people not reading each others' profiles. People get greedy, see a way to save on hotels, then send out copy-paste message spam that's not unique to your profile. I only host people who send me a message personalized to my profile, and even then that's after a lot of reading their profile, references, etc. I simply ignore the copy-pasted messages - if you don't care who you end up with, then you're not Couchsurfing for the interesting experience, you're doing it to save a few bucks.
If you don't read profiles and carefully select, then you're basically rolling the dice. This is the #1 cause of bad Couchsurfing experiences.
TL;DR: if you choose a host without reading, Couchsurfing just becomes Omegle IRL.
(If you're a woman reading this and want to Couchsurf 100% safely, you can do things like only surf families, other women, places where you'll get your own room, etc etc.)