CouchSurfing: You are a Tool not an Experience
Users of the CouchSurfing suite of tools are not confused about the fact that CouchSurfing corporate (abbreviated CSHQ) represents a suite of tools and not the experience of Hospitality Exchange. CSHQ seems to be confused. And it isn't a good look for them.
Hospitality exchange is a hobby from time immemorial where individuals will allow distantly-connected strangers (or complete rando-strangers) to have a gratis (that means free) homestay in order to simply have the pleasure of meeting other people. Such guests stay with such hosts, also, because the pleasure of meeting another person adds to their trip experience. A HospEx hobbyist can be a host-only, a guest-only, or a mix of both. I'm a mix of both.
Throughout time there have been many ways of setting up such a hospitality exchange from accessing established connection networks of elders (you would go to the chief or mayor of your village who would contact the chief or mayor of the village you wished to go to and ask if any of their villagers would host you), to religious leaders (you would go to your priest who would contact the priest of the destination to ask if any of their parishioners would host you), to chapters of private societies (you would go to your club chapter-president who would contact the club chapter-president of your destination and ask if any of the club members would host you), to the more modern era of the generalized database where you don't need an intermediary and can simply search by destination and receive a list of willing hosts. CouchSurfing fits in to this latter database.
CouchSurfing corporate offers a website, backed by a database, with safety tools built in the form of curated references (false references are removed upon challenge by a paid-staff safety team), a curated user base (those with criminal charges or who have demonstrated inappropriate behavior are removed from the database by a paid-staff safety team), communication tools that are monitored to discern bad actors, and tools for user interactions in the form of events and fora.
These things cost money to run and maintain, and CSHQ has long struggled with paying the bills. The most recent iteration is one where they are selling products to users and applying the revenue to the expenses born by CSHQ.
This is fair. Someone does need to cover those costs and it is fair to ask that the someone be the very someones who benefit from the source of the costs.
However, the marketing language is concerning because it isn't clear about this. Instead, it seems to be trying to sell the very concept of hospitality exchange and CSHQ, frankly, doesn't own that so cannot sell that.
There is nothing good that will come of trying to sell what you don't own. I hope they will adjust their marketing copy in the near future to reflect reality.
That said, there's also no penalty to completely ignoring their confused idea of themselves and continuing to pay for tools and use tools. They will better understand who they are and what they own, and thus can sell. Or they won't. But in practical terms for the user of such tools, it makes no difference.
Respectfully submitted. X