Wayne Radinsky: How Couchsurfing became the Friendster of the sharing economy. Couchsurfing was magical in the early days, but its honeymoon period didnt last long. As the word started to spread among users and more and more people joined the application, its cooperative ethos backfired. Its collectively-coded website couldnt handle heavy amounts of traffic. Bugs abounds and crashes were common. It nearly went out of business because of technical problems, and its community struggled to maintain its values with the flood of new users. Raising venture funding just exacerbated the problem, triggering power struggles between long time volunteers and new leadership. In comparison, Airbnb -- Couchsurfings far more successful rival in the sharing economy -- was designed to make money from the get go. It didnt go through years of trial and error with its business model, and its outsized profits and rapid growth reflect that.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 04:55:27 +0000
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