<story><title>The Death of Couchsurfing?</title><url>https://medium.com/@jameshopest/the-death-of-couchsurfing-a87d9537edf2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>peterburkimsher</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know how Hacker News manages to stay so pure, given that it&amp;#x27;s run by venture capitalists, yet still remains free of ads and open to newcomers. Monetising CS is like demanding a signup fee to join HN: it will drastically change the community.</text></item><item><author>MattGaiser</author><text>&amp;gt;If community powered websites like Reddit can survive&lt;p&gt;Reddit is backed by venture capital and shifted heavily to be more advertiser friendly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MattGaiser</author><text>Hacker News is smaller than most major subreddits in terms of usage. 400 upvotes is considered a lot here. The site is extremely simple and something that could be replicated in a couple of days at most by most engineers. It doesn&amp;#x27;t process money or really require a lot of content moderation either.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Death of Couchsurfing?</title><url>https://medium.com/@jameshopest/the-death-of-couchsurfing-a87d9537edf2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>peterburkimsher</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know how Hacker News manages to stay so pure, given that it&amp;#x27;s run by venture capitalists, yet still remains free of ads and open to newcomers. Monetising CS is like demanding a signup fee to join HN: it will drastically change the community.</text></item><item><author>MattGaiser</author><text>&amp;gt;If community powered websites like Reddit can survive&lt;p&gt;Reddit is backed by venture capital and shifted heavily to be more advertiser friendly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mschuster91</author><text>HN is run as a side gig, modded by iirc 2 or 3 staffers. Simple tech stack with next to zero new features, so not too capital intensive.&lt;p&gt;Plus: there are a shitload of people from all over the world here, ranging from broke devs in &amp;quot;third world countries&amp;quot; over German journalists to US VC CEOs. HN is essentially a gateway to a lot of influential people... a &amp;quot;soft power&amp;quot; in politics terms. And one with real monetary value as HN is an excellent place for new YC companies to get users, staff, or a network. An advantage that &lt;i&gt;other&lt;/i&gt; VC funds do not have.</text></comment>