Couchsurfing.org or hospitality clubs

A year ago, I traveled around Europe by hitchhiking. Once, having settled near the autobahn, I set up a tent, when I suddenly found out that two policemen were bravely walking towards me.
Having devoured me for neglecting private property, and dropping me to the nearest hostel, the policemen took my word that the next time I would first find someone to stop by couchsurfing. So the first time I found out about this unusual site.

Idea:
So, Couchsurfing gives you the opportunity to stop visiting local residents for free - hence the name of the project, which can be translated into Russian as “surfing the sofas”.
From my own experience I can say that it is always great when in an unfamiliar city you can meet a person who is ready to show the neighborhood, truthfully tell about where to shop and what to fear.

On the other hand, if you cannot travel, why not “let travel in your house”? Thanks to CouchSurfing, you can gain invaluable experience in cultural exchange, or just practice foreign languages.

Identity Verification System and Business Model:
Safety is always paramount. That is why the CS introduced various "levels of confidence." The higher the status of your account, the more chances to get consent to accept you as a guest.
The first level is to confirm your contact details by clicking on the link that you will be sent by letter.
The second level - you make a donation to the address of the project, and during the transaction the name and surname in the account on the site and in the electronic payment data are reconciled.
The third level - an envelope with a code is sent to your physical address. Enter the code on the site, and voila, you have the highest level of trust. The main disadvantage is that donation will also be asked to send a letter from you. But to the credit of CS employees, it is worth noting that they report annually on project spending .
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Project audience:
Today, the community has an audience of over 1,300,000 people worldwide.
The vast majority of CS users are young people and girls. Despite all the “curvature” of the interface, the audience of the community has fantastic loyalty - suffice it to say that CS has never been advertised anywhere, and it is being developed only thanks to offline recommendations of active users.
Detailed statistics can be found here .

In fairness, it is worth noting that CouchSurfing is not the only and not the oldest site of its kind:
hospitalityclub.org - a site similar in theory, but significantly losing in the interface. One of the interesting, but controversial options is the ability to request the user number of his passport.

Who knows, maybe thanks to these sites the ideas of all people about traveling will really change.