I hosted a lot of people in summer of 2008. All of my housemates were into couchsurfing too (mixed gender house: two guys and three girls, that probably helped), so there was a period where we always hosted at least one person. One weekend, for a couchsurfing event in my city, we hosted 12 people at once! We eventually stopped hosting because people got busy and priorities changed, but our experience as hosts was very positive and I still attended local couchsurfing meetups for the next year or so. I made many friends and contacts through it.

We never received any negative feedback and were in high demand. Aside from that one super busy weekend, where things did get a bit cramped (but people knew in advance that it would be), nobody shared any beds or couches and couchsurfers had rooms separate from the hosts. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Sharing beds with the host is... creepy (unless the person was given their own bed/couch and they mutually decided they wanted to share a bed, of course).

I miss couchsurfing too. I stopped being part of it around the time it got a sense for being a bit commercial. My circle of couchsurfing friends did it for the cultural exchange and at some point it drifted from that to just free accommodation and drinking parties. At least that’s the sense I got.