I can't remember who I asked to cover the couchsurfing story, and in fact, the whole peer hospitality scene would warrant a series of articles, but here is a first approach already on the blog later today, but thanks for continuing to work on a more expanded and detailed article, or covering some details of it: via http://shareable.net/blog/the-rise-of-the-not-just-for-profit On Couchsurfing becoming a B Corporation: the controversy<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=19155> Tags: [empty] [image: photo of Michel Bauwens] Michel Bauwens 2nd September 2011 Here is a first entry into the debate rocking the Couchsurfing community, via Shareable <http://shareable.net/blog/the-rise-of-the-not-just-for-profit>: Excerpted from *Malcolm Harris*: *“Let’s imagine the standard start-up route and we’ll see the kind of double-bind CouchSurfing is in. You start with a good idea, attract high-value employees cheap with equity offers and big investment cheques, you hit the Initial Public Offering (IPO) and everyone gets paid, then if you’re lucky, a bigger company will try and buy you for even more money. CouchSurfing wants to attract the high-level programming talent and investment capital that comes with a good idea (and is necessary to realizing that idea), but they don’t want to risk losing control of the organization’s mission to shareholders. What’s an ethical start-up to do?* *What CouchSurfing did is register as a “B corporation.” B (or Benefit) Corporations compose a new class of US corporations, dedicated to social as well as financial good. Five states have passed laws governing B corps, and a bill is moving in California now. Although there are other benefits, the biggest one seems to me described on the B Corp site: “As a B Corporation, founders and other mission-driven shareholders can hold directors accountable to consider the impact of operating and liquidity decisions not only on shareholders, but on all stakeholders.” By building responsibility and accountability mechanisms into the founding of the corporation, the B Corp framework seems substantially different than the “corporate responsibility” cons.* *As part of the B incorporation, CouchSurfing accepted $7.6 million in venture capital funding, something they never could have done previously as a non-profit. Combined with the site’s already 3 million-large membership base, the site seems ready to take it to the next level. However, the directors maintain CouchSurfing will always be free for participants. Here’s hoping the B Corporation framework helps them, and maybe provides a model for start-ups facing the same conundrum.”* *Robino on the Community conflict over the new status:* *“Couchsurfing as I see it has almost nothing to do with this what you call collaborative consumption Malcolm. It is about doing away with that model of production and consumption. It is hospitality. It is allowing a stranger to be your guest. It is l-i-f-e. It is sharing your life with someone for maybe a day, maybe a couple of days, and sometimes even longer. For many of these people, traveling is NOT a product, neither is hospitality, neither is sharing. It is how we live.* *That’s why there is no money involved, that’s why they like non-profit, this is why many members inside the community are currently so upset. Because we want to do it the other way: without the profit, without the money. And because we know it can be done.* *…* *Couchsurfing though never wanted to make the step to transform the organization into a democratically run organization, or to make the source-code of the website available for people to hack on it. They said they wanted it to become a charity (for tax-purposes) but never got that up and running either, and after years of inaction and numerous expensive retreats, decided to go for a “sell-out”, when their member-base was finally big enough.* *Around 90% of CS-members probably don’t really care about that. They just want to have a good website to find hosts and guests, but the others (the ones who speak up the most) do care about it. They are critical about their data that has just been sold to a new corporation. Their data, their profiles, their personal references, their personal information, their friends that they once provided to a non-profit association and not to a corporation with CEO’s and investors.* *Having said all this, we’ll see where this goes, and how it will affect the networks. For one, the success of Couchsurfing really depends on people like me who are “active hosts” inside the big touristic cities. And with this enormous growing member-base of Couchsurfing that we’ve seen for the past years, it has become really hard for these hosts to keep up with the amount of requests they get. And this announcement of Couchsurfing turning into a profit-organization (why is that legally allowed anyway?) might be a final drop for quite a few of them.”* -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens