Email received today. While I agree about these political ideas I disagree about receiving such promoting emails and the “silicon valley” tone in this email. A lot of media and social media are imposing their ideologies and many users, including me, would be disgusted if Couchers do the same.
What is it that you don’t like about the tone? Maybe you have some specific examples? I feel Silicon valey tone imposing it’s ideology is a bit difficult to respond to.
Also, I just read the referenced article in Adventure Uncovered and it closes like that:
The tendrils of capitalism have infiltrated most corners of the (adventure) world. To resist the profit motive by creating spaces unequivocally beyond its reach is to preserve something essential to the spirit of adventure.
Which sounds pretty off-beat to how I’d imagine the typical Silicon valley tune 
In general the email is sent out as a monthly update on Couchers. If you don’t want to receive it at all, you can unsubscribe with one click at the bottom of the mail.
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The article, for those who are interested, is here.
Interestingly, I didn’t pick up on it when I read the newsletter. Something about the link colour and / or placement, perhaps.
Anyway, I’ve just read it. While Adventure Uncovered presumably has nothing (offically) to do with Couchers, I wonder if @boris is referring to the Newsletter itself? While I’m not sure I agree that even the newsletter is imposing an ideology on me (I think the AU article is fine, personally), I do call into question the announcements in each newsletter about membership numbers. While it is probably important to build some hype around a platform in order to grow membership, what I’m really interested in is “active users”. Why? Because there are so few of us. As I have already noted elsewhere, Couchers, as with CS, may have lots of members, but how many of them bother to fill out their profiles or actually surf/host? The answer is: hardly any. All these platforms are overwhelmed, in my opinion, with dead and empty profiles. Anyone trying to find someone to host/surf with on Couchers, for example, will soon find this out. Yet if Couchers is to make a real difference to hospex by facilitating the creation of robust, active communities and wonderful, inspiring and meaningful exchange, surely it needs to focus on active members and interactions over membership numbers? After all, these are the very people who actually want to find other people to be with.
I can see it now:
“Look! We’ve facilitated hundreds of thousands of exchanges, thousands of events!”
Now, wouldn’t that be something to shout out about?
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