Did people like the Public Trip function on couchsurfing.com?
I can honestly say that as mostly a hoster, there were were times that I went through public trips and offered hosting to try to help people out. The thing I found is that most times people already had their trips sorted, so there was no indication for me to move on. I managed to help a few people out, but it was a small percentage of the whole.
Telegram is now my main Social Network - Barely use Facebook anymore
maybe you have discussed this point more already:
open couch request feature, which couchsurfing is offering
for me it is a very important feature because we are living in a small village where we don’t get requests. So almost all my guests were the ones that I found on open couch requests for bigger cities around and who I invited to stay with us
Same here. Most people plan ahead I guess. (Which I try to do myself too when travelling.)