More reason to move towards a free and open source decentralized web. Otherwise a beautiful community over a decade in the making can be obliterated by the flick of a switch of a couple money-hungry idiots wearing suits.
I feel like the biggest money drain for any community website is not server or development fees, its moderation and community management. You cant just stick up a php app on a vps and let it run forever for $3/month. You have to hire people to remove spam and to read user reports to remove rapists and creeps from the platform.
Hell just plain ole support. I got locked out of my Couchsurfing account twice and getting in was a pain.
I also dispute the "get a VPS and ship it" for 3/month -- there are a lot of images on Couchsurfing, and a userbase that's non-trivial in terms of size.
