Remote roles mean you're not just competing with other Americans, but the rest of the world, which likely means a lot lower pay.

Also seems like Aus/US have barely any work hour overlap, what's your plan there?

West coast isn't too bad, but being remote, I might move overseas where the time zone is more friendly.

I have considered moving to the US on an E3 visa, but with no job lined up, no contacts, it's a bit of a hurdle

Yes. My chats don't get new messages without exiting and entering, I'm assuming because it's still in research preview...

Possibly! I'm using tarsy.dev for that now

Are you white?

Your network

> Update, Expanding to Pro and Max plans, 23 Oct 2025

I'm planning on using tanstack start in my next project. Seems to have had a lot of good press recently

It's the same as with any other new tech, start using it.

Use Claude Code, Figma MCP, Supabase MCP, Lovable, v0.dev.

Find where your interests overlap interesting tech, and who knows, you might be able to build a business from it

What's changed? Did you get older?

I wonder how much of it is down to the internet changing - similar to the eternal september, or overtourism.

Couchsurfing used to be a relatively niche thing which allowed it to work and thrive. The percentage of freeloaders or bad actors was low enough not to be a problem.

But now with more people being aware of it/its alternatives, the percentage of bad actors would increase too (and maybe not even proportionally to the number of good actors).

It probably also belonged to a certain period of time and a certain generation. The peak of couchsurfing coincided with millennials coming of age, and provided something that appealed to them at the time. Namely, cheap travel and interesting, random experiences to brag about.

That demographic is a lot older now, and the younger generation has other interests and expectations which couchsurfing likely does not appeal to.

The Internet changed the nature of tourism quite a bit as well. You have to remember most people used to use services like travel agents or tours to organize things for them. Anyone who went off the beaten path and was interested in experiencing another place by sleeping on a stranger’s couch was probably someone interesting.

Now everyone is used to using the internet to organize their travel and get the best deals on anything they can - and so websites like couchsurfing become a free booking.com alternative for people who have no interest in the human experience side of it.

HTML + CSS + Github. Save the webpage as PDF in repo after any changes

Eating healthy and exercise. It's a lot easier to focus when you're in a good mood