No. It will be held against you and carved on your tombstone. Songs will be sung about it. 
I’m not sure anyone really knows what insurance will cover including the insurance company.
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Well there’s yet another good reason to get cremated and scattered.
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As to the analogy.
It would be as if you pay a yearly fee for a writing tool on your computer. All of the sudden they let you know, that they will be charging every time you want to save the document you have written. That’s why it is not just increase in the subscription.
Technically we are free to leave. Practically, if we don’t really have viable alternative, protesting makes sense. It’s like if your water company all of the sudden doubled the price. You can start using bottled water and toilet at the gym, but you won’t. And the company that provides a commodity with almost no other options, should be mindful of that.
They can - we can.
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If there is no practical alternative, then protesting makes sense. Burning down the platform with a slew of negative reviews, badmouthing it on social media, and possibly bringing it to its knees to the point that it exits stage left is akin to throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
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Good points. This just seems an awkward way to deal with it and in some ways penalizes frequent users both owners and sitters. Just bump up the membership fee in a tiered manner- frequent users vs infrequent rather than each time a booking fee. While financially it might not be that different than a booking fee, psychologically I would rather just pay once than every time.
Here’s the thing. That might be a good idea, and several other good ideas were mentioned by various members. I think that charging only the hosts the booking fee makes sense.
But none of this matters because THS does not implement changes and updates based on what the members want. That’s not how it works here.
You’ve got it right. I was initially shocked about the fee…. have been a member for three years now and the past year or two debate whether to actually keep renewing. I still love sitting, but don’t rely on it, since I am not full-time and have other means of traveling affordably. At the same time, my network has grown enough that I could still find some sits on my own.
With this change, I am reminded how this is still essentially a business. I’ve tended to gravitate to it over Rover, etc, because I like the ability to select exactly what I’m looking for, decline invites that don’t fully align with my best-case-scenario, and feel like I am having a mutual exchange with lovely locals in the process. When I did sit directly for personal friends who wanted to pay me, or tried other Apps, it seemed awkward and almost diminishing the experience to accept payment. At the same time, I don’t have a lot of extra cash, so will likely find myself sitting less after these changes are implemented. Not because I can’t afford the $12, but because sometimes I’ve agreed to sit when I wasn’t necessarily looking for one, just as a favor when I knew I’d be equally happy at their place or my own. I simply consider where every dollar goes…… and when these become paid transactions, it becomes less appealing. Or, I will strongly consider downgrading to Basic as others have mentioned. Or, moving my services to a personal business model, rather than allowing my goodwill to make the THS company rich. If that’s what is already is at the core….
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This is a misnomer. THS is in the red the past 2 years, shareholders are not getting an investment return or any dividends. With this present situation, the financial situation may get even worse.
THS is not “getting rich”.
Seems like both sitter and host should share in all costs so this continues to be mutual.
Well, what you, me, or any other member feels should be done is irrelevant because we don’t make the rules and the ones that do make the rules aren’t responsive to member requests, it’s been that way since the inception of the platform.
This was a corporate decision to change a fee structure in line with many other corporations with memberships tiers and additional fees. What’s interesting here is that this membership operates more like a dating site than like a service site – Airbnb, Rover, Thumbtack etc.
As the whole reason for the site was that no money changed hands for either sits or accomodations, this was like a dating site. I haven’t had to date in many years, but my understanding is most dating sites have a membership fee and then might charge for other stuff like seeing who has swiped you or something, but they don’t charge each person per date. That would be weird.
In this case they are charging both parties and it not only feels unfair, but completely tone deaf.
Agree that it destroys the feeling of community.
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Came here to say something similar – a fee every time you opened the program.
Or to use your water price idea, the regular utility fee plus a charge every time you flush the toilet. 
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I think the OP has it right about the emotional weight of this and the feeling of ownership which has just been pulled away. But add to this the complete mess of the roll out and the holdiday timing, and glitches with people being charged years before the renewal date and it’s the perfect (self-inflicted) storm.
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Business, firmly. And one that seems not to care about its cash cow/golden goose - the members - at all. It was a community several years ago. We, the sitters and hosts may still be a community, but in that case THS is now either our greedy demanding dictator or a shifty shakedown mobster.
10 days ago, I would have eagerly recommended this website. But now, I’ve left scathing reviews everywhere, which will be completely ineffective, but let me work through the anger phase of my grief about the demise of the community.
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Allow yourself to grieve. There are 4 stages, and the road to recovery is not always linear, in so much as you can move from one stage to the next, or slip backwards a bit or jump ahead and skip a step.
The stages are: Anger-Bargaining-Acceptance-Renewal of previously canceled THS Membership.
Sorry, I kind of brain dumped earlier but didn’t address the OP’s question. I think THS is categorically a business and always has been. It was always a platform designed to perform a function on a subscription fee basis. It wasn’t created out of the pureness of anyone’s heart. So while we did enjoy a sense of community in early days, maybe that was only because the business was still small.
As it expanded, maybe vetting became more lax and members started having issues on sits and expected THS to step in and solve them. I joined in 2019 and it really was different. Members were truly here for the fair exchange, the love of animals. It felt more personal. If there was a problem we handled it amongst ourselves.
Now there’s a lot of expectation that the people in charge will provide support and even step in to mitigate problems. No matter how many times it’s repeated that “THS is only a matching site” the members keep expecting it to be more.
So did THS create this sense of business over community, or did the community change as the business grew and the expectations and demands of new members caused the shift in dynamics? Egg chicken, chicken egg?
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It could be interesting to know a bit more about the member demographics, how long they’ve been members, average number of sits, how big a share are (very) frequent sitters etc.
Has anyone seen anything like that? @Jenny Is that something you could provide?
I see that less than 10% of the total membership population are members of the forum and that about 0,4% have been active in the last week (982 in total)
I don’t know who the typical THS customer is, but with my 4-5 sits a year I would imagine I’m fairly average. Then, how much of a community member am I? I do appreciate the community idea in that hosts and sitters do this on a not for pay basis and I am mindful of the history and origins of the service - but are we really that much of a community today? Is that what members are even looking for? I have a feeling that a few old members are overly occupied with the community idea, possibly for sentimental reasons. Are they representative of the members in general? I doubt it.
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The idea of community has been introduced since Day 1. (10-15 years ago?)
This is the first paragraph of THS’s CEO introduction on LinkedIn
“My mission is to build purpose-driven, tech-enabled communities that deliver significant commercial and social value.”
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Absolutely - my impression is that the “commercial” part hasn’t really been accepted by some?
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There are also some interesting legal premises regarding marketing a commercial service as a community. Most importantly - in a community there should be some balance of power, real member involvement and member influence on decision making. Unilaterally deciding terms that affect the members is contradictory to what a community is.
I suggest that THS does a risk assessment regarding both T&C, how they were rolled out and how they fulfill the legal definition of a community. In particular this applies to marketing the service in the EU/EEA.
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