What’s already happening? The post you referenced talked about an exodus and you’re talking about comments and bad reviews.
@andrealovesanimals I’m a legacy member. When I joined 10 years ago there wasn’t a 3-tier membership structure. You just became a member. As such we are similar to a basic membership with some minor differences that I can’t remember as they largely go unnoticed by me.
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almost every user commenting here is deciding to leave. same on Trust Pilot
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I thought that was where you were going with that but I didn’t want to assume.
Please allow me to correct a common misperception.
Just because an angry, frustrated, and even scared member says they’re going to leave, even if they claim to have canceled auto renewal, doesn’t actually mean they’re going to leave.
Especially when the other options aren’t so great and they’ve built up a significant history here.
Steve, this is the moment when you start empathizing with users that allow to give meaning to your membership and let you travel taking care of your pets. Which side are you on?
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I don’t emphathize with users who are going on and on whining about the same thing and leaving misleading and even dishonest negative reviews in an attempt to discredit a company who has developed policies that are unfavorable to them. My perceptive on this situation is if you don’t like it, then leave. If enough members actually leave then perhaps such decisions may be modified. But not due to coercion and “ganging up” mentality. I have no sympathy.
As far as taking sides: I’m not on any side. I think the fees are sudden, excessive and represent the very heart of corporate greed. I question the way they forced members to accept the changes in the Terms before they can access their accounts.
However I accept that the company has the right to make those decisions, it’s not up to the customers or members to tell them what they can and cannot do with their business.
It is in my own best interests to see THS to continue to flourish and I truly believe it will in the long run after this thing settles down and the unhappy members either follow through on their threats to leave, or accept it, pay their fees, and carry on as usual.
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Of course it’s up to the customers and members.
Otherwise it’s dictatorship. One decides and all the others just simply follow.
it is a business. your ability to use any particular service is not a human right, much less when you require it to conform to your own desired patterns of operation. i said this above in response to someone else - you are welcome to leave. you have the right to leave. you have the right to spend your time complaining about it online, if you wish to use your time and energy that way. but we all have to make the decision if these changes work for us, and if they don’t, we can move on.
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But surely it is a solution to help the shareholders earn a fortune from the poor sitters? the best bit is that the shareholders do absolutely nothing, while the sitters work very hard for free looking after peoples pets. You must be so ashamed to do your job Jenny!
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Lol something doesn’t have to go as far as denying human rights for people to be upset it is egregious and exploitative.
The cut-throat “it’s a business, welcome to the free market!” approach is not the kind of attitude people really vibe with when the nature of that business is the love and care of beloved pets.
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then use an alternative platform. you are not required to use this one if you disagree with its ethos.
I’m aware - but people are allowed to discuss the semantics of things they disagree with freely.
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i’m not sure what semantics has to do with the booking fee, but sure.
This is a really good point. This is shifting THS away from a community based on paid membership with free exchange after that. We all know that’s a murky area with immigration (we’re just minding the pets if our friends, after all!) and I’m not a lawyer—but this payment could bring legal obligations in the sense that we sitters are now paying to be at the specific housesit, and the homeowners are paying to have us.
Maybe the legal angle and threat of lawsuits is one that these venture capitalist vultures might listen to…
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My plan renews the 5th of January unfortunately, but I’m thinking about everyone here, not just me.
I have a friend who picks up small sits together with longer ones (she does TH full time), and she’s really not happy about this.
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I get that we have a place to stay for free, and we can visit places, but we do a lot of work in the houses we stay: we do pay for travel, we look after the pets, we clean their spaces, we clean the homes, we’re even requested to do gardening jobs. Is it fair that over the subscription we also have to pay for each sit? Why are they squeezing more money out of the people that do the work, while TH got a cash influx of $100.000.000?
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Yeah… I felt the same way and know 100% that it will create two results:
1- Peeps will look at this more and more like an exchange. Where I don’t look at it that way. Uber ad AirBnB were similar in the start. It will feel more transactional and more hosts (and sitters?) will start acting more that way. And I will be perceived as somoene who is ‘getting free housing for pet sitting’ - which is not how I view it, nor experience it…
2- They will 100% continue to raise this number. One day soon it will be $50-100 per sit.
The more ethical way of doing this if you want peeps to feel committed to sits, would be to charge both parties $50-100 and if the sit GOES THROUGH, that they get the funds back. But this isn’t really about making us responsible to the sits. It’s like you said. About Greed.
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This for sure can be the case. I don’t want to sit for hosts who have large properties and don’t have their regular cleaners and maintenance service providers. I don’t clean in my home city. I hire someone for 2 hours if it’s a smallish flat/ home. I don’t want to sit for those who say 3 hours max to be gone. I am good with a 4-6 hour guideline. I have sat for many who say that’s a guideline but occasional longer stretches can be accommodated. My regular sit in Somerset where I used to live, has their own cleaner, gardener, and if I ever need to be gone for a whole day I can ask one of them to take the dogs for a walk. I am currently sitting in a beautiful paradise in Greece for an off-season hotel. They ask only 4-ish hours a few times a week and ask for someone not to be FT online. I can juggle this because they were SUPER generous in the things they provided and gifted me on arrival and the stocked house they left. I have had many sits like this. But I don’t again look for the pay-to-play / transactional…. I just look for those who are looking for the true spirit of reciprocity.
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It’s not a business. This move and the last few moves are clearly stating that they want to turn this into a business. But this community was never a business in the beginning, as it was intended to be.
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Hopefully there will be a lot of members who just skip the confirmation and the fee and agree off site.
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