In 2007, Couchsurfing, a precursor site to Airbnb, where people could find places to stay for free all over the world, measured success in the “net positive hours that were created between two people’s lives.” The site used data such as how much time the couchsurfer and the host spent together and how positive the experience was (i.e., “Did you have a good time together?”). By Couchsurfing’s calculus, the time two people initially spent searching profiles, sending messages, and setting up a stay on the Web site was factored as a negative, because “they didn’t view that as a contribution to
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