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Conferences are, mostly, absolutely a scam. They're primarily a way for speakers to launder free time into reputation, without having to actually put in the wor
by twic 7y ago
Conferences are, mostly, absolutely a scam. They're primarily a way for speakers to launder free time into reputation, without having to actually put in the work to become an expert, and secondarily a way for attendees to launder company training budgets into paid time off.
As you observe, the actual educational value is substantially less than putting the same amount of time into reading.
This is why it really grinds my gears when I see conference speakers whining on Twitter about being mistreated ("they refused to pay for business class flights!"), because speakers are already being paid to advance their own career!
- asjw 7y ago> and secondarily a way for attendees to launder company training budgets into paid time off. That's the only reason I still go, making sure that the hotel has a rooftop pool at least! it also happened at a conference that some speaker showed some of my experiments as an inspiration for the topic they were talking about ,without crediting me, even though it wasn't hard to find me Quality is so low nowadays that the guy was speaking there on the stage, showing my code, while I was in the audience knowing that it wasn't talk material, or I would be the one presenting it at a conference!
- skinkestek 7y ago> and secondarily a way for attendees to launder company training budgets into paid time off. Speak for yourself. My job has gotten good value from the conferences I go to but if the rest of you live like that that would go a good way towards explaining why my very reasonable requests always has to be defended :-/