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Meetup has historically been a great resource for technology events in my area… but I've found they've become quite "needy" lately. They tried to gamify joining

Meetup has historically been a great resource for technology events in my area… but I've found they've become quite "needy" lately. They tried to gamify joining/attending meetups, which leads to a lot of email noise. Maybe some people want to be in 100 meetup groups and attend a meetup every day of the week? But I doubt it's most users. They've also started showing "special offers". You often need to click through them to actually do what you came to the site to do. I understand that Meetup was likely really hurt by the pandemic, but I hope this new leadership can find a way to make interacting with service fun again. It currently feels rather skeezy. EDIT: As noted below, Bending Spoons also bought Evernote and that hasn't gone well. So, this might be a great space if someone is looking to compete!

bdcravens 3y ago
Unfortunately, the heyday of technology events is in the past. Pretty much every business goes through a cycle of desperately clawing for revenue when the core business model falters.
- danieldisu 3y ago
  Yep, those tasty formation and travel budgets are also being squeezed in the quest for profits, reducing the market size for these tech events...
- phkahler 3y ago
  I've been to one or two tech related meetups and they sucked. I've been to many many other meetups and had a great time. Still going every week or two.
vpontis 3y ago
Context / Plug: I'm a founder of a Meetup competitor / successor called lu.ma I think Meetup got in a hard position because they didn't have very many paid events and their communities tended to churn off of Meetup. It's hard to make money as a community organizing tool so they tried a bunch of different ways of making money, including charging guests + showing irrelevant ads which both don't work. Also, Meetup was in a very weird spot before the pandemic. They were bought by WeWork and then sold off in the WeWork crunch. I doubt any of the original team is still there. Anyway, lu.ma is free to use for free events so if there's anything I can reach out with, feel free to ping me at victor@lu.ma
- htrp 3y ago
  How do you guys make money ?
starkparker 3y ago
I'm surprised that LinkedIn hasn't done more here, at least for meetups that were work-adjacent like many tech meetups were/are. There's LinkedIn Local, but that's just a branding program and not a tool to facilitate meetups.

bdcravens 3y ago

Unfortunately, the heyday of technology events is in the past. Pretty much every business goes through a cycle of desperately clawing for revenue when the core business model falters.

danieldisu 3y ago
Yep, those tasty formation and travel budgets are also being squeezed in the quest for profits, reducing the market size for these tech events...
phkahler 3y ago
I've been to one or two tech related meetups and they sucked. I've been to many many other meetups and had a great time. Still going every week or two.

vpontis 3y ago

Context / Plug: I'm a founder of a Meetup competitor / successor called lu.ma I think Meetup got in a hard position because they didn't have very many paid events and their communities tended to churn off of Meetup. It's hard to make money as a community organizing tool so they tried a bunch of different ways of making money, including charging guests + showing irrelevant ads which both don't work. Also, Meetup was in a very weird spot before the pandemic. They were bought by WeWork and then sold off in the WeWork crunch. I doubt any of the original team is still there. Anyway, lu.ma is free to use for free events so if there's anything I can reach out with, feel free to ping me at victor@lu.ma

htrp 3y ago
How do you guys make money ?

starkparker 3y ago

I'm surprised that LinkedIn hasn't done more here, at least for meetups that were work-adjacent like many tech meetups were/are. There's LinkedIn Local, but that's just a branding program and not a tool to facilitate meetups.