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Meetup.com was on fire with maker, programming, and tech meetups in Portland in 2010-2014. Some were huge (I recall the auditorium for Puppet Labs wall-to-wall

Meetup.com was on fire with maker, programming, and tech meetups in Portland in 2010-2014. Some were huge (I recall the auditorium for Puppet Labs wall-to-wall one point). Then ... poof. All gone, even before the pandemic. And it was super diverse topics: everything from NodeJS & Rust, and HTML1.0 to startups, manufacturing, and IoT hacking: heck, there was meetup for RF circuit enthusiasts! I just checked and there's still CTRL-H going strong, but not much else. From what I heard from two regular organizers is that it is just a LOT of work to run a consistently solid meetup, and eventually exhausting. I can see that: I remember thinking, "I could help but do I really want to use my small amount of free time for this?" So, hats off to people who ran those awesome meetups (Thubten, I'm looking at you!).

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
Exhausting plus everyone has to make a meetup account plus meetup started charging more and more plus why not just use Facebook since I'm the only one without a Facebook account Maybe a federated alternative will take off soon. It would be nice if email was federated in practice
- shagie 2y ago
  https://joinmobilizon.org/en/ https://joinmobilizon.org/en/ ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobilizon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobilizon ) Also from a few days ago - Show HN: Radius – A Meetup.com alternative https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40717398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40717398
walterbell 2y ago
> Meetup.com was on fire with maker, programming, and tech meetups in Portland in 2010-2014. Some were huge (I recall the auditorium for Puppet Labs wall-to-wall one point). Then ... poof. All gone, even before the pandemic. [2017] Acquired by WeWork [2018] Founder steps down as CEO [2019] New pricing model [2020] WeWork sold it to AlleyCorp [2024] Bending Spoons announced it will acquire Meetup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meetup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meetup
- demondemidi 2y ago
  That explains it! Son of a b....
dec0dedab0de 2y ago
same thing happened in philly about the same time.
itqwertz 2y ago
I also used to go to meetups every week in Portland during that time! It was great, free beer and pizza definitely helped me when i was struggling to get my career off the ground. Janrain had a great meetup space (old Nike basketball court with risers) with awesome tech topics that exposed the vast world of tech to a noob like me. Puppet Labs, Urban Airship, and New Relic also had top-tier meetups. Intel in Hillsboro was usually worth the MAX trip out there. Tons of swag, food, and opportunities for employment. The real issue with these meetups is that the money dried up. Most of the meetups had recruiters who were desperate to hire and sponsorship helped fund these meetups. Now that WFH is widely acceptable, there’s little incentive to court talent locally. Zoom meetups feel inorganic and lifeless, although they cost very little. There was a gold rush feel during the 2010’s, but I feel like that time is over. Cost-cutting, outsourcing, and the AI hype are leading to software becoming a less prestigious career than it once was. I don’t see this optimism coming back any time soon.
mlhpdx 2y ago
I would love to attend a systems-oriented meetup in Portland, and would be willing to organize/operate it though I’m quite bad at that kind of thing.
- pjungwir 2y ago
  If you add contact info to your profile, I will reach out. Or feel free to send me a note.
pjungwir 2y ago
Calagator has been dead for years, and I don't understand why. Way before the pandemic: agreed. Most of what I see there now is business networking or people selling something. But there are still things happening, e.g.: - pdxpug (Postgres) - Database Reading Group (DBRG) at PSU - pdx.rb - pdxruby Slack channel - pdxstartups Slack channel - Portland Papers We Love - Portland Linux Users Group - Linux Kernel meetup - Rose City Techies That's from just a little bit of research. But I miss when Calagator was full of cool stuff. What happened there I wonder? I've tried hosting things in my home/back yard before. One was just to come hack on your projects together. Another was to work on open source contributions. I'd be up for trying something like that again. Something about systems/databases would be right up my alley. Maybe a reading group. If anyone sees this and is interested, send me an email.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago

Exhausting plus everyone has to make a meetup account plus meetup started charging more and more plus why not just use Facebook since I'm the only one without a Facebook account Maybe a federated alternative will take off soon. It would be nice if email was federated in practice

shagie 2y ago
https://joinmobilizon.org/en/ https://joinmobilizon.org/en/ ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobilizon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobilizon ) Also from a few days ago - Show HN: Radius – A Meetup.com alternative https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40717398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40717398

walterbell 2y ago

> Meetup.com was on fire with maker, programming, and tech meetups in Portland in 2010-2014. Some were huge (I recall the auditorium for Puppet Labs wall-to-wall one point). Then ... poof. All gone, even before the pandemic. [2017] Acquired by WeWork [2018] Founder steps down as CEO [2019] New pricing model [2020] WeWork sold it to AlleyCorp [2024] Bending Spoons announced it will acquire Meetup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meetup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meetup

demondemidi 2y ago
That explains it! Son of a b....

dec0dedab0de 2y ago

same thing happened in philly about the same time.

itqwertz 2y ago

I also used to go to meetups every week in Portland during that time! It was great, free beer and pizza definitely helped me when i was struggling to get my career off the ground. Janrain had a great meetup space (old Nike basketball court with risers) with awesome tech topics that exposed the vast world of tech to a noob like me. Puppet Labs, Urban Airship, and New Relic also had top-tier meetups. Intel in Hillsboro was usually worth the MAX trip out there. Tons of swag, food, and opportunities for employment. The real issue with these meetups is that the money dried up. Most of the meetups had recruiters who were desperate to hire and sponsorship helped fund these meetups. Now that WFH is widely acceptable, there’s little incentive to court talent locally. Zoom meetups feel inorganic and lifeless, although they cost very little. There was a gold rush feel during the 2010’s, but I feel like that time is over. Cost-cutting, outsourcing, and the AI hype are leading to software becoming a less prestigious career than it once was. I don’t see this optimism coming back any time soon.

mlhpdx 2y ago

I would love to attend a systems-oriented meetup in Portland, and would be willing to organize/operate it though I’m quite bad at that kind of thing.

pjungwir 2y ago
If you add contact info to your profile, I will reach out. Or feel free to send me a note.

pjungwir 2y ago

Calagator has been dead for years, and I don't understand why. Way before the pandemic: agreed. Most of what I see there now is business networking or people selling something. But there are still things happening, e.g.: - pdxpug (Postgres) - Database Reading Group (DBRG) at PSU - pdx.rb - pdxruby Slack channel - pdxstartups Slack channel - Portland Papers We Love - Portland Linux Users Group - Linux Kernel meetup - Rose City Techies That's from just a little bit of research. But I miss when Calagator was full of cool stuff. What happened there I wonder? I've tried hosting things in my home/back yard before. One was just to come hack on your projects together. Another was to work on open source contributions. I'd be up for trying something like that again. Something about systems/databases would be right up my alley. Maybe a reading group. If anyone sees this and is interested, send me an email.