.@mhall119 is developing an ethical alternative to #MeetUp called #GetTogether.
There's already a flagship site up and running:
https://gettogether.community/
The dev is working on #ActivityPub support and is requesting feedback on what more needs to be done:
https://github.com/GetTogetherComm/GetTogether/issues/60
If you're interested in helping federate GetTogether, join the discussion at the link above.
@switchingsocial Is "ethical" the wording that he's used?
Not explicitly, but this is an open source federated project, so it's innately a more ethical alternative. There is definitely a need for something like this.
Meetup.com effectively has a monopoly due to the network effect, and makes group organisers pay $15 a month for features that probably cost only a few cents to run.
@switchingsocial I totally get that yeah :P I just asked because the instance you linked to has the third-party services on top of the page, showing preference for that over the local sign in.
I get that's a personal preference thing but I hope that's an option that one can change
@brandon @switchingsocial login and sharing via 3rd party services can be configured on a per-instance basis, you can turn them all off if you want a privacy focused site
@mhall119 Fantastic, thanks Michael :)
@switchingsocial @mhall119 I'm surprised it has no #CLA considering Michael Hall works for #Canonical 🙃
Disappointing it is not #GPL though.
@gutigen @switchingsocial I haven't worked at Canonical in over a year. It's BSD because Django is BSD and that reduces impedance mismatch.
@mhall119 @switchingsocial Oh, fair enough 👌
@switchingsocial @mhall119 What is meetup?
A lot of people use it, which means the owners of Meetup can charge organisers a fortune (it costs $15 a month to have a simple events page).
@switchingsocial Why do I need a website for that? Can't I write a blog post? If signing up is the issue, it's an exact replication of Facebook events?
When you sign up to Meetup, you give it your location in real life. It then shows you upcoming events and groups near you whenever you log in. This doesn't happen with blog posts, because they're not part of an events network.
The problem with Meetup is it's a non-federated commercial site with a very strong network effect. People are pretty much forced to use it if they want to find local events, and prices for event listings are far too high.
...or create a GetTogether account.
@switchingsocial @mhall119 Ethical but using a TLD managed by a commercial company? And not the most ethical... https://www.eff.org/wp/which-internet-registries-offer-best-protection-domain-owners
If the GetTogether network is federated as planned, instances will be free to choose whichever TLD company they want.
@switchingsocial @bortzmeyer I wanted .org, but it was taken.
@switchingsocial @bortzmeyer Precisely, I hope to see things like gettogether.gnome org or gettogether.linux.com
@switchingsocial @mhall119 what's "unethical" with MeetUp???
It uses the network effect to force event organisers to pay $15 per month to have their events listed on a simple events page.
It's a monopoly, in effect.
@switchingsocial oh darn! I didn't realise that. This sucks big time (and it's probably the same thing with every other thing/service that one doesn't follow thoroughly) - form the occasional end user perspective the service looks just fine…
Yeah, it's not something an end user would notice. That's why meetups often have a small attendance fee, it's to cover the cost of the listing.
@switchingsocial But this is something (relatively) recent? I though that (ages ago, like 3-4 years ago) there wasn't such fee.
@switchingsocial @mhall119 this is awesome, thanks for sharing!