Context

Meetup.com is a site for organising public, mostly in-person, events. The intention is for people to “meet up” and do something together. Specifically, the site states its purpose is to “meet new people, learn new things, find support, get out of their comfort zones, and pursue their passions, together”. After moving to a new city a few years ago, I’ve been to many Meetup events, mostly walking and hiking, to get out and about and maybe meet new friends. And I’ve come to the opnion that Meetup kinda sucks. It’s not very effective at achieving its goals. Here’s my rant about why.

Why is Meetup Not Great?

No One Knows it Exists

First up: out of all the events that could be on Meetup, barely any are. The possibility for events across all the genres of events are near endless. Yet even in the largest city in my country, there are disappointingly few events on Meetup with disappointingly few attendees. Of the events that exist, some are just advertising for pre-existing events (typically paid). I suspect that marketing for Meetup - if there was any - was never that effective. The site seems to have not “taken off” very well. Further, I heard that the company have raised the cost of hosting Meetup events, which may be a contributing factor.

People Don’t Actually Want to Meet People

The main reason I don’t find Meetup to be that effective is many attendees are not really in it to meet people. The majority of people seem to attend just for the fun of it, chat superficially, then run away as fast as possible when the event ends. Some people even attend with friends or family. This all kind of defeats the point of going to a public social event, if you don’t want to socialise with the public. Those of us who wish to meet new people and potentially build a more meaningful friendship are disappointed. I think in only one event did I meet people who I stayed in contact with after. I have been to several events where I did not interact with anyone (and I have an easy conversation starter, because I’m usually carrying my camera!).

People Form Cliques Instantly and Stick to Them

Always turn up early to a Meetup event, otherwise you won’t meet anyone. People tend to form groups in the first five minutes and stick to those groups for the entire event. If you don’t meet people instantly, you may as well go home. This effect is doubly bad since even if you do meet someone, you won’t be able to speak to anyone else because everyone is stuck together. Further, the groups are typically like-with-like in terms of age, sex, etc. so you’ll have a harder time meeting people who aren’t like you.

Rent-Seeking Event Organisers

Many event organisers charge for events. For events where setup was required, charging is fair enough. Where I find it egregious is for the events where it doesn’t cost the organiser anything - for example, walking or hiking. The main walking groups in my area charge $5 or $10 and often get dozens of attendees on a weekly or fortnightly basis. A conveniently small amount of money each, until you do the maths on how much money they are collecting in total. Meetup charges organisers, sure, but it isn’t charging that much. It also puts a bad taste to a supposedly well-meaning event when the organiser is profiting from it significantly.

The Walking Events Start Too Damn Early

Ok this last point is just a pet peeve of mine: the walking/hiking events have a weird obsession with starting early in the morning. Like 8AM or 9AM on a weekend. And they rarely do trails which require the entire day. As someone who isn’t an early bird, such times disqualify me from many otherwise good events. To make matters worse, the hiking events are often some distance from the city (makes sense), resulting in having to leave home ridicuously early for a weekend.

A Comment on Socialisation in Modern (Western) Society

You could point to specific, technical reasons why Meetup as a service has failed. Perhaps a more interesting conversation to be had is the apparent decline in general socialisation in our modern society. You may agree or disagree; personally from observation and mental health statistics, I believe it is true. Why don’t people just get together and “meet up” any more? Why do we need a website to help us socialise? And why, when that website exists, does it fail in its goal? It looks like things are changing in our society. We have replaced true social lives with a ghost of what they used to be.
Our society is, ironically, pushing us to be less and less social.