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1. Eric A. Meyer (meyerweb@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Feb-2023 11:21:53 JST Eric A. Meyer

   This is full of truth about tech conferences. It lays out why the US independent conference scene has collapsed, and the headwinds anyone thinking of moving into that space will face. I haven’t really said (and may never say) much about the end of AEA, but this is a damned good stand-in. https://remotesynthesis.com/blog/developer-conferences/

   • Anil Dash (anildash@me.dm)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Feb-2023 11:21:48 JST Anil Dash

     in reply to

     • Dan Hon
     • Mary Branscombe

     @danhon @marypcbuk @Meyerweb yep. like so many other things in the industry that aren't even worth fighting.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Michael Downey 🇺🇳 (downey@floss.social)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Feb-2023 11:21:48 JST Michael Downey 🇺🇳

     in reply to

     • Dan Hon
     • Anil Dash
     • Mary Branscombe

     @anildash

     Respectfully disagree:
     My life is worth fighting for.
     So is yours.

     This pandemic was and is preventable.

     @danhon @marypcbuk @Meyerweb

   • Dan Hon (danhon@dan.mastohon.com)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Feb-2023 11:21:50 JST Dan Hon

     in reply to

     • Anil Dash
     • Mary Branscombe

     @marypcbuk @anildash @Meyerweb every so often I see some conferences - I feel like it's mainly scientific/academic ones - where attendees post grateful pictures of public health policy. My gut feel is that in tech is that the content seekers with public health safety issues (I'd count me) have just given up.

   • Anil Dash (anildash@me.dm)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Feb-2023 11:21:51 JST Anil Dash

     in reply to

     • Dan Hon

     @danhon @Meyerweb this is the thing I was going to point out — the industry is increasingly centered around a small number of highly-concentrated tech giants, and they don’t want any events they don’t fully control. So they’ve been squeezing out even the biggest independent conferences for years; if execs don’t even have the option of going to an O’Reilly or Code conference, coders are not gonna be able to get sponsors for an unconference or camp.

   • Mary Branscombe (marypcbuk@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Feb-2023 11:21:51 JST Mary Branscombe

     in reply to

     • Dan Hon
     • Anil Dash

     @anildash @danhon @Meyerweb I have a theory; there is no mention AT ALL in the post about public health questions and whether the content-seekers feel that conferences are doing enough to make it safe for them (because they likely have a different calculus and risk model from the networkers). nothing about the #PHPledge or masks or even code of conduct safety, or how that plays into the community that an event grows from...

   • Dan Hon (danhon@dan.mastohon.com)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Feb-2023 11:21:52 JST Dan Hon

     in reply to

     @Meyerweb there's another factor here in the well-funded startups and tech companies increasingly running their own conferences, which also satisfies some of the networking need.