I've found Meetup alright for finding things to do with other people, but it doesn't work well (at least for me) to find people to be with. Meetup helped introduce me to a once-a-month board game group which is nice, but the problem is that the people I meet through this are sort of stuck in that "role": they aren't my friends and won't be, they are just people I play board games with. Whereas my true friends are people I've hanged out with, speak with weekly, confided in, etc., you can't expect to have that friendship intimacy from strangers who just want a regular activity.
My feeling is that we're losing the facilities to make general friends, and that void is being filled with the non-optimal but best-you-can-do interest-based groups. This is even more effective on the internet where you can find even the most niche group that may not have been possible when we were limited to our local area.
In short: Meetup is good for activities, but it doesn't fulfill the third space OP mentioned.
You're on the money. As I've elucidated elsewhere I think people are going about this backwards, because it's all we know: create organizations surrounding particular subjects, then have people join in. In many cases people are surfing around these groups as a means to an end, they don't care the slightest about the subject but they need it as a medium to connect with others. Not only is this contrived, it can lead to friction between individuals who want to focus on the subject and others who want to go on tangents away from it. This problem disappears if you simply have a space where people can choose to mingle or focus on their projects. There are collaborative workspaces, makerspaces, University grounds.. the issue is it can cost a pretty penny to rent, or attend, those spaces.
I've made friends with people at Meetup but I also agree with the above. My guess is that there are people that are looking to make friends, but whether they succeed or fail, they're going to stop going to the Meetup. What this means is that you're more likely to meet the regulars that really aren't that interested in making general friends.
I’ve been the lead organizer of a largish group with a couple hundred very active members. But getting to that point was quite a challenge that was made harder by Meetup. The group still ended up falling apart.
The Meetup platform is pretty terrible. It’s designed to get people to join many groups, most of which they never engage with and just get a lot of spam from. I’m sure >99.99% of pre-pandemic “social” Meetup groups were totally inactive. Most of the rest would have semi-regular events that <4 people would sign up for.
That said, I think there’s a lot room to build a better version of Meetup.com. The main problem with it is that the managers just don’t know what they’re doing, or are in too deep with tech debt and legacy code. If someone here actually wants to build a better version of Meetup, let me know.
I think one key to a better Meetup would be to solve the no-show problem. From what I understand this is the greatest issue that large-group organizing has on the platform, to the point that I've seen people regularly write sassy rants on event posts to guilt people into accurately updating whether they're showing up or not.
Having managed large groups, the no-show rate was large but extremely consistent (always within the range of 74-82%, pre-covid that is). Because it was so consistent, we could reliably plan both the space and refreshments.
I think part of fixing the problem of no-shows would be to not let members see who/how many people have said that they're going. If 25 people say they're going to show up, then it's not a big deal if I don't, right? Until half the people have the same idea. There will be more perceived social pressure to keep that commitment if people don't think they're just going to get lost in a crowd.
Oh jeez my worst nightmare might just be going to a Meetup without knowing how many people I should expect and ending up being the only one who showed up. If Meetup didn’t tell me how many people RSVP’d I’d never go to any of them.
