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Comment by flukus | Hacker News Reader

Do we need conferences at all?

Define "need". Do you need to breathe? Only if you think you need to live, and the only reason you want to live is that you are wired that way (selection bias, all those who didn't care enough have been removed). Life isn't something objective, you can just decide on what's important to you, as long as it doesn't interfere with your ability to go on living it does not matter. Some people like cats, some people like ice cream. Some people like to talk to other people in their field in person and go to conferences or far-away meetings. Some people go far away for no reason at all (vacation)!

Need as in "do they offer worthwhile value", which I'm sure anyone not being overly pedantic would assume.

You don't gain anything by seeing a live talk that you wouldn't on YouTube for instance. It's weird that so many of us work from home but insist on traveling to see a stage show.

  "do they offer worthwhile value"

You merely rephrased "need", so I refer to my reply above, same response.

The value of conferences isn't in sitting through talks. Depending on whether or not you need conferences depends on how much you value networking. If you want to network, then yes, conferences are hugely valuable.

Not just networking. Actually talking to the guy who wrote that interesting paper gives so much more than just watching the guy talk about his paper.

>It's weird that so many of us work from home but insist on traveling to see a stage show.

Isn't the interpersonal connection and networking from meeting together at a conference what's really important? The added value of a conference isn't so much what is heard from a speaker but the interaction one is afforded while there.

The talks are a side show. Conferences are about meeting people in your field (including those people who gave the talk) and talking face-to-face about all kinds of cool and interesting ideas.

If that's all you get out of conferences, you're correct.

There appear to be enough people disagreeing with you to imply that that is not the full value prop.

Probably it is time for VR to kick in.

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