Comment by Renaud | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Renaud | Hacker News Reader

I wish there were more offerings for socialising around hobbies.

Strava looks great for some sport activities, but I’d like to meet other nerds into 80s computing, hobby electronics, comics, sci-fi, home automation, kayaking, city exploration, etc

You invariably end up with lical Facebook groups, which are just a flow of posts, and require a FB account, or some non local reddit group, or small scale website you have no idea exists.

Something is missing. It sure would require mass appeal to be useful, but a ‘Tinder for your hobbies’ might be nice. Get matches from people near you who enjoy a cross-section of the same stuff.

Add some social aspects for those who like to show off or share (don’t force it though), make discovery easy, let people organise events…

> Something is missing.

It sounds to me like what is missing is community.

Around here, if you go outside you're soon going to learn who the like-minded nerds are. Even if you don't chance-encounter them directly, the people you do encounter are apt to know them and let you know about them. From there, you can reach out. Connection made.

In fact, I was just having a conversation with an old friend who recently moved to my area and he noted how everyone is out there talking to each other and finding out about each other, which felt foreign to him. He says where he moved from he was effectively anonymous. I suspect your living arrangement is more like his previously was.

Perhaps the solution isn't tech-based, but simply for us to be more neighbourly the old fashioned way?

Doesn't meetup.com somewhat fulfil this, although it's most useful to people living in big cities

Meetup.com in large cities has become a money-grab, spawning a bunch of semi-professional “event planners” who charge much more than the cost of putting on the event. Feeling like you’re paying for the privilege of talking to other people is demoralizing. People want a place to meet other people that doesn’t feel like they’re paying to be “set up”.

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