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Comment by steveBK123 | Hacker News Reader

The end of interest-based 3rd places is one of the many things contributing to the compartmentalization / socioeconomic bubble of modern society.

People used to frequent in person things like specialty retailers, arcades, hobby clubs, religious groups, etc. When you meet real life people in person based on shared interests, you make connections across socioeconomic groups.

I just don't see nearly as much of this in todays society as 20+ years ago.

People with kids sometimes experience this via all the activities they take their kids to, but even there a lot of kids activities have become economically stratified. Instead of playing in the local $50/year rec baseball league, there's tiers of travel teams to meet any budget.

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> People with kids sometimes experience this via all the activities they take their kids to

This is something welcome I didn’t expect to come from parenthood. Like many others I had thought to myself “how do you even make new friends in your thirties?!” and then once I had kids… bam. New friendship groups.

For us the local park and playground are a great equalizer in terms of economic stratification. But when the weather turns bad it rears its head again as people head to $50 a go trampoline parks and the like.

Public school is another unifier, of course. I’m in NYC and our preschool was very obviously not a reflection of the neighborhood or city around us. But once my kids entered the city-funded Pre-K they started to meet a ton of kids from different backgrounds. It’s very different from the childhood I had but I’m very glad my kids have it.

I kind of experienced that but the relationships were more superficial than I'd have liked. If the "shared interest" is happy kids together it doesn't directly translate to the adults shared interests. But then again, maybe it was just me being me.

Same, the relationships were all sort of "convenience" relationships that were dependent on the kids activities to sustain. Once the kids were older, or their interests changed, and there wasn't a scheduled game or event to bring everyone together, those relationships just evaporated.

It's a good jumping off point, but becoming friends requires time and work.

When we're young, we have nothing but time spent together. As adults, who spend an hour at the local park with some kids, those relationships require more effort to grow.

We have a few friends we've made through our kid, and it definitely takes more work to maintain - but it's been very worth it so far.

As I age, my desire for friends for friends' sake diminishes. If someone doesn't offer something to my life that I value, I'll have a hard time putting energy into them.

It was so easy to make strong bonds as a kid, captive with other kids in a building most of the time. Now there is a cost:benefit I have to weigh a persons worth to me against.

> becoming friends requires time, work, and a mutual desire for friendship

FTFY ;-)

How dare you imply that people don't want to be my friend! I'M PLEASANT AND LIKEABLE PERSON, YOU JERK!

overall I had a very similar experience, but did make a few very good, long-term friends out of it that have survived our kids growin up and apart.

I miss the neighborhood officianados.

The movie buff at the blockbuster.

The music fiend at the local record shop

The gamer at the mom & pop game store.

The guy at Egghead Software who would let me play battle chess for hours.

Of course there are millions of them online these days, but that face-to-face interaction with the local officanado was a different thing. It wasn't a forum. And oddly, it wasn't a library either - it was a place of business - but it didn't feel like one in those moments.

Nerding out with a local stranger over a movie or a game or a band was something very different from what we do today. It was a different way for the local nerds to shine, while making a living adjacent to the things they knew so well.

The quality of your local nerd has also likely decreased substantially. Being a nerd used to be a lot more work. Now, if you're having a face-to-face interaction with a local aficionado there's a high chance you're just interacting with a walking TTS version of Reddit.

The classic nostalgia version of this is the opening of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982). Ridgemont Mall in the movie is the Sherman Oaks Galleria, which has appeared in at least 12 movies, and is still operating as a mall.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weKrwubPbeI

"…the Sherman Oaks Galleria…"

Yeah, there are some things I'm not nostalgic for at all.

There's still some record shops if you know where to look. Physical media is making something of a resurgence including with GenZ.

I was half joking with a friend that I want a everything-middle-aged-man-store open weekends (and maybe 5-8pm thursday/friday) that carries a hodge hodge of physical media, used hobby kit and maybe serves espressos/teas, does hair cuts.. and maybe do some basic EV car maintenance like tire rotation/annual state safety inspection.

Some place I can take care of needs and also enjoy some wants.

You’re not going to like this answer. But I think you’ve just described a Walmart Supercenter.

Most definitely. I'm fortunate to have four record shops in my neighborhood, and I make my way to them every couple months. Along with some friends of mine, we trade off hosting record-listening parties a few times a year.

I love that vinyl has remained relevant. I believe that's true because of the record shop experience. It's one of the few places, besides maybe a cocktail bar, where you can expect to converse with a local expert at length while they're simply doing their job.

Perhaps it matters where you grew up. I grew up in LA and was a young in the Bay Area. I experienced none of what you describe and I was often in shops. Me and a friend would go to Rhino Records near Westwood. I understand it was a legendary record store. But even being there wasn't particular social. The only hang-out shop was Epicenter Zone in SF - but that was specifically intended to not be like your usual shops, which weren't social venues.

I think it has to be a somewhat smaller sized shop with the same 3 staff on rotation for the social thing. Applied to both my video store and game store in the 90s early 00s.

Yep. Streetside Records in Kansas City, not that Tower Records crap.

Employees got to put on whatever music they wanted.

I should ask my friend who worked there—but there was a lot of fun they had with that. Perhaps, with their musical selections playing on the store speakers, they were even trolling some customers from time to time.

(I know they enjoyed playing John Foxx's single "Endlessly" when Ann Lassley was in the store since it sounded like Foxx was singing her name.)

I worked at a mall chain video store in the 90s. We’d play Star Wars on the mall facing screens which would inevitably bring people in. Sorry, it’s out of print. The employee recommendation endcap always contained quirky and unique titles as well.

I found some info about the Epicenter Zone in SF here: https://www.foundsf.org/Epicenter_Zone

Should have gone to The Record Collector if you wanted to experience a real character

Lack of cheap real estate is the root of all problems. Some will point to private equity buying up everything and ruining (baseball, bowling etc.). If you had cheap real estate, you can still operate a business and compete, but once your landlord raises rent every year regardless of how your business is doing, even the successful ones have to pack their bags. So many successful businesses in my city and the neighboring cities have shut down simply because “they couldn’t come to a mutual agreement on the lease with the landlord”.

I used to think you wanted to own the premises you operated out of, but you're probably just better off leasing it out and getting paid whether the business had a tough month or not.

And why operate a franchise yourself when you can just own stock.

I believe the social feedback is what have gotten so bad. Too much bog corps and remote landlords to care.

Putnam's "Bowling Alone" (2000) is about this, and it is something that has been in decline since the 1950s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone.

"The Pursuit of Loneliness" (1970) — Philip Slater

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0807042013?lv=shuf&channelId=500&p...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Slater

Yea, agreed completely here.

I spent so many hours at our local mall with my friends growing up. It had an arcade, a movie theater, book store, game store, place to eat. Our parents could just drop us there for hours. Skating rinks and bowling alleys were also a solid option.

It's one of the things that make it worth the time investment to follow sports, even if you're typically not interested in it. Getting people together to watch the game, go to games, tailgate, etc is huge.

Small town malls have suffered the most but a lot of large cities still have vibrant malls to shop at and hang out at if you happen to be a teen. Dave and Busters and other similar arcade/mixed entertainment centers are also way more common now plus random things like climbing gyms, trampoline places, etc.

From what I can tell skating rinks and bowling alleys are still reasonably popular especially when you factor for entertainment centers that have mini bowling alleys (much more common now).

> Dave and Busters and other similar arcade/mixed entertainment centers are also way more common now

One thing that I've realized as I have gotten older, arcades have changed a lot. Dave and Busters and other arcades are designed to extract money as quickly as possible. When I was younger, if you were good at a game you could keep playing so my friends and I got very good at these games.

There are arcades in Austin that charge a cover and just allow free play (typically subsidized by beverage sales). But some have the Dave and Busters model. The games are definitely more expensive than they were. In 80s and early 90s a $2 or $3 stack of quarters would grant a fair amount of entertainment.

Do you mind sharing which ones?

Not Austin, but in DFW there's a local chain called freeplay arcade. Its a ~$13 cover charge and then unlimited gaming.

https://freeplayinc.com/

While not totally covered by a cover charge, there's also an arcade called Nickelrama. Cover charge, and then all games cost like 1-6 nickels.

https://nickelrama.com/

There's a brand called Cidercade (used to be very affiliated with a cidery), they've apparently got a location in Austin as well. Similar story, $12 cover, all games included.

https://cidercade.com/

Cidercade on Riverside in Austin is one of the spots I was thinking of. They have a pretty good selection of old arcades.

There is also Pixel Palace in Round Rock that has no cover but most games are 25 cents.

Austin Toy Museum has a bunch of arcades ($17 entrance fee). Austin Pinball Collective for mostly pinball.

Pinballz is good too but expensive and does the Dave and Busters model, however, most of their classic arcades are cheap to play.

I recently stopped by my hometown mall for the first time in 20 years. I described it to a friend as "it was like a neutron bomb went off".

It had been a middle/upper middle class mall back then - big fast food filled food court, Macys/Filenes/Lord&Taylor, it even eventually got (and lost) an Apple Store.

It was essentially empty and the stores had all gone down market. The nicest clothing store was H&M, and a bunch of storefronts were taken over by random nameless resale small businesses.

Forget corporate owned malls, what US towns need are actual downtowns. When I first came to the US I was shocked at either the lack of a downtown or if there was one, it was mostly run down and abandoned. Sometimes the "downtown" was just an intersection of strip malls. I suppose the oddball zoning rules in the US don’t help but so many "towns" in the US are just blobs of buildings and not actual towns.

Most towns in U.S. have historical downtowns with a main street, court house, library, police station, etc and a collection of retail stores, it just likely isn't on the main highway, you have to look it up but they're definitely very common in at least the bigger cities of the county they are situated in.

Some are rundown, but theres thousands that are well kept. They just aren't the main shopping hubs they used to be, mostly boutique stores, coffee shops, barber shops, etc.

Stop using Amazon and see what happens.

I stopped using Amazon early last year (because Canadian). I was forced to find local shops for the stuff I was getting online and, to my surprise, a lot of those specialty retailers are still out there. Some are a bit more expensive. Some are, surprisingly, not. At many places, the staff are still a fantastic resource.

There's a world beyond Amazon that's still out there, alive and kicking. All you have to do is stop making Amazon your first and last place to look for things.

The question becomes how long do I have to drive? I feel like your idea only works in a city. Target stopped carrying a soap that worked for my kid and that was it for options as far as stores with specialty soaps that aren't abour perfumes and scents. After that, it's scouring Facebook for a local person who makes it and hoping they decide to keep their hobby going (the ine I found didn't ). Then I'm back to Amazon.

That's assuming I can find a local person or shop. Sometimes I luck up like I found a guy who sharpens basically everything with a blade. I found a tailor who is willing to make fulfill these insane request I have like create me a set of mini-crab sheets made from bamboo. But then, I can't anyone who sells a safety can opener or a jar opener that actually works well (most are crap). Toys feel impossible if you don't want plastic crap. So on, so on. Buying local is a really hard when you're in a small town. I think 100K or more is the sweet spot where it's probably possible.

Yes, you'll fail to find some things locally and have to order it online. The key is not to go to Amazon first, because then you're guaranteed not to find the local alternatives.

The internet has largely replaced / substituted this, which has been a mixed thing. Like minded people in smaller niches have been able to find each other online for example, much more than IRL, and much more at long range / internationally. It's made the world a smaller place, at the cost of knowing people closer to home.

It’s been a disaster.

It sounds good in principle. And I was very excited when discovering the Internet (Usenet) and a place to discuss all my geeky interests with many similar minded people.

However, now that the Internet has so overpowered in person relationships across the board, the cost in mental health, anxiety and general unhappiness is staggering.

It's not an all-or-nothing.

If you live in a society that really devalues everything you like, having that online outlet is the difference between giving up on life[1], and being passionate.

Imagine being told you're broken because you like books, movies, and video games, and having almost every aspect of society reinforce that message.

[1] Not in the suicide sense, but in the "Life will always suck" sense.

I was that kid.

Going to a university in a city helped a lot with that. Long conversations about comic books with friends, going to the nearby comics store on new release day with lots of other nerds, etc.

I’m no longer convinced adding the Internet to that has been a net positive. Maybe if we could have froze its growth and development at some specific point…?

Discord has done wonders for gaming shops keeping people connected and organizing in between weekly game sessions.

Meetup could be superceded by the hitch/tinder model to organize activities with individuals over scheduled events ran by organizers.

It helps before you get to university, and once you leave. The place you live for work may have very few people with similar interests.

>It’s been a disaster.

It wasn't a disaster until megaplatforms came alone.

Because back then the Internet was a hobby itself. Normal people(for a lack of better word) mostly weren't online.

You had to actually deliberately "go online." None of this always-on cable connection at home, let alone always-on wireless in your pocket. Nope, you had to deliberately decide "I'm going to go into the online world now." and then later "I'm going to go back to the real world." Much better IMO.

It's always this way. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et. al. killed the social internet, as Amazon and Walmart killed the mom-and-pop retailers, as Blockbuster killed the local video stores (but then Netflix killed Blockbuster).

Yes but that’s my point. Taken as a whole it’s been a net negative.

Agree. I think it might have been okay if the Internet had stayed in the naïve form it had circa 2003. In those days, I had a circle of friends on LiveJournal (the closer of which became AIM buddies as well) and I think we all derived huge positive benefits from having that in our lives.

The shift to the algorithmic "Feed" established adversarial incentives across the board - the platforms are incentivized to addict and enrage, the individuals are incentivized not to be vulnerable for friends, but to be viral and get approval of the public, since if your posts don't perform for strangers, the algorithm won't even show them to your closest friends.

The Internet gave us an easier way to make "friends" with no apparent downsides, only to rugpull us all as soon as most of the 'pre-Internet' places and social habits had been completely destroyed. Now we are all obviously lonely and hate the Internet mess, but whole generations are now too awkward to even speak to others in person, just from lack of experience.

I think its made relationships more short term and superficial.

We may recognize a handle on a forum, but most of the time we don't know anything about the other person other than a narrow part of their interests.

I sometimes wonder if it was all worth it. What if we banned/rolled back the internet? Would we go back to more small-town-like community, and again have the nerd minority who "can't wait to get out of this place?" It feels like the current tech landscape is a reaction to that environment.

I would.

And I’m the nerd minority who “couldn’t wait to get out of this place.”

Now, I would still go to a big city where I could find people with similar interests. But the cost to society of all the Internet has wrought has been far too high.

> The end of interest-based 3rd places

A good jiujitsu gym is pretty amazing for this. It's a melting pot of people from all socioeconomic and political groups. It's great exercise, can be done at any age, and at any level. It also cannot be done alone. After you spend 5 minutes trying to choke someone and them you, it's hard to not have a conversation after.

Unfortunately, because it's become so popular it's gotten expensive, sometimes >$100/month.

It's a societal problem, mainly in the West. Many cultures around the world don't have this issue.

When I was living in Iran, we didn't need a hobby club to meet people, you just picked up the phone and everyone came over. I have vivid memories of going on trips with 5 cars filled with people

When I went to Peru with my wife to meet her extended family, it was very similar. Heck you can just randomly talk to people and meet them. At 9PM, the streets are exploding with people in Arequipa or Tehran.

The biggest difference is that in the West, people have the idea of "personal space", which doesn't really exist in some culture. People are seen more as one, rather than many. Of course this has its own downsides, but I suppose nothing is perfect.

You picked up the phone and everyone came over, that’s cool. What number did you call? Was this a public service of some sort?

I'm not sure if you're joking, but I think it was implied that OP called the people.

Right. I think the underlying question is, how do you get to know these people in the first place?

Isn't this the whole point of the discussion? How do you initially get to know people?

Yes this is the meta point I was working at. OK any of us can call our friends to come over, how does one make the friends in the first place!

I recommend a group fitness class gym. This brings me much joy and I lost 60 pounds. A positive 3rd space.

I was around for many of these things. At different points in my life from the 70s to the 90s, I'd hang around arcades, the local coop bike shop, a hobby shop that specialized in D&D and occasionally an alternative video rental place. It was honestly miserable. Shops seldom facilitated socializing but when that was it, some people did it. (religious groups are in a completely different category, I think and one didn't experience).

The era when people semi-hung out at shops wasn't the "glory days" but their end. The era, that I get only historical research, where you had broad socializing was the era of clubs organized around neighborhoods and interests. American society was pretty isolated by the 1950s and only got more so after that.

Thank you for saying this. I'm in my late 30s, so I only experienced the tail end of it.

I remember everyone was stressed out all the time. Attitude was sorta: "I did not drive all this way just for you nor to be told...". Karen was not just that one lady. It was everyone. Customer service was objectively worse in most places than it is today. Hearing screaming babies and feeling carsick all the time was just a fact of life. Food was worse. Cars were ugly and slow. Disgusting smells were inescapable. People had no shame and were not shy with the vulgarities.

I suspect the audience pining for those days is split between the would-be perpetrators of the unpleasantness and younger people not knowing what to expect.

I implore those young people to search for "peopleofwalmart" and then imagine overhearing the worst parts of reddit in real life.

Yeah,

Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone talks about the decline of community in America but the decline of community inside shops isn't mentioned because it never really existed. Taverns - yes, community once exist there but that was destroy by Prohibition, ie a long time ago. Cafe community in the US actually grew into existence in the 90s in my observation of the US.

> The end of interest-based 3rd places

Whatever happened to pubs and the shared interest of drinking beer (and getting drunk in the process ...)? ;-)

In the UK: supermarkets selling cheap alcohol. Decline in drinking. Labour costs, energy costs, rent costs. House prices. Pubcos taking over.

Just battered from every possible direction

Beer got replaced by TikTok as the primary form of escapism. No joke.

Inordinately loud, reflective rooms. They just encourage drinking to excess, absolutely no talking (or hearing), paying, and leaving.

Join a club. Lions, Masons, knights of Columbus, Oddfellows, woodworkers guild, something like that. They're dying for lack of youth membership and they're still around.

Unfortunately, these clubs sometimes (knowingly or unknowingly) sabotage themselves when it comes to attracting young members.

A lot of these organizations, you go there to share an interest, and you walk in and they're not really talking about their interest. To be blunt: a lot of them are just a bunch of old men griping about old-man things, making old-man jokes that were acceptable in the '80s, bringing up (ahem) old-man politics... This kind of stuff is kryptonite to a 25 year old who wants to join your club.

This is pretty much exactly what the local HAM radio org was in the place I used to live. I went to one meeting and noped out of there pretty quickly.

Some of the organizations mentioned have never welcomed me - the first hurdle to some of these is simply being female. Freemasons only accept men IIRC. Knights of Columbus? Catholic. Oddfellows acceptance really depends on the individual lodge, despite what the literature says. These organizations aren't always in smaller areas either, so you aren't joining if you are in a small town an hour's drive from the nearest meeting place.

Our astronomy club is the same way. Except it's a bunch of people standing around in the dark, looking at things through telescopes. And then, when everybody's seeing the object, we move on to the next one. We have a few folks active in things like astrophotography, variable star observing, and tracking carbon stars, but these are pretty obscure corners that it takes a newbie time to warm up to.

Yeah, the DMV is basically about it now.

Meetups? conferences?

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