This is Meetup.com. (Or was before the pandemic; most groups I've looked at still haven't resumed, and who knows when the hysteria will ever subside.)

It is easier to find people that share your interests and make them friends, than to make your friends share your interests. Meetup and perhaps local Facebook groups are the way in to that.

Meetup is great for users, for individual hosts it's way too expensive. I can't view the current pricing, but my small group closed after I got tired of paying $90/6 months for a glorified email list + calendar.

For companies that's chump change, but for a casual interest group it's too much.

Tried to migrate the core members to Facebook groups which is free, but there wasnt enough interest to keep it active. Friends with a few people still from it though.

Meetup is key for discoverability. Both because Meetup is where people actively go to look for something, and because they may incidentally see your group/event while doing something else on Meetup. There's nothing else that gives a group local findability quite like Meetup. That's what you're really paying for, although agreed that the price is an obstacle.

Also agreed that migrating to Facebook usually doesn't work. In any group, there's a quarter or third or so who refuse to use FB, and that tends to kill your critical mass.

Similarly, all the smaller groups I was part of closed down promptly after the pricing change.

It's not reasonable for small or infrequent gatherings.

Meetup events (at least the ones I've been to) seems to be coming back online (UK Brighton area). Shameless plug for Flock #10 for anyone around Shoreham - one of the reasons to like it is the "No Selling!" rule.

[0] https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/helloflock/

i feel like "traditional" events for casually connecting and meeting with others have become somehow underrated — things like attending trivia events at a local pub, pick-up sports leagues, book signings, meetup groups, local volunteering orgs, and stuff like that all exist and, post-lockdown in many cities, seem even livelier and more interesting than before, with many people just going out and talking to others with no ulterior motives or expectations of anything else but meeting interesting people

once you're at a physical event, you already have one thing in common with everyone there, which is your presence at the event, and it's really easy to strike up a conversation about something topical and then get to know someone better—the issue with a lot of these apps is that the initial conversation can be awkward or fizzle out quickly if both sides aren't completely engaged, which is often the case anyway

Meetup is the best app I've found for this. The group nature of most of the events steers it away from tending towards dating.

Yeah, I think these sites pop up from time to time but seemingly always get pulled and drift towards hookup sites and "dating" sites. I think AFF was one and then became what it is now. Maybe the word "adult" was psychosocially loaded with other meaning in this context and took over the original mission.

The problem with these types of sites is the cold start issue. Not enough users to make people stay engaged. After viewing few to no options, most users will move on.

Bumble tried to tackle the issue with its BFF feature, but it is still underused. Very few people on the app.

We used to have these things called bars and churches and parks. Dating apps kind of ruined them though.

I mean, for sure. But when I drink, it is with friends or family, when I worship, it is at home, and when I go to the park, it is for the solitude of nature and escaping tech.

Not sure what apps you’re referring to, but Bumble now has a BFF option where you can swipe to make friends. You can do this with the dating version disabled too.

I've used Bumble's BFF mode for this and I really like it. It's exactly what you're describing. Fair warning that they only match boys with boys and girls with girls. Which is pretty old fashioned but it's apprently because there were too many guys using it to hit on girls.