That's fair. I think that, like many things, it's very important to a specific group of people, and irrelevant to many others. For a long time, SXSW was the cool place to launch your startup, and many people who still run in those circles remember launching their startups there, and have fond memories, etc.

I mostly agree, but you're forgetting an important part of the tech presence: a lot of those companies hold public parties with free beer and food. I've had plenty of VC-subsidized consumables through the years (though I don't know that I could remember a single one of the sponsoring companies... so maybe not very effective advertising).

That's one heck of a broad church...!