A town next to mine has one of those, and any town resident can rent a room for a reasonable amount of money ($20 to $70/hour depending on room size). So as long as at least one group member is from the right town, the room is guaranteed.
It is hard enough to get people to show up if it is free, requiring people to pay to attend a casual meetup would not work in our situation. Who is going to foot the multi thousand dollar per year bill for meeting space?
This is why municipalities need to provide this space for free. It is a very hard burden to get a single person to foot the bill for meeting space, whereas the municipality can charge everyone $50/year on their property taxes and build meeting spaces which everyone gets to use. People love to moan about taxes but I think this is one of those problems solved better in the collective.
I don't disagree with the concept, but it gets hairy in the particulars. The problem is that of course we rarely ever get to vote on issues such as "should we build a community meeting space?" so we never really get to understand how the electorate truly feels.
In this scenario, contention for the space is the best possible problem to have, as it means the community is using it.
I'd suggest providing public space is a very important role of local government, to foster community interactions.
Because they'll also pay for your special interest group meetup. If you don't have a special interest group, a low friction meeting place available makes you more likely to start one. Public space allows for a municipality to build a community.
The rule is simple: you running a non-commercial event? You can use the space for free. Commercial component? Pay an hourly rate that comes out to ~$5 per person or so. There are some restrictions on events based on space but it's an obviously good thing in the same way a public park or water fountains are.
Why should your tax dollars pay education, healthcare, police, road repairs, etc? Because the society will be better off and you live in a society.
The education of a child your taxes pay for will pay off exponentially when this kid becomes a professional.
The meeting space your taxes pay could facilitate the creation of the next revolutionary software tech.
Taxes should be considered an investment that pays off not financially but by improving your life overall.
> How would we distribute access to this newly created resource equitably?
A bookable calendar and a maximum amount of monthly bookable slots per organization. Nothing revolutionary really.
This is much the same way that DevOpsDays and other similar conferences are operated, just on a smaller scale of a few hours instead of a couple of days.
Which is better? No meetup at all, or a meetup with sponsors?
It's in the hands of our corporate overlords to decide what we can do.
Asking people to pay for entry means that in most cases the meetup won't happen at all.
If meetups don't happen we all have to lose from it, not just the meetup organizers.
Isn't it a worthy goal for a society to facilitate the free exchange of ideas?
Why should corporations or a patron be in charge of deciding whether that can be done or not?
The organizer should pay if they don't want to get sponsor(s). As you say, expecting participants to pay is generally too high a hurdle. If they don't want to/can't have sponsors or foot the bill, then, yes, there just shouldn't be a meetup probably unless they can randomly beg space from somewhere. Dropping the bill on an amorphous "society" isn't really a solution. I have no problem with a town/city library offering space if it's available but there are many competing demands including lots of talks and activities that have no hope of attracting a corporate sponsor. There's no more reason for my town to support a Kubernetes meetup than a talk on medieval castles.
Why? Society (through the state) should invest in anything that can improve society overall. All the major progress mankind has achieved is based on collective investments.
And what do you mean by amorphous? It's pretty clear what society is: it's us, it's the aggregate of the people living in a community.
> but there are many competing demands including lots of talks and activities that have no hope of attracting a corporate sponsor
Which is exactly why I argue that we shouldn't leave to private sponsors such as corps to decide whether a meetup can happen.
There should be a space for whatever talks/events/meetups that don't fit with any private sponsor interests, e.g. stuff that has no direct commercial usage.
> There's no more reason for my town to support a Kubernetes meetup than a talk on medieval castles.
Yes, I think towns should support both. I'm certainly not limiting to tech meetups the kind of events to take place in such a public space.
If you're really averse to corporate sponsorship and really want to have some specific meetup, paying for it personally seems a pretty reasonable option. No one is asking you to build a bridge.
Small town = less demand for public spaces. And I propose the money to pay for this comes from the state if needed.
> You're welcome to compete with all the other demands for one-off library space with all the other uses.
Uh ok? I will, better to have a space for free every couple months than to have to give up my meetup. I don't see how an additional space for meetings should worsen things?
> If you're really averse to corporate sponsorship and really want to have some specific meetup, paying for it personally seems a pretty reasonable option.
This is clearly not about myself, it's about investing socially in enabling an exchange of ideas, even when no private patron sees fit to sponsor it.
You must be one of those "don't tread on me" types. You've been clutching at straws for a few comments while failing to find any argument. I believe the reality is that you don't like "your" tax money to benefit others, but saying that would make you look bad wouldn't it?
I propose your tax money pays for it, together with mine.
They actually do! The town waives the fee if event "primarily serves town's community". You only pay if there are many out-of-towners whose their taxes don't pay for community center.
I didn't mention this in my original comment because it seems irrelevant in context of programming meetup - what are the chances most of the members would be all from the a single town?