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Agreed. I'm working on a non-commercial open source Meetup alternative.

I would be incredibly interested in learning more once you've got something working.

EDIT: Would it happen to be Meetable? I just stumbled across that serendipitously an hour or so after commenting.

I have a proof of concept here: https://dmvboardgames.com/

Here are more details about the planned architecture: https://createthirdplaces.org/events/techOverview