[pmontra]

I go to meetups (and organize one) 60% to network with people and find customers, 40% to learn and stay up to date with technology. I'm a speaker at somebody's else meetups or conferences two or three times per year.

True learning requires a lot of effort but I remember a meetup about shaders in a HTML canvas. I didn't know much about them, I know where to start from now at the cost of a couple of hours and a twenty minutes walk from home. However I know that attending meetups after work could be taxing. My free meetup has an almost perfect 50% no show rate and indubitably both the price tag and the time concur to it. But if I start it during the day, how many people would come? That's the territory of more well organized conferences.