[mooreds]

Help run the boulder ruby meetup and have for a few years.

I'll say that the energy is building and we're seeing more and more new faces at meetups. We're also able to do both in-person and online, which leads to some nice recordings: https://boulder-ruby.org/

I've been speaker wrangling for years and it's still pretty easy to get quality talks. Some local, some from folks zooming in.

We're lucky enough to have sponsored space and zoom subscription, but there are ongoing costs (primarily food) that we're trying to figure out. Used to be easier to get a company to kick in $50-100/month. Now, as you mention, there's less hiring, so there's less incentive to sponsor. I think something similar is happening with tech conferences in general, just from anecdotes.

It's hard for me to know what is general slowdown and what is specific to the ruby language, though. But I've definitely seen a number of other tech meetups stop meeting over the past few years. I get an automated message about wantint to take over the group.