[krrishd]

I mostly agree with the premise, but to point out something kinda funny: these complaints are basically identical to the ones I remember from a time I personally remember as the "heyday" of hackathons (early/mid 2010s).

I think:

- they've had this degree of fakeness for almost the entirety of their existence (as long as they've needed "sponsorship" / been 6+ figure events)

- at its best, there also was a scene/subculture _surrounding_ hackathons that did care about building genuinely "cool" / "impressive" things, had an earnest interest in actually starting something longer term (there are some really successful founders that "incubated" in the hackathon scene). these folks frequented hackathons, and eventually moved on as the scene saturated with careerism / they "grew up" professionally

[aiforecastthway]

I have never heard the term "Hackathon" used in any context other than a recruiting/sales event targeted at early-career types.

Meatspace get-togethers focused on hacking, either for a specific project or for a clique, never used the term "Hackathon". At least in my circles. Those were just "get togethers" or maybe "hacking weekends". But with small caps. I.e., not "Hacking Weekends" or "Hackathons", but "a weekend we're scheduling the purpose of which is to hack on something; i.e., a hacking weekend".

Less of an "event for the public" and more like "a group of friends planning a weekend get-away". I think for one of them we managed to get a few thousand or something from someone's employer to cover some costs. But "sponsorship" would be a strong word.

I've never lived in SF so maybe it was more of a thing there.

[yfiapo]

The term was used by OpenBSD starting in 1999 for a group of devs getting together for a few days or a week and hacking on specific projects together in person. Not sure about earlier than that but that’s what I still associate the term back to.

https://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html

[esafak]

I went to a hackathon for teenage girls in an SF library once. No corporate presence.

[aziaziazi]

Same experience: hackathon for bike enthusiasts in Belgium and the sponsor only quickly showed up to give prizes. There wasn’t any mini pizzas or coke but i genuinely don’t mind.

[dabockster]

> I've never lived in SF so maybe it was more of a thing there.

Yeah it's definitely more of an SF/SV thing for sure, if they're even still happening. Seattle had some hackathons and Dubhacks is still a thing (I think?), but they fizzled out by 2019 and Covid ended whatever was left. NYC had some as well, iirc, but they went away too along the same timeline.

[hadlock]

The last one I attended was one Pager Duty ran in 2019 it was well attended, with ~20+ teams of 6

[distances]

Most of the Hackathons I've seen have been company internal events. Usually two days set off for projects, with demos of the results in the end. Come to think of it, that's probably been the only kind of Hackathon I've ever perticipated.