[dogleash]

> Been going to a bunch of hackathons in SF lately and honestly, everything feels fake.

SF software scene exuding the hacker aesthetic while killing the ethos? You don't say.

> Was it always like this and I'm noticing it now, or has something changed?

I can't speak to absolute numbers, but cold corporate hackathons have always existed. In my experience the majority of ones you hear about. The makeup might be changing, but what is also changing is the vibe of attending. It's one thing to attend a thinly-veiled marketing event and have fun anyway during the early 2010's excitement of the software possibility space, and another in the bleakness of what big tech has wrought.