"they were ALWAYS having to stay on top of venues and other technical details." : such demands are inherent to top-down, highly managed models.

Why did Meetup need to micromanage a bazillion venues ? Didn't they trust "the people" ? And, if they distrusted "the people", wasn't that an unsurmountable contradiction ?

Or, can a business set up to facillitate democracy  function in an inherently anti-democratic fashion ?

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"...leaving out the knitting groups and star wars fan meetups" - Perhaps. That might be a very smart practical consideration to pay attention to, yes.