Also many people simply aged out of it. When I moved to a major city I'd attend every programming meetup (had something to go to 3 nights/week for a solid 3 years), after covid I found more worthwhile hobbies with others.

What COVID broke is that there was no one to take over from the previous club leaders so they mostly just died with nothing to replace them and now the new generation doesn't really know how to rebuild it because they never experienced it.

On top of meetups evaporating, the big issue is post-COVID meetups meeting 3 nights/week nearly impossible. I have 3 or 4 meetups I try to regularly go to and I'm lucky if they are run monthly.

I was recently watching a video mentioning a study that it takes ~200 hours of constant contact on average to make a "close friend" and some 40-60 hours to get go from acquaintance to "casual friend", then 80-100 to be a what you'd simply call "friend".

Meeting up for 2-4 hours a month would take years upon years to make anything out if you don't supplement it yourself.