Why is it so hard to chat to people nearby?
By @edent
· 13 comments · 700 words · read ~370 times.
I recently went up to a conference in a city I'd never visited before. As I was sat on the train up, I wondered if any of the other passengers were also going to the conference. It's a bit socially awkward and creepy to go up to a bunch of strangers and interrogate them about their plans for the weekend. So I sat in silence.
Back when everyone0 was on Twitter, there was a reasonable chance that you could reach people with:
Hey! I'm attending #Conference. Anyone else on the 0915 to #City? Come say hi!
But now, not so much. We're all scattered between a dozen different social networks - both public (Facebook, Mastodon, etc) and private (Signal, Discord, etc)1.
I had a slightly lonely lunch in the city (hurrah for a niche social network for vegetarians) and made my way to the conference hotel. Was anyone around? Did anyone fancy a drink? Were there any plans for the evening? There was no way to find out. From the sign-in sheet on reception I could see that a few people had checked in - but I didn't know their room numbers2.
So I sat alone in my room.
I fired up Google Maps and could see the reviews people had left of nearby pubs and restaurants. But it wasn't quite the same as seeing what previous inhabitants of the hotel recommended.
The conference the next day was great. But the conversation was split between WhatsApp groups, Slack, BlueSky, and Twitter.
On the train back, I sketched out what I want from a local chat app. And I also figured out why it wouldn't work.
I want to chat with people in a specific location, or at a specific event.
That might be a train, or a train station. It might be at a stadium, or a specific gig at the stadium. It might be a hotel, or a group booking at the hotel. It might be a conference, or a specific room in a conference.
That seems pretty easy to build from a technological point of view. OpenStreetMap will give me a list of places. EventBrite and others will give me a list of events. Public Transport usually has great APIs.
From there, dynamically spinning up a Matrix3 chatroom per thing is pretty easy.
EASY!
Of course, there are two very large elephants in the room4.
- How do you get everyone onto the same platform?
- What do you do about spam and abuse?
The first is sort of solvable. *Something something* ActivityPub *blah blah* decentralised *yadda yadda* massive publicity campaign fronted by celebrities backed by my venture capitalist investors *mumble mumble* Bluetooth and UWB location tracking.
The second is not solvable. You know this. You've been on the Internet. It would quickly fill up with spam, abuse, and scams. It would make Yik Yak look like Club Penguin.
Oh, sure, you could tell attendees in advance "Sign in to Global.Chat at the conference centre - the event password is c0nf3r3nc3!" but that would leak quickly. And it doesn't let you chat with nearby strangers. We all know that moderation simply doesn't scale.
Around the world, loneliness is an epidemic. Not all of us are confident enough to speak to our train-seat neighbours or gregarious enough to knock on random hotel doors. None of us want to deal with the flood of depravity which would need to be moderated away.
Could this work technically? I 100% believe it could.
Could this work socially? I sincerely doubt it.
Please - someone prove me wrong.
@Edent
I suspect a very much western thing. You can't get onto a bus in Turkey without the person next to you asking from where you are and what are you up to...
People are either much more friendly, or much more nosey.
Alex B says:
Back in my dating days (well over a decade ago, now), I wondered about a mobile phone-based dating application that would use Bluetooth to identify potential matches in your immediate locality; I suppose it would look a little like a mash-up between OKCupid!, Tinder, and, er... the various Covid Exposure apps we saw emerge in 2020. I fairly quickly came to the conclusion that the obvious safety concerns would probably mean that the expected userbase would be very unbalanced in favour of men.
Maybe it would be possible to design something that actually was very safe, but the lessons of the Covid apps suggest it probably wouldn't be possible to get it right first time, and thereafter the stink would linger even when the safety issues were fixed.
@Edent The low-ceremony nature of hashtags was perfect for this use-case. I am so mad at Musk for fucking it up.
Some friends of mine did in fact make an app for precisely this use case: travelling on business to a location where you’d like to meet others for coffee / lunch / dinner / a chat / using a few spare hours on sightseeing.
It never got much traction, because I think people assumed that there would be other motives that might complicate things if expectations differed between participants
@Edent Dante might have put trolls in the 9th circle along with the liars and betrayers
@Edent not very high tech, but in the past (2010) it did help me a lot to have Ubuntu stickers on my luggage. It allowed me to connect with people I didn’t know before, that were going to Ubuntu Developer Summit or similar conferences. Maybe something to attach on the bag? Like “attending #BubuCon ? Let’s chat!” 🙂
I know… it’s not visible to everyone nearby but it would be something. bubucon
@Edent
The unity of 2014 is not coming back, ever. People will be using a lot of things, and that means at least 3 communities of people – the superstealthy "I am not using anything that is not E2E encrypted", the "here's my broadcast fedifedifedi" and the "We made a Telegram group" crowd.
Also, nothing involving Matrix chatrooms is ever easy.
Patrick says:
I think nearby is not enough -- that's nextdoor. You really want nearby + #interest1 + #interest2 + #interest...n. Possibly someone could build something that runs just on the hotel WiFi ... or the train WiFi for immediate connection ... idk?
@Edent isn't this because the apps that were good at it got shutdown?
https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/firechat-was-a-tool-for-revolution-then-it-disappeared/ FireChat was a tool for revolution. Then it disappeared.
@Edent The closest example I know of is https://www.scuttlebutt.nz and @pzp, though these just allow local sync of messages, it doesn't solve the "how do I get people to join" bit.
Time for some sneakernet QR codes on posters for joining chats?
Merton says:
In a slighly different vain: years ago I met an "elderly" (younger than i am now) English professor through a friend. I delighful man but by his own admission VERY shy. I noticed he worn TWO watches (we are talking 1970's here - all watches were just watches!), one on each wrist. I asked him why he worn 2 watches. He said that becuase he was so shy he had great difficulty starting up a conversation with a stranger. The problem was STARTING the conversation. Once started he was fine. He said that by wearing 2 watches people would, from time to time, as him WHY he worn 2 watches. BOOM, the conversation had been started! He explained why and after that everything was fine. The ice had been broken as they say! I too wear 2 watches (sometimes), my "dress watch"I wear when I'm going out, and a Garmin fitness watch that keeps track of my activities. My "dress" watch is a very special watch (the Omega Moon watch - i have had it since the days of the moon landings) and occasionally someone will notice a a conversation is started!
@calebjasik @Edent @pzp the biggest problems I found with SSB (although, actually I quite enjoyed it) was the "for each device I need a new key" issue, and that you needed to download a lot of data to participate. This seems to be solved by Nostr however the sheer amount of bit/altcoin nonsense on Nostr is out of this world. Also UX struggles quite a bit on Nostr apps too.
@Edent I'm not interested in going to the chatroom of the metro station or hotel lobby and discover advertising for the drug dealer or the girl providing entertainment services. The local businesses (hotel) would avoid this to avoid legal risk.
But maybe some people might be interested in such darknet services.
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