Why is it so hard to chat to people nearby?
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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.
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:
I know… it’s not visible to everyone nearby but it would be something. bubucon
Patrick says:
https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/firechat-was-a-tool-for-revolution-then-it-disappeared/ FireChat was a tool for revolution. Then it disappeared.
Merton says:
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