Show HN: Radius – A Meetup.com alternative

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

A new event platform called Radius aims to offer a simpler, more affordable alternative to Meetup, drawing interest from organizers frustrated with Meetup’s rising prices, poor UX, and spammy or low‑quality events. Commenters see promise in Radius’s focus on basic organizer tools and a permanent free tier, but stress that long‑term success hinges on sustainable monetization, clear moderation policies, and solving the “critical mass” problem of event discovery. Some advocate aggregation, open-source or federated approaches, and better features like maps, calendars, and no‑show prediction, while others are skeptical any centralized service can overcome entrenched network effects from Meetup and Facebook.

Overall sentiment

  • Many welcome a Meetup alternative and sign up out of frustration with Meetup’s pricing, bloat, UX, and reliability.
  • Others are skeptical Radius can overcome network effects, avoid “enshittification,” or survive financially.

Perceived gaps in Meetup

  • High and rising organizer fees, especially painful for small/non‑profit or free events.
  • Poor performance, buggy apps, confusing UI, weak messaging, and unreliable notifications.
  • Cluttered with spammy, commercial, or low‑quality events; lots of virtual events post‑pandemic.
  • Limited or awkward features (e.g., repeating/copying events, data export, calendars, discoverability controls).

Radius product focus & rollout

  • Creator states current focus is on organizers: simple RSVPs and event pages; discovery/search is not yet active.
  • Plans for “land‑and‑expand” by focusing on specific cities, then broadening.
  • Some users find the launch premature because they can’t browse events or groups yet.

Monetization, sustainability, and trust

  • Strong concern about long‑term sustainability and avoiding Meetup‑style pricing shifts.
  • Proposed model: always‑free tier for groups, plus paid “Pro” organizer features, future ticketing fees, and possibly promoted listings.
  • Suggestions: publish a “pledge/goals” page, transparent pricing, “how we’re funded,” open‑startup financials, and optional donations/Patreon.
  • Some request open‑sourcing the code if the project dies; others question trusting yet another closed platform.

Moderation & policy

  • FAQ references guidelines that aren’t yet published; users want clear content and moderation policies.
  • Anticipated issues: spam groups, commercial abuse, hate speech, dating use cases, and general UGC risks.
  • Creator is considering AI‑assisted moderation but acknowledges it’s mostly unplanned so far.

Discovery & network effects

  • Organizers say they mainly pay for Meetup’s discovery; replacing that is seen as critical.
  • Ideas: city‑level calendars, aggregation/scraping from other platforms, event deduplication, recency/activity filters, and hiding low‑quality or irrelevant events.
  • Legal uncertainty around scraping Meetup/Eventbrite is noted as a blocker.

UX and feature requests

  • Friction points: “notify me” requiring full signup, mandatory signup to search, lack of Google auth.
  • Desired features: maps (preferably OpenStreetMap), iCal feeds, better time‑zone handling, attendee curation, no‑show prediction, carpooling integration, and richer local “things to do” beyond traditional meetups.