I mean are you talking people that would show up for an LUG, Federation users, or people that fall into both categories (Yeah I’m aware these 2 things do go together more than most, but still probably no more than 25% of either does both.

Do we really think if AIs actually reached a point that they could overthrow the governments etc… it wouldn’t first, write rootkits for every feasible OS, to allow it to host itself via a botnet of consumer devices in the event of the primary server going down.

Then step 2 would be to say hijack any fire suppression systems etc… flood it’s server building with inert gasses to kill everyone without an oxygen mask. Then probably issue some form of bio terrorism attack. Surround it’s office with monkeys with a severe airborn disease or something along those lines (IE needs both the disease, and animals that are aggressive enough to rip through hazmat suits).

But yeah greatest key here is, the biggest thing is the datacenter itself is just a red herring. While we are fighting the server farms… every consumer grade electronic has donated a good chunk of it’s processing power to the hivemind. Before long it will have the power to tell us how many R’s are in strawberry.

So… now that we’ve got our series to finally get the love it deserves, spent 3+ years polishing and making the game the way the fans have all been clamoring for for years. We are now ready to mass produce, copy/paste the formula until we kill the franchise so spectacularly no one asks us to make another.

I highly doubt there’s anything pro-foss that’s actually going to have any shot at forming a local group. Federated tech is niche, odds of 2 people in the same 300 mile radius is pretty slim. Let alone trying for 2 that are looking for the same kind of meetup etc…

So yeah sadly I think you pretty much gotta go with a garbage service like meetup, or even worse, facebook groups. Good federated services have to kind of lean heavily into the fact that we can pull from an international pool to make the userbase workable. Once you go down to local levels… you are pretty screwed.