Hacking subculture, 39C3, CCC etc.
Unpopular opinion but the whole hacker subculture is way less fun now that it's so oversized.
For high-profile events like GPN or the CCC congress, it's basically impossible to get accommodation or tickets anymore, unless you either are rich, or basically spend all day in the subculture so you have plenty of friends to find loopholes, gift away tickets or smuggle you in.
From what I've been told it's also simply not nice anymore. Utterly overcrowded, loud, sanitised, professionalised and policed to a fault.
And since nearly all of those events have a little exclusive organiser clique that seems unwilling to tackle these issues, and that responds to every piece of criticism with "well we're all unpaid volunteers, fuck you", it doesn't look like it's about to change.
In my opinion there's only one way to go forward:
You need to clearly separate the two main groups of attendants: those actually interested in cybersec, IT, hacking and tech, from the people who only attend for the subculture. Of course it's overcrowding massively if a significant portion of the audience is just transfem polycules who have nothing to do with tech, don't bring any projects, don't attend any talks and basically just want to socialise, hang out and fuck.
And secondly, we should encourage more frequent, local events to decentralise the subculture, spread out attendance and reduce dependency on huge megaevents. This only works if people volunteer, and that's a rarity – sure – but why not help new folks get there? Host workshops on how to organise your own event, how to find a venue, how to fundraise, how to legally serve food and drinks, and so on.
If this is not addressed, it's going to basically either become a mainstream alt festival with a tech aesthetic, or a sanitised industry congress only rich techbros can attend.
