Winding Down (2025)

content/english/news/winding-down.md

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+---
+title: "Winding Down"
+meta_title: ""
+description: "Our conferences are coming to an end"
+date: 2025-08-12T12:00:00Z
+image: "/images/hmc/out-of-order.jpg"
+categories: ["Press Release"]
+author: "Abner Coimbre"
+tags: ["meta", "hmc"]
+draft: false
+---
+
+**Our conferences are coming to an end. I am rethinking how programmers are socializing.**
+
+Dear Handmade folks,
+
+This shutdown isn't the end of Handmade Cities, but it does mean we're ending our conferences in favor of local meetups. I'm officially collaborating with [The Offline Club](https://www.theoffline-club.com/) in the future, since we both agreed we admire each other's efforts.
+
+Personally I'm really optimistic about what's on the horizon, but in this post I need to be blunt about current facts.
+
+*REMINDER: Handmade Cities is NOT affiliated with Handmade Hero nor the Handmade Network. We share the brand and that's it.*
+
+#### What does it mean for the conferences in 2025?
+
+The [Boston](/boston) and [Seattle](/seattle) dates stay on the calendar, but they’re meetups now; maybe bigger than usual, just not a traditional tech conference. I expect the lectures and demos to remain exciting but in smaller packaging.
+
+This change is reflected in Boston already, which is coming up this weekend. I changed the venue from the increasingly expensive JFK Presidential Library to the Boston Public Library instead:
+
+{{< image src="images/companies/bpl.jpg" caption="Entrance to BPL" alt="Entrance to Boston Public Library" height="806" width="605" position="center" command="fill" option="q100" class="img-fluid" title="Entrance to BPL"  webp="false" >}}
+
+I've disabled the [tickets](/tickets) portal and, if there’s room, new folks can join free. E-mail me to RSVP: abner@handmadecities.com. The hour-to-hour schedule should be on the Boston page by tomorrow.
+
+Ticket holders disappointed with this change can email me directly at abner@handmadecities.com and we can negotiate refunds. I’ve got sunk costs, so refunds might take a few weeks. However, I'm processing them as fast as I can, and I appreciate the folks letting me keep their contribution.
+
+#### Why I'm doing this
+
+This story has two parts: financial and personal.
+
+1. **Financial Reasons**
+
+I hinted at economic trouble at the beginning of [this](/news/summer-update-2025/) summer update and in the bottom section of my Terminal Click [announcement](https://terminal.click/posts/2025/07/open-beta/). It's common knowledge profitable conferences are a dying species and I'm surprised I've lasted this long: Deconstruct, Strangeloop, Bang Bang Con, XOXO and other small-to-medium sized events vanished. Even corporate-backed conferences are no longer around: O'Reilly, Xfest, E3 and so on went away.
+
+These days, most people wait until the last minute to buy tickets, which puts all the risk on me. I’ve pushed hard, but I can’t take that on anymore.
+
+2. **Personal Trauma**
+
+In the last Handmade Seattle I made a mistake with the balance of content. It was definitely jarring to have little in the way of old-school technical presentations. This caused a 50-50 split of positive versus negative feedback: the positive commentary came largely from newcomers, while the negative came largely from veterans. I made other genuine mistakes too; the reader can visit [older](/news) blog posts where I apologized and asked for feedback.
+
+However, I stand by all my speakers (read: their right to speak their mind unencumbered) and refuse to add disclaimers/warnings inside published recordings. It should be obvious me giving speakers air time doesn't mean I endorse all their views. In any case, the most controversial talk by far was Andrew Kelley's keynote on [Day One](/media/seattle-2024/hms-day-one/).
+
+I received a barrage of vile essays in my Inbox and Discord DMs, calling me a communist (what?) for platforming Andrew's message. I lost good friends, including Ginger Bill, the creator of Odin:
+
+{{<youtube eoNJfoFR2CE>}}
+
+Warning: This is very dark stuff, and he torched our relationship along with Andrew's. Criticism is one thing but this is something else. Dozens of people inexplicably saw it before me and asking if I was okay. This was my 1-minute 30-second response to his half-hour video:
+
+<div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;">
+  <iframe
+    src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/1033767315?h=f97bb867ce"
+    style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;"
+    allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture"
+    allowfullscreen
+    title="Dear Ginger"></iframe>
+</div>
+
+To which Bill never responded. A few days later, he was announced at the Better Software Conference (BSC). This sudden loss of friendships rewired my brain to such a degree that I don't give a f\*ck about anything anymore [1].
+
+I just dish out cold comebacks. I do it in person to anyone who is repeatedly uncharitable. *"When you go to the mind reader, do you get half price?"* I asked someone this last week, who recognized me because he follows everything I do online, hated the last conference , and I seem to live rent-free in his head. *"I worship the quicksand you walk in,"* I concluded before leaving the grocery store.
+
+Transforming into a combative individual has become incredibly useful, but there's this lingering depression, and I just can't give it my all. I can't use this trauma as justification for running half-hearted conferences, which is an important reason for ending them.
+
+#### Nature is healing
+
+Handmade meetups are generally awesome and keep growing. We help local programmers find work or make new friends every month. I train and mentor hosts, then they take the reins, so the scene is decentralized and self-sustaining. Meetups are cheap or free to run so I don't have to chase big revenue. Meanwhile, building Terminal Click as an indie dev is therapy compared to wrangling humans for a living.
+
+A growing number of people who ended their friendships with me have apologized. A couple of examples follow (you may need to open them in a new tab):
+
+{{< image src="images/hmc/close_friend_apology.png" caption="Close Friend Apology" alt="Close Friend Apology" height="1114" width="255" position="center" command="fill" option="q100" class="img-fluid" title="Close Friend Apology"  webp="false" >}}
+
+Even a speaker from BSC wrote to me before their conference:
+
+{{< image src="images/hmc/bsc_speaker_apology.png" caption="BSC Speaker" alt="BSC Speaker" height="956" width="305" position="center" command="fill" option="q100" class="img-fluid" title="BSC Speaker"  webp="false" >}}
+
+He went on to say later:
+
+> I only send this because I want you to be happy and healthy with a positive attitude. It's all too easy to fall into a victim mentality and focus too much on social change that isn't even necessary because, again, we're winning. You're obviously very competent and skilled.
+
+Regardless of what you think of this, I forgave both of them and I'm opting to protect their privacy. A handful of the latest apologies come from community members who lost their income and I'm helping them find new jobs.
+
+#### Could things have been different?
+
+Maybe. Without social media or certain incentives for online drama things could've gone differently. A meetup member in Seattle called me a “young grasshopper” as a community organizer. That surprised me until I looked around. Big events take time: TED existed for four decades before YouTube made it huge, DEFCON is thirty years old, and many open-source conferences spent twenty years figuring things out. Wrangling humans is slow and messy.
+
+I’m done running conferences though. Besides the reasons above, they feed the egos of a few “anointed” ones and require a social-media hustle I won’t play. I’m opting out. I’d rather build stuff that gets people offline: better meetups, our own server racks, and self-hosted tools that help folks make a living with serious Handmade projects.
+
+I’ll keep publishing newsletters [here](/news) and on [Terminal Click](https://terminal.click/posts), and occasionally on my [personal](https://abner.page) website.
+
+See you offline,<br>Abner Coimbre
+
+---
+**Footnotes**
+
+[1] I do give a f\*ck about stuff: friends and loved ones and my new work. I'm talking about playing the conference game.