We did Instant Premier on YouTube for TigerBeetle Systems Distributed videos and it was a cool experience to have everyone chatting about the video in real time for a few minutes. This is basically the same thing that p99 and hytradboi do.

It's also curated by the organizers. People subscribe to newsletters like Postgres Weekly for the same basic reason. Someone you trust gets interesting people you (probably) don't know and you get to chat about it with other randos.

It is not remotely the same thing as an in-person conference. But it's a neat thing in its own way. p99 is free, and hytradboi was like 10% the cost of a typical North American conference.