Item — HN Reader

How much of this is just due to changing tastes? For example, Minecraft, Roblox, or an Xbox live subscription are the new lobbies for younger generations.

Heck, the article mentions Internet cafes but those died out once computer and smartphone penetration reached high double digits.

There are fewer of these third spaces because there is less demand for them than before due to changing preferences, as could be seen with the decline of church members as well as pubs or innovations making them irrelevant like Internet cafes.

Instead of trying to push back against what is now the norm, maybe try to think about how to minimize the negative impacts of what are now common attitudes? But that requires admitting a lot of people on here are absolutely out-of-touch boomers.

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Even the types of games I believe are shifting to less third spaces. Matchmaking is replacing the MMO beginner town where a lot of the socialization happens.

I'd wager a lot of it is "to protect the kids" (read: remove socialization since platforms don't want to expend the effort to police bsd actors)

This underestimates how friendships are made by younger people even via matchmaking in lobbies depending on the game.

Heck, I have friends who are slightly younger than me who made durable friendships in League via matchmaking.

I think there's no zero friendship making power, but matchmaking is certainly less.

I have online friends from matchmaking, but it's certainly much harder. I'm not underestimating it, but my language might have been too strong.

Consider the average young person's discord group.

Playing Minecraft with friends at a lan party in a social room is better than playing it at home.

It might be to you, but then we wouldn't have seen the shifts away from LAN parties.

The reality is for anyone below 35, their primary touchpoint with their friends is via social media, and they view chatting and playing remotely as a similar experience to a LAN party.

Then we should get rid of smartphones entirely for young people (under 16) and then you’re back to the previous paradigm.

There are reasons for that.

I suspect this is the real key. Reminds me of a lot of other discussions similar to this where it boils soon to folks overweighting their own desires and underweighting the average consumer.

I remember growing up going to my local PC repair shop into their back work area. They smoked, played Ultima Online during the day and had other friends that came and hung out. That is how a bygone era, different but similar to the thought of third spaces.

Yep. It's essentially a form of techie Gen X and Millenial nostalgia, and does come off a boomer-ish, hence why all old people are termed "boomers" now.

HN is rife with it and it shows how out of touch it's becoming demographically.

But the preferences might be changing not because people like the new way more, but because the economic system forces people to choose the most efficient way of doing things. Someone who plays games at home can do it cheaper or in less time than someone going to a cafe, and because we are constantly competing against each other in this system, the less efficient choices become unaffordable over time. Efficient people hold most of the economic power and therefore the economy will mostly serve them.

Also people, especially kids, are not always good at understanding the consequences of their choices. The convenience of playing games at home is easy to see, but few kids understand how that choice will affect their social skills over the long term. Allowing individual preferences to dominate society might not give us the best result.