This morning, the Meetup website lists 1,609,193 members worldwide, 193,981 Meetup groups and 5,439 Meetup topics. Digging deeper, you can find that there are currently 924 DFA Meetups, 773 Democratic Party Meetups, and 807 John Kerry Meetups. It also announces, ‘Important: Organizers will soon have to pay a small monthly fee on behalf of their Meetup Groups.’

Following the link, it says, “How much & when? The regular Group Fee is $19/month, but Organizers of current groups get a special 2005 rate of $9/month if they pay now.”

They mention, “How was this decision made? We polled thousands of Organizers, met them in many cities, and listened to you online. We chose the path that keeps Meetup.com most focused on you.”

I remember that survey. It asked how much people would be willing to pay for special services. During the survey, I commented that I thought this was a really bad idea. Meetup has gone on to act on the idea, and the response online seems to be that Meetup has jumped the shark.