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Third places and neighborhood entrepreneurship (2024)

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118 points WasimBhai | 4 comments | 25 Jun 25 12:10 UTC | HN request time: 0.619s | source
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anovikov ◴[25 Jun 25 12:32 UTC] No.44376551[source]▶
I really can't imagine how it could probably ever work. So one goes into Starbucks and start bugging other random people sitting there (with whatever topic, not just pushing their "elevator pitch" onto them)? If that happened people will start avoiding them just like they avoid places frequented by bums or beggars. No one wants that. People won't go where it is possible.
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hiAndrewQuinn ◴[25 Jun 25 12:41 UTC] No.44376625[source]▶
Typical mind fallacy. When I go visit places like this I do so with the explicit intention of meeting other people, otherwise I'd just stay at home.

Plus, isn't the claim literally that there is correlational evidence here? That lightly suggests your model of how the world works in this area is off.

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1. TimorousBestie ◴[25 Jun 25 12:55 UTC] No.44376764[source]▶
Cultural observations are not instances of typical mind fallacy, you’re reading OP too literally.
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2. hiAndrewQuinn ◴[25 Jun 25 13:10 UTC] No.44376921[source]▶
It's not a cultural observation. No society founded upon good commerce could possibly get by without the mechanism OP is describing being encouraged in at least some public or semi-public spaces. You need to actually intract with people to trade with them.
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3. bravesoul2 ◴[25 Jun 25 14:59 UTC] No.44378122[source]▶
You are right, but then they invented long distance electronic communications, like the telephone. Even pre internet you'd run a business, word of mouth via... phone calls, trade shows..., plus maybe advertising. It needs no public space for random people to meet.
4. anovikov ◴[26 Jun 25 09:25 UTC] No.44385652[source]▶
Perhaps it was indeed my personal thing. Maybe it's just that i'm introverted? But i'd hate to be bugged when in a cafe and if it ever happened (it never did), i'd probably stop visiting that particular place seeing it as a magnet for obnoxious types.

And yes, i don't do any networking at all, literally never met any person i did business with, in 25 years of career.

Or maybe, that is my European perspective? Because i probably never seen people doing that. There is an old observation that "networking" is American only cultural phenomenon and it doesn't exist in Europe - maybe it's one of the ways it manifests itself?