Questions about decision to charge for Server Side API with Credentials

[Rafael Dohms]

As of recent the API has deprecated all the methods that allow us to operate API clients that do not require specific user permissions/access or knowledge, leaving the only such method available as the convoluted "Server Flow with User Credentials"  which is also restricted to Pro members.

I would like to understand this better, so this seems to be the only place to do so.

First off, the need for a flow like this is, for example: 

- to reflect next meetup data in your own website. 

- or tools that run on server-side without user interaction in order to automate meetup management

Now a lot of this can be achieved by better integration support, which we don't have, and now, can't build.

Meetup Pro is geared towards communities that are trying to expand and find like minded people on meetup, while our group for example, is focused on a niche that has plenty external communication channels and does not require the branding/network tools covered by Pro.

The only feature we do rely heavily on is the API. 

As already paying members with our organizer dues, a group like ours that has no funding, requires no fees and is totally volunteer driven is now strangled since our tooling stops working and our workload doubles or triples in some cases.

It's quite a leap from the organizer dues to the cost of Meetup Pro.

So my question to Meetup is:

Is there no midway compromise here? to allow us the use of the API without having to pay for all the other tooling we do not require?

[Joe Lippeatt]

Your question will likely receive no answer, meetup stopped participating in conversations about the API several months ago.  

The combined membership of my 5 groups is over 20,000 people.  We advertise, so a significant number of these members are introduced to meetup for the first time when they join one of my groups. 

But meetup won’t return my emails about the API. 

When the Adobe Lightroom plugin for meetup.com suddenly stopped working, we opened dialog with meetup.  After multiple attempts to diagnose and resolve the issue with meetup, the plugin was finally removed from the Adobe website and my company was exited from the project. 

The original API team were amazing folks, very responsive and recognized the value of extending the meetup platform to automation tools such as zapier, ittt, and Adobe.  After being purchased by WeWork, the company focus changed directions.  They moved several key features from meetup to meetup pro.  

So chess clubs, camera clubs, Autism support groups, jogging clubs, etc. are no longer the focus of the Meetup ecosystem.  The more expensive Pro tier is intended for well funded national organizations and corporate clients that are more likely to drive sales to the WeWork platform. 

Joe

[Rafael Dohms]

Yeah, I got some replies over twitter that seem to indicate exactly that.

I'm also considering stopping support of my Meetup API Client, if its going to be a closed playground for paying customers, they can take that money and build their own decent api clients.