or maybe it's a failure of tech in general that maintaining a website isn't worth the cost and/or the effort ;)

That was a glib remark, but in all seriousness ... for the average non-technical user, who's friends are all on Facebook, their event and group system is a godsend. Non-FB solutions should realize that and figure out ways to make more accessible (and cheap ... aka free) systems

Squarespace is apparently pretty popular for small websites and it's not especially expensive--but it's not free and I appreciate that the difference between free and $10-20/month is a big difference for a community group or other small non-commercial organization/individual that just wants a page up on the Web.

My understanding is that Wix is great for free design (though its a freemium business model, I believe). Though, I'm not sure of the hosting structure.

Yes, and Facebook users are not aware that they are paying for Facebook, so the price comparison is brutal.

Many parts of the general populace don't care about the whole "if you're not paying, you're the product" mentality. They happily ignore as many ads as you want to throw at them, as long as they can coordinate little timmy's birthday party.

The world is complicated :)

I help admin a local org's website. We cross post to our site, meetup.com, and our facebook page. Each sucks in its own special way. I wouldn't expect a non-tech to figure this crap out.

This.

File a polite complaint that they are excluding members of the community unnecessarily, and that alternatives like meetup.com exist so you don't even need to run your own web server.

The likely answer will be : "well, you could sign up to Facebook just as easily as you want us to sign up to meetup.com. Except, everyone is already on Facebook"

Except, of course, in this example not everyone is on Facebook.

yeah, but more people are on Facebook than Meetup.

Meetup is worse than Facebook. Meetup sends emails.

And Facebook doesn't?

it's a setting.

It's definitely a setting on meetup too.