How is the target audience for Meetup elsewhere? I live in Berlin and I noticed that it's almost exclusively developers (which is fun, but sometimes weird - I went to a street cycling meetup and everybody else was a dev too). Maybe the dominance of German clubs in organized leisure is the reason for that.

Because meetup.com is what the expat nerds know

I've given up on it though sometimes you find something "outside of the circle"

It's like craigslist in Berlin: there are only scams because Americans think it works the same as in the US, when Germans have never even heard of it

That was my impression too. In particular the types of meetups seem very limited to tech topics. Some are ok, mostly those that are actually meant for non-topic specific networking, like hiking groups etc, generally sports outside of clubs.

In my personal opinion, it's more centered around technology folks