The biggest problem with a large number of tech conferences is that the speakers are not qualified to speak and, as a result, have lower quality attendees, but often charge $700+ for tickets, hotels, time off etc.. Some egregious examples include a speaker who can't code giving keynotes at multiple tech conference about how to mentor junior developers, soft talks that have nothing to do with the subject of the conference, talks about mental health by people who are not mental health professionals, thinly veiled talks pushing political agendas that have a (loose at best)relationship to tech and "Bootcamp Grads Have Feelings Too" which was at a major tech conference for one of the big communities. We don't see nurses aids fresh out of school keynoting medical conferences, but somehow in tech this has become a thing.

Someone else was saying that they are stealth trade shows but I'm not sure even that is true for a lot of conference because honestly I don't think that many of these events do either very well. There are some that still focus on quality content where the material and the attendees are much more beneficial, but the conferences with the weak speaker line ups are a waste of money and in some communities it feels like we have too many conferences, many of which are not providing real value to companies for the money and time spent.

It's one thing to have a conference with intense technical material that has some interesting hallway convos during breaks and socialization in the evening. But many of these lower quality events feel like we have a bubble in this space. I'm saying this as someone who has spoken at a decent number of conferences and as an organizer 3 community based (not for profit) conferences. Or put another way, there are some that are worth it, but a lot more that are a waste of time.