However there will always be a difference between a crowd in a room and a digital representation. There's lots of subtle stuff in a room (are they all looking forward or are the talking to their neighbor?) Which are hard to translate. Especially if people switch of camera&mic etc. while watching without any interest in sharing.
The Chaos Computer Club did a quite good "hallway track" for the rC3 event https://links.rc3.world/
Companies like https://mingle.cloud try to do virtual event platforms as a business.
Things improve, but it's always gonna be different.
And yes, for.some events it's good enough, for others it's even a better replacement. But some things work better human to human
I think the point is some people find one vs the other better, not that there’s one true way for all. The world will be better if we can figure out how to be inclusive of all styles, not just the style extroverts prefer.
I think in a hybrid event you would both have a crowd in a room and a crowd remote. This seems fine.
From my point of view it has some obvious advantages, like no need to travel. But it is not a satisfying replacement by a long shot.
Sounds like a case of “I don’t like the tools so therefore the domain must be insurmountable,” which tells me it’s ripe for some very clever people with some strong experience and opinions on how to organize online conferences and workshops to make a fortune.