this new one about "third places" seems timely (frasier losing at chess is twitter)
(I don't have deep thoughts about this but it feels appropriate that cohost is fourth website)
One thing I think the video misses is that even if third places exist in your neighborhood, they might as well not exist for many of us still trying to avoid COVID. I haven't been to a restaurant in nearly 3 years, so a local pub wouldn't change anything about my social life or experience of the world. Changes to urban planning won't fix this for all people.
(And if we go by the original definition of a "third place," very few places would fit those criteria in a world where masks apparently no longer exist. Something can't be a democratizing space where anyone can interact if disabled and chronically ill people avoid it for their own safety. Is a pub even a third place anymore? Will it ever be again?)
So I like the idea of an online third place. I've been wondering if something like VRChat could be a place to socialize in this way, but it's definitely not accessible, albeit for different reasons. (Case in point, I have yet to start saving up for a headset.) Maybe Cohost, Discord, and the indie web could be some form of third place - for me, anyway.
