What saddens me a lot is that a lot of talks become low level beginner introduction fast food talks.
I think that it was better when most talks were 45 mins to 1h with deeper more advanced and senior content.
At the same time, with the overcrowded aspect, it becomes harder to socialize and meet people really involved in maintaining open source projects in my opinion. There are a lot lot lot more "users" on both sides (visitors and speakers) than what it used to be 10 years ago.
As an example, in a majority of talks there was no time for questions and very little chatter between and around talks. It is like walking in big city, everyone is busy running around.
And questions and comments after talks was what was bringing the most value to the event. Compared to just watch a recording of a talk.
OTOH, 80% of the reason I go to talks is to see if the person has interesting things to say and grab them after the talk for a chat.
I.e. it sucks for the remote experience, but I think for on-site it's fine to just talk more.
Gets harder if you consider the talks the main attraction, but I really see them more as hooks to talk to people about interesting topics.
I think that it was better when most talks were 45 mins to 1h with deeper more advanced and senior content.
At the same time, with the overcrowded aspect, it becomes harder to socialize and meet people really involved in maintaining open source projects in my opinion. There are a lot lot lot more "users" on both sides (visitors and speakers) than what it used to be 10 years ago.