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I don't think that's really what we've lost. Blockbuster was a third space not because of its staff, but because it was a place you could say "meet me here" and

I don't think that's really what we've lost. Blockbuster was a third space not because of its staff, but because it was a place you could say "meet me here" and hang out looking at movies with no (or very little) expected monetary output. Same as arcades in the mall, or cheap matinee movies. A better framing might be where would a teenager, today, say "meet me here" to their friends. I think you'll find there's many fewer around you today than there was 20 years ago.

triceratops 2mo ago
Malls still exist. As do public libraries, community rec centers, gyms, and pools.
- threetonesun 2mo ago
  Malls barely exist, at least compared to the way they did 20 years ago. I wasn't arguing all third spaces are gone, but even of the ones you did note I'd bet in most communities their funding/availability has decreased in that time period.
  - triceratops 2mo ago
    > Malls barely exist, at least compared to the way they did 20 years ago Presumably because people spend less money there than they used to. > I'd bet in most communities their funding/availability has decreased in that time period. It's one of the tragedies of our age. The inability to fund anything for the common good.
- autoexec 2mo ago
  Malls have been in decline for decades. Public pools barely exist anymore either. (https://www.poolmagazine.com/pool-news/america-is-losing-public-pools-at-an-alarming-rate/ https://www.poolmagazine.com/pool-news/america-is-losing-pub...). If you're in a wealthy city you probably still have a decent community center. Libraries are probably the most common space avilable, but they are also under constant attack by republicans. In wealthy cities you can find all kinds of services there. Smaller libraries will have some areas for reading and meeting.
  - triceratops 2mo ago
    > Malls have been in decline for decades People voted with their wallets. > public libraries are under constant attack by republicans Voters get the services they vote for. All of us are to blame.
    - autoexec 2mo ago
      > Voters get the services they vote for. It's hard to feel bad about a small backwoods town of idiots who vote to shut down their public libraries (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/book-ban-lgbtq-jamestown-michigan-library/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/book-ban-lgbtq-jamestown-michig...) but there are efforts on the federal level too (https://www.ala.org/faq-executive-order-targeting-imls https://www.ala.org/faq-executive-order-targeting-imls). Right wing nutjobs all over the country have been threatening library staff and calling in bomb threats and we can't vote them out
    - jimbokun 2mo ago
      True but not very constructive.
      - triceratops 2mo ago
        Pointing out the cause of the problem is not constructive?
        jimbokun 2mo ago
        What’s actionable about “it’s everyone’s fault”?
        xp84 2mo ago
        If I'm having a problem with a server and you commented "Former sysadmin was dumb and lazy, so they misconfigured it" (and you're correct) is that constructive? I think we mostly all agree that we as a society caused the problem, but we can't go back and undo that. Constructive would be coming up with ways we can, given the past did take place, improve things going forward.
- pseingatl 2mo ago
  Malls are dying. Many are closed. Public libraries are daycare for the homeless and parents are afraid to leave their children. Your other options may be well-run, but all suffer from a lack of funding and staffing. Pools aren't a year-round thing, even in the South.
everforward 2mo ago
That doesn’t match my experience if your bar is really as low as “won’t throw you out for not buying anything”. Obvious anecdata, but within an easy walk or bike radius of me (a couple miles) there are 3 public libraries, something like half a square mile of parks, a few public basketball courts, a few public tennis courts, a public baseball field, a bar over the baseball field that welcomes children (it’s one of the veterans things and has board games and what not), at least a dozen other businesses that don’t care if you buy anything, and your usual litany of Walmart kind of places that can’t be bothered to track who is buying and who isn’t. I don’t have any issues finding places to hang out for free, and I use them, but they’re pretty sparsely used so it’s not as 3rd space as it used to be. Eg I walk my dogs most mornings, and I rarely see more than 1 other person at the park or dog park at 7 or 8am. It feels to me like 3rd spaces are disappearing because people don’t use them, rather than people don’t use them because they don’t exist.
- pseingatl 2mo ago
  Consider yourself very lucky if your public libraries are not daycare for the homeless.
  - nekusar 2mo ago
    And that's a perfect description for how the USA has fallen. This place IS the supposed '3rd world shithole' that Republicans say. That the libraries, the legacy from the early Carnegie 1900's billionaires, are now the climate refuge and place to try to succeed for the homeless. We (royal) fail so many humans, prey on the absolute conquest of 'make more money at all costs'.
  - hdgvhicv 2mo ago
    Depends entirely on your country. Your country may have that, but I don’t recognise that from any of the 4 libraries I’ve been to in the last 12 months or the additional 4 I’ve been to in the last few years.
pimlottc 2mo ago
Definitely, and renting a video itself was often a communal activity. You'd be hanging out with your friends or family and get the hankering to see a movie, so you all pile in the car together and see what they had. You'd argue back and forth about this movie or that movie, and you had to be flexible since your first pick might not be in stock. Strangers would give you suggestions or you'd see what was recommended by the staff. Lots of times you'd end up taking up something completely different than what you had planned.
pseingatl 2mo ago
We are unfair to teenagers today; give them no place to go and then we feign surprise when they act up. According to Harper's, there's a 20% decline in kids playing baseball--their noses are in their iPads. You can't take children to the mall because malls are dying. Too many parks are places where bad things happen. I don't know what the solution is.
- xp84 2mo ago
  Not only that, the tween years used to be when you developed the skills of independence that you'd hopefully more or less be able to use to be a teenager. A 9 or 10-year-old would have permission to walk or bike around the neighborhood, to and from school, maybe to a nearby shopping center or corner store... Today they're kept under lock and key for that whole time since we're afraid of having the cops called on us for "unsupervised children walking" by insane people. Teens don't even know how to bridge the gap between "fully chaperoned child" and "adult" so when they are unsupervised they get into trouble, and when they become adults they are so unconfident they do things like choosing college not because they have a passion for a subject, or for learning, or a career interest, but because when you're enrolled in college they arrange your life's schedule and assign you a living space without you having to handle any of the complexity yourself. Great job, Gen-X parents.
  - saulpw 2mo ago
    Hey, cut us some slack, we were raised by Boomers.
    - ryandrake 2mo ago
      Scarily enough, I bet every generation since Gen-X has been largely raised by Boomers: Gen-X and Milennials largely had boomer parents. Many kids in the later generations are effectively being raised by their (Boomer) grandparents because their parents are either not involved or absent because working too hard. For most of my 13 year old kid's friends, I only know their grandparents. Never see the actual parents.

triceratops 2mo ago

Malls still exist. As do public libraries, community rec centers, gyms, and pools.

threetonesun 2mo ago
Malls barely exist, at least compared to the way they did 20 years ago. I wasn't arguing all third spaces are gone, but even of the ones you did note I'd bet in most communities their funding/availability has decreased in that time period.
- triceratops 2mo ago
  > Malls barely exist, at least compared to the way they did 20 years ago Presumably because people spend less money there than they used to. > I'd bet in most communities their funding/availability has decreased in that time period. It's one of the tragedies of our age. The inability to fund anything for the common good.
autoexec 2mo ago
Malls have been in decline for decades. Public pools barely exist anymore either. (https://www.poolmagazine.com/pool-news/america-is-losing-public-pools-at-an-alarming-rate/ https://www.poolmagazine.com/pool-news/america-is-losing-pub...). If you're in a wealthy city you probably still have a decent community center. Libraries are probably the most common space avilable, but they are also under constant attack by republicans. In wealthy cities you can find all kinds of services there. Smaller libraries will have some areas for reading and meeting.
- triceratops 2mo ago
  > Malls have been in decline for decades People voted with their wallets. > public libraries are under constant attack by republicans Voters get the services they vote for. All of us are to blame.
  - autoexec 2mo ago
    > Voters get the services they vote for. It's hard to feel bad about a small backwoods town of idiots who vote to shut down their public libraries (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/book-ban-lgbtq-jamestown-michigan-library/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/book-ban-lgbtq-jamestown-michig...) but there are efforts on the federal level too (https://www.ala.org/faq-executive-order-targeting-imls https://www.ala.org/faq-executive-order-targeting-imls). Right wing nutjobs all over the country have been threatening library staff and calling in bomb threats and we can't vote them out
  - jimbokun 2mo ago
    True but not very constructive.
    - triceratops 2mo ago
      Pointing out the cause of the problem is not constructive?
      - jimbokun 2mo ago
        What’s actionable about “it’s everyone’s fault”?
      - xp84 2mo ago
        If I'm having a problem with a server and you commented "Former sysadmin was dumb and lazy, so they misconfigured it" (and you're correct) is that constructive? I think we mostly all agree that we as a society caused the problem, but we can't go back and undo that. Constructive would be coming up with ways we can, given the past did take place, improve things going forward.
pseingatl 2mo ago
Malls are dying. Many are closed. Public libraries are daycare for the homeless and parents are afraid to leave their children. Your other options may be well-run, but all suffer from a lack of funding and staffing. Pools aren't a year-round thing, even in the South.

everforward 2mo ago

That doesn’t match my experience if your bar is really as low as “won’t throw you out for not buying anything”. Obvious anecdata, but within an easy walk or bike radius of me (a couple miles) there are 3 public libraries, something like half a square mile of parks, a few public basketball courts, a few public tennis courts, a public baseball field, a bar over the baseball field that welcomes children (it’s one of the veterans things and has board games and what not), at least a dozen other businesses that don’t care if you buy anything, and your usual litany of Walmart kind of places that can’t be bothered to track who is buying and who isn’t. I don’t have any issues finding places to hang out for free, and I use them, but they’re pretty sparsely used so it’s not as 3rd space as it used to be. Eg I walk my dogs most mornings, and I rarely see more than 1 other person at the park or dog park at 7 or 8am. It feels to me like 3rd spaces are disappearing because people don’t use them, rather than people don’t use them because they don’t exist.

pseingatl 2mo ago
Consider yourself very lucky if your public libraries are not daycare for the homeless.
- nekusar 2mo ago
  And that's a perfect description for how the USA has fallen. This place IS the supposed '3rd world shithole' that Republicans say. That the libraries, the legacy from the early Carnegie 1900's billionaires, are now the climate refuge and place to try to succeed for the homeless. We (royal) fail so many humans, prey on the absolute conquest of 'make more money at all costs'.
- hdgvhicv 2mo ago
  Depends entirely on your country. Your country may have that, but I don’t recognise that from any of the 4 libraries I’ve been to in the last 12 months or the additional 4 I’ve been to in the last few years.

pimlottc 2mo ago

Definitely, and renting a video itself was often a communal activity. You'd be hanging out with your friends or family and get the hankering to see a movie, so you all pile in the car together and see what they had. You'd argue back and forth about this movie or that movie, and you had to be flexible since your first pick might not be in stock. Strangers would give you suggestions or you'd see what was recommended by the staff. Lots of times you'd end up taking up something completely different than what you had planned.

pseingatl 2mo ago

We are unfair to teenagers today; give them no place to go and then we feign surprise when they act up. According to Harper's, there's a 20% decline in kids playing baseball--their noses are in their iPads. You can't take children to the mall because malls are dying. Too many parks are places where bad things happen. I don't know what the solution is.

xp84 2mo ago
Not only that, the tween years used to be when you developed the skills of independence that you'd hopefully more or less be able to use to be a teenager. A 9 or 10-year-old would have permission to walk or bike around the neighborhood, to and from school, maybe to a nearby shopping center or corner store... Today they're kept under lock and key for that whole time since we're afraid of having the cops called on us for "unsupervised children walking" by insane people. Teens don't even know how to bridge the gap between "fully chaperoned child" and "adult" so when they are unsupervised they get into trouble, and when they become adults they are so unconfident they do things like choosing college not because they have a passion for a subject, or for learning, or a career interest, but because when you're enrolled in college they arrange your life's schedule and assign you a living space without you having to handle any of the complexity yourself. Great job, Gen-X parents.
- saulpw 2mo ago
  Hey, cut us some slack, we were raised by Boomers.
  - ryandrake 2mo ago
    Scarily enough, I bet every generation since Gen-X has been largely raised by Boomers: Gen-X and Milennials largely had boomer parents. Many kids in the later generations are effectively being raised by their (Boomer) grandparents because their parents are either not involved or absent because working too hard. For most of my 13 year old kid's friends, I only know their grandparents. Never see the actual parents.