I had no idea that bridges like this existed; looking at the matrix bridge docs this looks perfect! And I’ve heard good things about matrix in general. Good point that using a combination of apps is more realistic than trying to find one that does everything.

How might I find people nearby that would like to join, and then coordinate details? Knocking on doors has gone poorly.

Hard disagree, it wouldn’t be compulsory and whatsapp is dogshit feature wise. Making friends as an adult is hard; I’d kill for a way to find people that live walking distance from me that want to play D&D.

I agree, that’s why I was hoping for something that would work well in-browser: no additional download required. It’s me: the lonely bored person that wants something to do. I’ve tried going door to door, but people around here haaaate that.

Good points. For the hardware, there are additional things I’d like to self host (personal website, media server, game servers, etc.) so I was imagining hardware I could grow into. I have a trial setup (git, lemmy, and apostrophe CMS managed by portainer + nginx + Heimdall) on my gaming pc that seems to work well and which I’d like to make a permanent version of. Definitely not married to having a blade, but I definitely want to go on premises. If there’s downtime, it’ll be because of an internet/power outage affecting the neighborhood, so no one’ll be trying to access it anyway. Adoption will be hard either way (the people I live around are mired in the metaverse 😭) and I’m open to suggestions on that as well.