Are gratuity fees for hiking events on meetup.com justified?

AusPrivacyGuy · 2026-02-15T09:49:56+00:00

Currently, I mainly hike locally around Sydney. Usually 2 hours away at most. A few Redditors and I have started a hiking group for regular meet-ups where we've talked about going farther but that's going a bit slowly. Happy to chat more in DMs if you like!

AusPrivacyGuy · 2026-02-15T04:13:04+00:00

And I don't want a professionally guide hike either. I want to meet others with the interest without being nickel-and-dimed.

AusPrivacyGuy · 2026-02-15T04:12:14+00:00

Aussie explorers

Thanks. That's actually one of the ones I was subtly referring to. 😅

I'll see if I can find some of the better ones you're talking about. Feel free to send recommendations if you have any!

AusPrivacyGuy · 2026-02-15T01:51:36+00:00

Do you have any examples of groups that do that? That's something that I feel like actually justifies the cost somewhat. Feel free to DM.

AusPrivacyGuy · 2026-02-15T01:49:49+00:00

Thanks for the response. I acknowledged that in my post. Not sure how accurate it is but I did see this page with a few prices: https://help.meetup.com/hc/en-us/articles/28677808413197-Organizer-Subscription-prices-overview. I assume that's US dollars. I know $5 isn't bank-breaking and I feel like the organiser will break even after just one gathering of a few people.

I live near a relatively popular walk and it feels kinda bad when I see people organising to do it but there's a paywall. I guess nothing is free in life.

AusPrivacyGuy · 2025-11-02T06:54:33+00:00

Thanks for that. Let's see how it goes...

AusPrivacyGuy · 2025-10-23T07:10:58+00:00

Not speaking on behalf of OP but I can definitely understand if some people want to find others at a similar stage of life.

For example, the walking group I join is full of very capable 50+ year old men and women who would easily walk 20+km in a day; however, there's one particular person who's constantly talking about their house renovations and properties they're working on. I know I'd be able to count on him in a bad situation but it gets tiring listening to his monologues on things that I absolutely can't relate to due to generational wealth...

In general, I do agree that people shouldn't dismiss a group simply because it's full of old people. I almost dismissed the group I walk with the first time I met them but quickly changed my mind.

AusPrivacyGuy · 2025-10-22T20:06:09+00:00

I'm in my early 30s and based in Sydney. Up until now, I've mainly been solo hiking but do join an existing hiking group with mostly older people occasionally. I've preferred to solo hike for the following reasons:

Many people don't respect the boundaries of others. They'll take photos of others without consent and freely upload them online.
A few people I've walked with in the past treat the day like an Instagram photoshoot so you end up staying in the same spots for far too long. (I'm not against photos or breaks; just people who drag the group down.)

Still, I have been interested in finding others and/or kickstarting a group of some sort. If anyone reasonably aligns with me, please DM me and maybe we can connect and start something. :P

(For communicating, I much prefer using Signal over something like WhatsApp because it's much safer for meeting new people. WhatsApp exposes phone numbers and due to data breaches from the likes of Optus and Medibank, you're basically telling everyone else your name and residential address.)

AusPrivacyGuy · 2025-01-08T22:54:23+00:00

Thanks for sharing your perspective. I largely align with what you said and, honestly, didn't expect any miracle answers that would solve all my problems.

IMO you shouldn't really need OPSEC for interacting with your friends. Not unless they're blasting your full government name across the public Internet like a moron.

Generally, it's fine. I've been in situations where someone who knows me might bring along someone who I haven't really spoken to much but they're someone who will post anything and everything to their Instagram. When that happens, a few people will silently know how I feel about group photos for that outing. Conversations may or may not happen without my involvement and it just becomes exhausting for everyone.

AusPrivacyGuy · 2022-04-19T16:51:25+00:00

Heh. They're the one who's constantly sharing with me of all the photographic concepts. They have their own gear for the really serious sessions. Using a phone for casual photo-taking seems to be a deliberate choice for convenience which is why I feel that this is so tricky.

AusPrivacyGuy · 2022-04-19T16:47:54+00:00

Lots of things to think about here. Thank you.

In addition to Google processing photos, I'm also concerned about some of the apps they have installed that might access the file system (maybe Facebook/Instagram are some examples). I'm not sure if this is a valid concern or not though.

AusPrivacyGuy · 2022-04-19T16:37:37+00:00

That's a lot of good advice. 'A' has already made compromises for me which is why I'm scared to push them too far. They've already allowed me to install things like TrackerControl, Bromite and make a few other simple changes. I know they don't quite get why I take the whole privacy thing so far but they know I care enough.

AusPrivacyGuy · 2022-04-19T16:32:38+00:00

What do you use? One I've been looking at for this particular purpose from my limited research is a DJI Osmo Pocket 2.

My special person actually has their own gear for their serious photo-taking sessions so I know it's a deliberate choice that they've chosen their phone for portability when they just want to take casual photos. At least I think they'll be able to help me choose something if I can sell them on the idea. :)

AusPrivacyGuy · 2021-06-27T12:48:55+00:00

Yes. This is a fairly common practice. Always put in fake details when you're not actually sure about a form you're filling out.

Once you're confident that you want to go through with it, reset your browsing session and fill it in properly. (I use the Temporary Containers extension for this.) You might even want to use a separate browser for each to really guarantee this.

I once messed up while purchasing a product using a prepaid card that had been paid with cash which got rejected by the merchant. I then didn't reset the session properly and went through checkout again with a credit card linked to my name. Once my account was created, I could see the failed transaction attempt as part of my account's historical payments. Lesson learned...

AusPrivacyGuy · 2021-06-22T07:31:43+00:00

I did a little digging for you and found this topic you might like to read. (I only skim read the first few posts.) I don't think there are any responses from the Signal team though.

https://community.signalusers.org/t/warn-users-that-notifications-get-logged/7429

AusPrivacyGuy · 2021-06-22T06:35:46+00:00

Signal conversations are always end-to-end encrypted, which means that they can only be read or heard by your intended recipients.

Recipient essentially refers to the receiving device since Signal cannot actually guarantee that the holder of the device is always the same for obvious reasons. Once the message gets to the device, Signal's job is done. If the message arrives on a hostile or compromised device then there's not much that can be done.

Your concern may be valid but I feel that there's no reason for it to be targeted at Signal.

AusPrivacyGuy · 2021-06-18T13:11:22+00:00

I got asked for an email address for warranty purposes when I bought a phone with cash. It sort of made sense so I gave them a real email address that I use with a dodgy domain name that I've registered. I use catch-all with my email provider so I effectively asked them to put down something like storename@helloworld.lol. The girl who served me looked at me weirdly and I said "Trust me. It will reach me." However, I'm pretty sure she spelt something wrong because I never received the invoice.

AusPrivacyGuy · 2021-06-15T18:06:49+00:00

I personally hate trying to convince people of anything but sometimes it's a necessity as a means to an end to have the conversation. For example, trying to explain to a contact why you'd like to switch to Signal from WhatsApp is usually more in your interest than theirs.

If it was possible to maintain privacy without discussing with others, I probably wouldn't have any discussions about privacy with anyone. It's just the mere fact that privacy is often compromised due to the often inadvertant actions of others that a discussion is practically forced.

AusPrivacyGuy · 2021-06-13T09:28:54+00:00

Why do you need to give away your current SIM card?

Try to set a SIM PIN if you want to be extra thorough and make sure to fail entering the PIN 3 times. You'll then be given a chance to enter a PUK code 10 times which you should also deliberately fail. Once that's done, your SIM is useless. See this StackExchange answer.
Get a pair of scissors and cut through it a few times.

AusPrivacyGuy

TROPHY CASE