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Great post about a subculture I know nothing about and the corporatization of everything. I'd guess it's a function of lack of social trust and liability law plus the general collapse of community but it seems like organic events like this have been dying off for decades until there's barely anything left.
Liability plays a large role.
Such events can persist until there's a mass casualty event or one (1) child is seriously injured or dies and then public attention and outcry will demand they be shut down.
The big 'appeal' of an organic gathering is that there's not technically any person 'in charge' and thus liable for the actions of the whole. A true "flash mob" (remember when THOSE were a thing?) is a bunch of random folks gathering at a given Schelling point to do a thing that they've all individually, peer to peer, agreed to do with no single person guiding the decision to fruition. Its a semi-random mass cooperation event.
In practice, there's usually someone or someone(s) who is the actual ringleader and can be singled out for legal prosecution, and that disables the event from organizing, or once THAT person serves as an example, the rest will opt not to put themselves at risk too.
The lack of social trust is a subtler problem. Covid itself didn't kill all the social trust. At least, my perception is that governmental institutions took the brunt of the trust hit there. BUT, we also learned that one defector can out you TO said governmental institutions and get you fined, prosecuted, possibly imprisoned.
So generally such a social group will have to be SO secretive and careful about gatekeeping that none of the members are too worried about being betrayed, or your group's activities are innocuous enough that they're beneath the notice of the local sovereigns even if a turncoat goes and reports you.
Car meets thus far occupy the second category. I am pretty sure at SOME point some incident will occur which will bring them under greater scrutiny, it still something very enjoyable while it lasts.
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