I was talking to Chris Casey at last night’s NGP happy hour about the fact that Meetup will start to charge a monthly fee for their services—services which facilitate the creation and management of groups and their meetings online. In the world of political campaigns where my company has expertise, Meetup has become a fairly common addition to political websites. But the new fees have already produced controversy and will apparently move many people away from the product and hasten the development and adoption of alternatives.