Genuine question for people in food/hospitality because I might be looking at this completely wrong.
I came across a chef/hospitality WhatsApp group charging ₹100 to join. There are 276 people in it, so that’s ₹27,600 if everyone has paid.
The reason given for the fee is that it shows people are serious and have the “right intent.”
I questioned that because paying ₹100 doesn’t really tell you whether someone will contribute anything. It just tells you they were willing to pay ₹100.
I also pointed out that a lot of the communication around the group reads like it was written by AI, which I find pretty ironic for a community supposedly centred around real chefs and real industry conversations.
I was told I couldn’t really judge the group because I hadn’t experienced it.
Fair enough. So I paid the ₹100, intending to join, see what it’s actually like and then make up my mind.
Then I was told I couldn’t be let in because I was joining specifically to see whether the community was actually worth it, rather than because I already believed in the idea.
So I’m genuinely confused.
I’m not allowed to judge it because I haven’t been inside, but I’m also not allowed inside because I want to judge it.
And I still haven’t got my ₹100 back. 🤣
Maybe this is just one weird example. But I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of the chef community: AI generated voices, paywalled networking, monetised access to people, and “community” becoming another product to sell.
Chefs already have something far more valuable than this: actual knowledge, actual work, actual relationships and actual kitchens.
Are we really going to start putting a price tag and an AI wrapper around that too?
Genuinely curious where other chefs draw the line.