The author is building alternatives: civic hacking meetups. So for people who hack the institutions around them, it never has to be as simple as going or not.
Personally, this cultural critique is far more interesting than any hackathon I've seen. I was even at a company which hilariously tried using hackathons to pay off technical debt, instead of simply scheduling it. (The damned Scrum Master was surprised I had no intention of staying during weekends; somehow he thought this plan would overjoy me, since I claimed we mismanaged technical debt.)
Personally, this cultural critique is far more interesting than any hackathon I've seen. I was even at a company which hilariously tried using hackathons to pay off technical debt, instead of simply scheduling it. (The damned Scrum Master was surprised I had no intention of staying during weekends; somehow he thought this plan would overjoy me, since I claimed we mismanaged technical debt.)