I'm not talking about 'networking' which is a grift in the same category as all the other artificial crap, I'm talking about sitting in the same awful office, fixing bugs till midnight, eating crappy pizza and putting your blood and sweat into something that's meaningful to you. You do that with people for several years, they're not just friends but pretty much family.
And being involved in an OSS community around a shared project, particularly long lived ones offers the same opportunities especially for people who are physically in a place that's isolated. I know a non-trivial amount of people who found their spouse through academic and OSS communities. Work connects people.
> sitting in the same awful office, fixing bugs till midnight, eating crappy pizza and putting your blood and sweat into something that's meaningful to you.
Sure, I've done that. And yes it creates a connection of sorts, I got to know my co-workers pretty well at least in that context. It's a social situation. Demented and sad, but social.
But did it ever lead to meeting up to do anything outside of work? Not once. Did I keep up with any of those people after job changes? Not even for a day.
Like being an open source maintainer - how is that really going to lead to close friends?
Or starting a business - sure you might network more, and meet business partners, but do they really become close friends?
I will say that going to a church regularly was the #1 thing that really led to lots of friends for me. Like instantly.