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prospectacle writes:
"An important choice remains for this site. What kind of organisation will we be, practically, legally and financially?
A for-profit, shareholder corporation seems out of the question, by general consensus (correct me if I'm wrong), but other questions remain. The basic choice is this:
Will we be like a charity, a co-op, or a recreational club?
- (Like a) Charity:
Being like a charity means operating for the public benefit. What we produce is news and englightened commentary for the benefit of the world. All our finances and operations would be geared towards this aim. All excess revenue is reinvested into the site. - Co-op:
A co-op is for the mutual financial benefit of individual (possibly paid) members. Three main sub-options for this exist that might be appropriate for this site:
2a) A retailer's co-op. Members use a common organisation in order to make individual profits. For example if members used this site to display their stunning intelligence, and then put their resume or website links on their profile page so people could hire them. Maybe there are services built into the site to find someone to hire who fits your requirements.
2b) A worker's co-operative: Employees share any excess revenue. Some revenue would go to expenses, some would be reinvested, whatever remains is shared among employees.
2c) A buyer's co-op. We exist to get discounts, or to buy together what we can't afford separately. Maybe we're buying well-written news and analysis from professional authors. Or maybe we're bulk-buying electronics, etc, so the price-per individual can be lower. - A Recreational Club:
This takes membership fees to provide access to equipment, organize competitions, etc. Maybe paid members would get to use extra services, like an email account, or storage space, or their own discussion thread area, or software project hosting, or chat-rooms, etc. Non-members could still be permitted, with fewer privileges, and would have to pay-per-use for the extra services (or pay to become a member).
This is a gross simplification, but gives some idea of the options involved. Feel free to offer alternatives. So what should we be, what is our purpose, really? And what kind of a structure is required to make sure we serve that purpose, and that money doesn't end up in the wrong pockets?
Bonus question: which jurisdiction should we set ourselves up in to fulfil our mission most effectively?"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by prospectacle on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:42AM
I agree. We currently behave more like a club than anything else. Clubs gotta pay costs, so members who use their services pay dues. Simple, tried, true.
You could make it free to watch; pay to play.
Members could bring guests (within limits, of course. Perhaps for a limited time, and a limited number of guests each month).
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:23PM
I'd rather not be that restrictive: it's not like the site can't accommodate a large number of persons because of limited space/facilities (this is where the parallel with the real-world brick-and-mortar becomes wrong).
I would suggest a guest account may be obtained by anyone asking for it, with a certain restriction on the amount of activity per day or per story, but otherwise full access to posting/journaling/etc
Membership by invitation from another "sponsoring/vetting" member may be one way to increase the number of full members... May even work as a strategy to increase the club's appeal (remember the time when one could get a gmail account only if someone would invite her/him?)
Even so, an invite for a full membership should come with a cost for the member that vouch for the applicant - probably some karma.
Another way a "guest" can get to receive an "non-sponsored invitation" (i.e nobody vouching for her/him) to membership if accumulating a certain level of karma and paying for the privilege of being invited with that amount of karma points. Until than, a limited number of posts per day (or per story) may be a good incentive to make their posts count for someone willing to join the club.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mrbluze on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:47PM
I strongly believe we should keep all the basic fictions of the site as free. Subscriptions and so on could buy benefits like access to downloads or something like that but the things that we do right now should remain free of charge. I personally favour the club model, and would suggest possible benefits of club membership be participation in the running of the site, access to peer support, employment listings, email, etc. At some point people who are paying for everything at the moment need to be recompensed and we need to think of turning a profit without becoming a user tracking and advertising service.
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 2) by prospectacle on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:54PM
You're right, MrBluze and c0lo. It's better not to shut down free services. Besides asking people to start paying for what was free, it would also be extra code-work to enforce that separation.
Maybe it should go along the lines of: current features stay free, future features (after some cut-off date) are for members only.
Perhaps members also get a vote on what the new features will be.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic