SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday March 12 2014, @03:00PM
I think I like 2(b) the best. I'm not involved with this site in any manner beyond user, but, I think that 2(b) would encourage those who are doing the heavy lifting of making it available, to do the best work they can because of the opportunity for distributed personal profit amongst the workers. This is also increases the incentive for the site workers to prevent any single person from wresting control of the site, and secondly, it doesn't create a situation where some corporate overlord torpedos everything for extreme concentrated personal profit at the expense of users and site workers.
I feel I would benefit because the site workers would feel greater motivation to keep the site going, rather than experience charity burnout or any of the stuff surrounding that ("it was fun but I need to earn a living" -- "it was fun but I have a real job and a family and need the time back" -- "it isn't fun and I'm not getting paid so fuck it").