In this rural and highly progressive state in the northeastern United States, a local social media platform called Front Porch Forum has managed to rival Facebook and Instagram. It's a low-tech, algorithm-free, neighborhood-centered alternative.
Eventually, cofounders, as lovely and well meaning as they might be, leave, move, die, whatever, and someone shitty will end up in control. Without a corporate restructuring into, say, a user cooperative, it is just as doomed as every other internet thing that we’ve all loved.
10/10. No notes.
Same thing is gonna happen to Valve and anything else people love. They’re lying to themselves if they think it won’t.
This is just the barest nature of the growth of institutions, they always eventually lose sight of what they were created to do. Not even through any fault of their own but there’s just no way to make sure that the new people running it are on the exact same page as the people who came before. No amount of legalese can prevent it from changing. As you said, it takes a complete restructuring where the invested parties have a voice in the future.
Yes, and worse, even if they are true to that vision, other bigger players will be offering huge piles of cash to buy the thing. There will always be a perpetual temptation in its current structure. Just look at another beloved Vermont brand, Ben and Jerry’s, now owned by unilever.
10/10. No notes.
Same thing is gonna happen to Valve and anything else people love. They’re lying to themselves if they think it won’t.
This is just the barest nature of the growth of institutions, they always eventually lose sight of what they were created to do. Not even through any fault of their own but there’s just no way to make sure that the new people running it are on the exact same page as the people who came before. No amount of legalese can prevent it from changing. As you said, it takes a complete restructuring where the invested parties have a voice in the future.
Yes, and worse, even if they are true to that vision, other bigger players will be offering huge piles of cash to buy the thing. There will always be a perpetual temptation in its current structure. Just look at another beloved Vermont brand, Ben and Jerry’s, now owned by unilever.