As I pay my $50 subscription fee to pobox.com I'm daydreaming about what it would've looked like if the users formed a co-op to run it instead of selling to Fastmail:

https://e2c.how/

#ExitToCommunity

@Dogzilla @Benfell @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @duckwhistle One thing I've heard of is "exit to community". Startups are private but then to "go public" they are sold to the community as cooperatives. VCs can still invest, but the end goal is a company that the community wants to own, not one that extracts resources from it. It shifts the the incentives away from a focus purely on profitability even when the company is still private.

#ExitToCommunity
#E2C

@LunaFoxgirlVT boosting #exitt #exittocommunity #TwitterDown #twitter #twittermigration

@SearingTruth @Wildduck @Jyoti I'm told the term for this is #ExitToCommunity or #e2c. But that term can apply to voluntary "exits" via conversion to a cooperative. I'd like to see a systemic change that requires by law that this is the only method by which a company can "go public". We will be better off without the stock market and the volatility it introduces into our economy, anyway.

@JessTheUnstill #ExitToCommunity #e2c

If you want to build an organization that benefits the community, your long-term exit plan should be to hand it off *to* the community. Convert it to a #cooperative when you are ready to move on.

The people who are most likely to have the community's best interests at heart will always be the members of that community.

@futurebird You might be interested in @ntnsndr and others’ work on #ExitToCommunity

@tezoatlipoca @kakurady @soatok @shlee

#ExitToCommunity #E2C

If instead of IPOs, companies were converted into coops for the final cash out, we wouldn't have this problem. Company value would be measured in terms of service and benefit to the community, instead of revenue growth, because that's what would drive share prices. The root of the problem is that shareholders and investors are 3rd parties outside the community, being neither workers nor customers. This is where the perverse incentive to maximize profit (resource extraction) instead of maximizing utility to the community comes from.

@ryanhoulihan @bouriquet @fcktheworld587 Incidentally, I learned recently that a company going public by converting to a #coop is not a new idea. It's called #ExitToCommunity, or #e2c for short.

It turns out I'm not the first to have come up with the idea. It's called #ExitToCommunity.

(Thanks, @clacke and @Marc.)

#e2c

Interesting #ExitToCommunity story about the Riverford organic veg box. Tridos bank loaned an employee-owned trust £6m to buy 76% of the company from founder Guy Singh-Watson, repaid over 4 years. That year (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/07/riverford-organic-veg-employee-ownership-plan) the company turned over £57m. Four years later turnover was £110m (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/19/guy-singh-watson-riverford-founder-still-digging-for-the-future) when all employees get the same £3800. This year, despite profits falling by half, employee dividend doubled (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/25/vegetable-box-firm-riverford-doubles-staff-payout-despite-plunge-in-profits) and they're making their fleet electric.

@Loukas oh I see! As it happens, I'm starting a research project on precisely that, building on my #exittocommunity framework.

"Just imagine the different outcomes that might be unfolding now at Twitter were it worker-owned, or a public utility."

Yep. Some of us tried with buytwitter.org (which led to Social.coop). After that, Zebras Unite helped turn the idea into a model by helping to incubate the idea of #exittocommunity cf. e2c.how

Am sure there's many more recentralisation defenses..
— as an alternative to open coops, support/join private instances & infrastructure with a commitment to #ExitToCommunity https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community. Running an instance and a coop and governance system might be too much for many. It's a lot of work dealing with 'everyone has an opinion but we just need to get X done'. But a commitment to grow with a closed management team then exit to community (ie in-cooperate) seems a promising compromise.

There is a way #Musk can get himself out of the hole he has dug, stop losing money and protect free speech at the same time. He definitely won't do it though, because it would require him to admit he made a mistake.

The solution is #ExitToCommunity as proposed by @ntnsndr - give bird site users the opportunity to collectively buy and own the company as a #PlatformCooperative, and then democratically govern it as a utility.

@profcarroll We call it #exittocommunity :)

"The community received specialist advice and finance from the #MoreThanAPub programme, which was set up in 2016 to support community ownership of pubs in the UK. This programme is funded by @luhc@twitter.com and @peoplesbiz@twitter.com, and is delivered by @plunkettfoundat@twitter.com."

An #ExittoCommunity story:

👋 Hello @linc@twitter.com! Thank you contributing to our #exittocommunity efforts on @opencollect@twitter.com. How did you come across our work?
https://opencollective.com/e2c-collective

RT @hackernoon@twitter.com

"Inside Open Collective's Effort to Become Decentralized for Global Public Good" by @RohitMalekar@twitter.com https://hackernoon.com/inside-open-collectives-effort-to-become-decentralized-for-global-public-good #exittocommunity #augmentedbondingcurve

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/hackernoon/status/1493565785800953858

Hey Melon Usk, maybe it's time to consider selling the lemon you just bought to the people who use it instead of trying to make money by milking them for data and attention?

#ExitToCommunity

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/478594/elon-musk-warns-of-twitter-bankruptcy-as-more-senior-executives-quit

#DataFarming

Super relevant to #exittocommunity processes

RT @metagov_project@twitter.com

🎨 How should we design online spaces for self-governance? 🗳️

We at Metagov have made a living manifesto, available today to read and modify, with the help of @crowdwrite@twitter.com.

Join the conversation here: https://www.crowdwrite.xyz/metagov/cl7e9sjvc000q09jx9kjhbocz/text

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/metagov_project/status/1580231463353450500