What happens when a Kiwi firm founded and run by your friends gets sold to an American firm. They promptly take your personal data and upload it to Facebook without your permission. Why are companies so obsessed with giving information to Facebook? Do they owe Mark something?
As a general strategy, we need to avoid creating organizations which can easily be bought by #BigTech, or where cash can be conveniently converted into influence. So cooperatives, non-profits and so forth.
agreed. I also think that our gov't needs to stop subsidising 'startups'. They're a huge waste, and they make it easy for foreign corporates to buy up our best and brightest, with no benefits for NZ. Any gov't support for them is tantamount to supporting "trickle down economics". In other words, a bad joke.
I think the best companies *boot strap* and employ great people with good remuneration. Those people *are* the value of the organisation. They should also have a share of the ownership. That's how we achieve equitable societies.
Let’s take it even further: good societies bootstrap great people; they should also have a share of the ownership. If an org agrees to a charter that stipulates that they cannot be sold/bought and that their work must remain in the commons (eg., mandated AGPL license), then they should be an independent org that is funded from the commons for the common good. The independent bit is crucial though. You don’t want it to turn into govt control.
Venture Capital is when a group of rich douchebags get money from a group of even richer douchebags for some likely-not-rich-yet douchebags to create things that exploit the rest of us so all the douchebags involved can get richer still.
Sorry that was meant to be more hopeful - it seems so possible that just a group of people could join under the common cause of supporting common good X, and pool funds, and we already have the mechanisms for doing the "we gave you money so you must now do X".
Dave Lane 🇳🇿
in reply to Jack Yan (甄爵恩) • • •Bob Mottram ✅
in reply to Dave Lane 🇳🇿 • • •Dave Lane 🇳🇿
in reply to Bob Mottram ✅ • • •reshared this
alcinnz reshared this.
Aral Balkan
in reply to Dave Lane 🇳🇿 • • •Exactly what I told the EU parliament: ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of…
#stayUps #commons
The Future of Internet Regulation at the European Parliament
Aral BalkanDave Lane 🇳🇿
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Aral Balkan
in reply to Dave Lane 🇳🇿 • • •Literally
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Aral Balkan
in reply to Literally • • •mastodon.ar.al/@aral/108447631…
So, no, I wasn’t describing VC.
ar.al🌻 (@aral@mastodon.ar.al)
Aral’s MastodonLiterally
Unknown parent • • •Sorry that was meant to be more hopeful - it seems so possible that just a group of people could join under the common cause of supporting common good X, and pool funds, and we already have the mechanisms for doing the "we gave you money so you must now do X".
It seems so close!
Aral Balkan
in reply to Literally • • •Hah, no worries. You led me to formulate a thought I wanted to express succinctly for a while now :)
@lightweight @bob