Parallel Build
Steven Palmer
Public
Seen by 424
So obviously it would irrational to purchase Twitter; due to its speculative price, the fact that we are its content and would be buying ourselves, its consumer capitalist design which is far from ideal and could be improved upon for a fraction of the cost.
The main challenge is getting enough people to shift over. People won't invest unless they know they know their contacts are going to be there and its going to function similar (albeit better) with little loss aversion (follower count).
So, perhaps to start; a simple website to present an alternative, graphical concept with explanation expanding on the Guardian article, as to why it would benefit them. Then a pledge action, something like "I promise to switch if 80% of my followers do, or 20% of network." With option to invest and buy fairshares straight away or later.
Then whenever Twitter censors trend, tweet or makes poor update, people can fuel their anger towards something constructive. #ForkTwitter! (weblink). Perhaps theres enough troll energy to purchase the NASDAQ, if not it can at least create an organised public voice to stalk and pressure Twitter into better representation.
Perhaps some financial engineering; create a referral system which pays people per referred user switch in some abstract currency which we'll distribute once pledge goal has been reached, out of investor cash. We could target influencers and use various other tactics, including media marketing to pull in the numbers.
Sam Toland
Sat 8 Oct 2016 4:05PM
I agree. I think that this group can leverage itself to support co-operative and user-owned platforms in the ways outlined.
And hopefully to funnel people interested in building such platforms to existing projects.
Nathan Schneider Sun 9 Oct 2016 5:33AM
I mean the former: invest in orgs like Loomio, though I'm not sure that in particular would be an ideal case. But it might be.
The main thing I'd want to exclude is investment in extractive business models. I'm not in principle opposed to building new app/platform/protocols, but I want to make sure that if we do it's grounded in a solidly practical cooperative-economic rationale. More plausible, I think, would be finding ways to create more sustainable economies around some of the existing open-source networks like Diaspora and GNUSocial.
Alanna Irving Sun 9 Oct 2016 11:47PM
This is like the "anti-DAO", for people who actually value the human factors in social collaboration...
Steven Palmer Thu 13 Oct 2016 8:05AM
Good outcome. I'm glad the technical imagination wasn't totally sidelined as was initially suggested. Institutional imagination should be the primary focus in order to facilitate the technical and provide focus, but it seems inevitable that design and ownership will both need to be considered sooner or later, sooner seems better. Happy to see the institutional imagination expand form consumer+ to the producer orientation of creative and technical facilitation.
john gieryn · Sun 9 Oct 2016 3:43AM
I like the proposal, but am curious as to thw specific meaning of:
Does this mean to say investment in orgs like Loomio? Or investment into projects that would open source and disseminate models like that of Loomio? @ntnsndr
Also wondering if the proposal should speak specifically to the exclusion of efforts => building such an app/platform/protocol within this group; the proposal may suggest this strongly enough as stands?