The idea is simple. A worker-consumer hybrid coop that develops, maintains and hosts a lemmy-like fediverse platform that is open sourced.

There r two pricing tiers- a free and paid tier. If u pay a monthly membership fee, you become a member of the consumer body. If u r hired by the coop, u of course become part of the worker body.

The core of the coop’s workings are direct democratic. Creating, filling and destroying job positions are all done direct democratically. To pass a piece of legislation, either one of the following conditions need to be met:

  1. Simple passing: Both, worker and consumer bodies cast more than 50% votes each for the given bill.
  2. Consumer override: If the consumer body casts more than two thirds of the votes for a bill.

Assume that the quality of the platform is as good as Lemmy is right now. Assume that the functionality is similar too.

Would you be interested in being a member? Do u think this is a good idea?

I personally find Lemmy’s current donations based model to be severely lacking from a fundraising point of view. There needs to be a better form of organisation imo.

The direct democratic consumer coop element would bring in more people imo. I’m hoping that the worker coop element prevents worker exploitation.

Do you think this is an absolutely horseshit idea? Or do u kinda like it? Or do u have any suggestions? I’m seriously considering this, which is what made me ask this here. I have a Lemmy client nearing the MVP stage which I was developing with this purpose in mind. Sorry if this is the wrong community for the post.

    • UraniumBlazer@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      41·
      2 months ago

      Yeah that’s true unfortunately. But the goal is NOT to be so small always. What if we had a good, properly developed and funded social media platform that was a cooperative at the same time? That’s the idea.

      Right now, while Lemmy (and the fediverse in general) is nice, it clearly lacks developmental resources purely due to a lack of funds. Most devs here are contributing on a voluntary basis.

      Why shouldn’t devs get to earn a living by working on a project that is meant to do actual good for society? Why shouldn’t social media consumers get to have a platform that doesn’t treat them as data mines?

      That’s kinda the idea. Not just to maintain Lemmy’s userbase, but to actually get more users who are presently on corporate social media platforms.