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Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

fortune.com

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Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#41

Post by skynode »

dgranda wrote: post #11

There is much better option in some countries if you want to change some law or government policy. For example, in the UK any British citizen or UK resident can create an online petition to be discussed in UK Parliament [1]. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. And source code is available on GitHub [2…

I fail to see how the UK's policy is better. For starters, its a government policy which can be revoked at will. Change.org is a for-profit entity whose objectives are clear and cuts across government and private enterprise.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#42

Post by lomnakkus »

dgranda wrote: post #11

There is much better option in some countries if you want to change some law or government policy. For example, in the UK any British citizen or UK resident can create an online petition to be discussed in UK Parliament [1]. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. And source code is available on GitHub [2…

I can't recall any instance where this has had any remotely noticeable effect. Can you name an instance?

EDIT#1: Just to be absolutely clear: This is an incredibly transparent distraction ploy. There's no actual intention of acting on any of this.

EDIT#2: See also the recent FCC "public consultation" on Net Neutrality.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#43

Post by bshimmin »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #36
bshimmin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, whether or not the petition is debated in Parliament, it won't actually change the law or government policy, because the government doesn't in the slightest bit care about the petitions.

I'm not sure that is totally true, it would be silly to ignore something that got a strong response.

They've debated something like a dozen petitions in Parliament. I'm not aware of anything meaningful having happened as a result.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#44

Post by raleighm »

skbohra123 wrote: post #16
dgranda wrote: post #11

There is much better option in some countries if you want to change some law or government policy. For example, in the UK any British citizen or UK resident can create an online petition to be discussed in UK Parliament [1]. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. And source code is available on GitHub [2…

Not a very good idea to believe a government controlled platform for something like this.

Not sure for-profit is appropriate either though (even if it's a b-corp, as Change.org is).

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#45

Post by notatoad »

ben_jones wrote: post #20
d4mi3n wrote: post #2

I worked for Change circa 2010 ~ 2011. Interesting to see how their revenue model has changed. IIRC they were previously making money by building email lists for non-profits and other orgs that would essentially contract Change to get them exposure. From what I read here, seems that wasn't really working out. Not sure what to make of becoming it a crowdfunding platform.

This strikes me as an organization that should be run similar to Wikipedia. But I suppose its far to late for that.

The difference is that Wikipedia actually provides some public benefit, whereas change.org doesn't accomplish anything so there's not going to be many people interested in donating resources to keep it running.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#46

Post by DanBC »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #36
bshimmin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, whether or not the petition is debated in Parliament, it won't actually change the law or government policy, because the government doesn't in the slightest bit care about the petitions.

I'm not sure that is totally true, it would be silly to ignore something that got a strong response.

Like the million people marching against the Iraq war in london 2003?

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#47

Post by dragonwriter »

skynode wrote: post #41
dgranda wrote: post #11

There is much better option in some countries if you want to change some law or government policy. For example, in the UK any British citizen or UK resident can create an online petition to be discussed in UK Parliament [1]. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. And source code is available on GitHub [2…

I fail to see how the UK's policy is better. For starters, its a government policy which can be revoked at will. Change.org is a for-profit entity whose objectives are clear and cuts across government and private enterprise.

> Change.org is a for-profit entity

Wikipedia claims that in summary information, but the text contradicts it; I suspect the people saying that (including Wikipedia) are making the error of failing to recognize that "for-profit", "not-for-profit", and "nonprofit" are three different categories (not two, with the last two being aliases), and that you can't distinguish between the first and second categories by just looking at the legal formalities that identify the third category.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#48

Post by pc86 »

Angostura wrote: post #40
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that is totally true, it would be silly to ignore something that got a strong response.

Trump's still been invited on a state visit.

Are people in the UK really signing a petition that amounts to "don't invite the President of the United States to the UK on an official visit"?

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#49

Post by alasdair_ »

dgranda wrote: post #11

There is much better option in some countries if you want to change some law or government policy. For example, in the UK any British citizen or UK resident can create an online petition to be discussed in UK Parliament [1]. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. And source code is available on GitHub [2…

The US has something similar. The issue is that (even in the UK) the response can be "no" and the consideration can also be "no".

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#50

Post by dragonwriter »

alexbeloi wrote: post #34
dragonwriter wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is change.org a for-profit enterprise? By their own description, no, though they are identical to one in at least superficial legal form (I don't know if their corporate governing documents do anything to address this.) Note that not-for-profit is not a crisp legal category ("nonprofit" is a term used for specific tax classification which requires a number of other qualifications and accepting a number of behaviora…

The linked article describes them as a for-profit org. > Change.org, a for-profit petition and fundraising website focused on social and political change. They are a B-corp for what that's worth.

> The linked article describes them as a for-profit org.

The linked article provides no basis for this description and, without any cited basis and given change.org's consistent description of not being operated for profit, seems to be making the (fairly common) mistake of confusing the absence of the tax status of "nonprofit" (which requires a lot more than being not-for-profit) with being "for profit". There are quite a number of not-for-profit entities that are not nonprofits.

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