The proprietary and for-profit always wins. Even if Mastodon had all of the feature upsides of BlueSky, it would lose the marketing war.
What are the most popular examples where "all the feature upsides" lost?
Thoughts on Bluesky
41–50 of 53 posts
Re: Thoughts on Bluesky
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, the fact that it's a PBC does not necessarily limit the right of their investors. PBC just means that they need to commit a certain percentage of their profit to a cause. It's still a for-profit company owned by shareholders. They have not publicly disclosed their charter or other information.
BLUESKY SOCIAL, PBC is registered in Delaware. Here's the relevant law: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title8/c001/sc15/ > a public benefit corporation shall be managed in a manner that balances the stockholders’ pecuniary interests, the best interests of those materially affected by the corporation’s conduct, and the public benefit or public benefits identified in its certificate of incorporation. There is no language…
You are right that it's not specifically required do donate a certain percentage of your profits. It's even more vague than that. It basically just means that you need to commit to a certain "public benefit" in your certificate of incorporation:
"The Certificate of Incorporation of a benefit corporation commits the company to spending some of its profits or resources (or both) in support of a specific public benefit. If a benefit corporation decides to stop doing business and dissolves, the shareholders receive the proceeds of the sales of assets, after liabilities are paid." (from https://www.delawareinc.com/blog/non-profit-corporation-vs-p...)
Re: Thoughts on Bluesky
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, the fact that it's a PBC does not necessarily limit the right of their investors. PBC just means that they need to commit a certain percentage of their profit to a cause. It's still a for-profit company owned by shareholders. They have not publicly disclosed their charter or other information.
you're just factually wrong on this, sorry.
How am I wrong? If I'm wrong it's that even more vague what a PBC needs to legally do to support its public cause, but in reality many PBCs end up with donating a certain % of their profits. But my understanding is that there are also other ways to support your public cause.
We don't know what Bluesky Social PBC has committed to in their certificate of incorporation.
Re: Thoughts on Bluesky
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, the fact that it's a PBC does not necessarily limit the right of their investors. PBC just means that they need to commit a certain percentage of their profit to a cause. It's still a for-profit company owned by shareholders. They have not publicly disclosed their charter or other information.
That is not what this means at all. Legally, it means that the company has other priorities that it must consider equally to creating profit. This means that investors have a much higher standard to have standing to sue the company or oust the CEO if they don't return a profit or don't return profits directly to investors. A good example of what this means in practice is developer awards from Bluesky Social. As I und…
> Legally, it means that the company has other priorities that it must consider equally to creating profit.
Ok, so it's even more vague than how I understood it. This could mean anything.
Venture capital does not care about profits, they just care about selling their share at a considerably higher price than they bought it within ~ 7 years. In reality, most of the time, this happens through an acquisition. Many times this happens without the acquired company making a single cent of profit.
So how does it matter that Bluesky Social is a PBC in this context? It is still owned and controlled by shareholders, many of them venture capitalists. It can still be sold at an uncapped profit to the share holders.
Re: Thoughts on Bluesky
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
BLUESKY SOCIAL, PBC is registered in Delaware. Here's the relevant law: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title8/c001/sc15/ > a public benefit corporation shall be managed in a manner that balances the stockholders’ pecuniary interests, the best interests of those materially affected by the corporation’s conduct, and the public benefit or public benefits identified in its certificate of incorporation. There is no language…
You are right that it's not specifically required do donate a certain percentage of your profits. It's even more vague than that. It basically just means that you need to commit to a certain "public benefit" in your certificate of incorporation: "The Certificate of Incorporation of a benefit corporation commits the company to spending some of its profits or resources (or both) in support of a specific public benefit.…
I fully agree that a PBC isn’t a panacea. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re confidently asserting incorrect things. I don’t expect that you’ll change your mind, so I’m not trying to convince you, I just want to make sure that the facts are laid out.
Re: Thoughts on Bluesky
#46> Compare this to Mastodon, where you can easily switch to a new server and most your follower won’t even notice and business as usual carries on. I would like to think this is true, but there are just too many frustration stories of confusion of 'which instance' to choose, losing posts due to admins (and followers) shutting down instances and having to tell your followers where to go next. Best part is the instance…
I personally find Mastodon confusing and I'm always unsure if I'm on the "correct" instance or not. I understand that all the instances can talk to each other, but it still feels disjointed to me; like I'm missing part of the conversation because it's happening in the other room.
Bluesky doesn't have the same problem. I understand that they don't have true federation today but that's not really a blocker for me. I'm don't want to limit my reach just because something isn't perfect right now. If they get true federation working in the future, great! If they don't then I'll just deal with moving to the next platform. Granted, I don't make money or anything from any social platforms, but it's not the end of the world if you have to start over. At least not for me.
Re: Thoughts on Bluesky
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is not what this means at all. Legally, it means that the company has other priorities that it must consider equally to creating profit. This means that investors have a much higher standard to have standing to sue the company or oust the CEO if they don't return a profit or don't return profits directly to investors. A good example of what this means in practice is developer awards from Bluesky Social. As I und…
> Legally, it means that the company has other priorities that it must consider equally to creating profit. Ok, so it's even more vague than how I understood it. This could mean anything. Venture capital does not care about profits, they just care about selling their share at a considerably higher price than they bought it within ~ 7 years. In reality, most of the time, this happens through an acquisition. Many times…
I think you should reread my comment, as I have already answered this. The "control" that shareholders have over the company is severely limited, and they have limited legal recourse against company leadership if they decide to use profits in a manner they disagree with, but fulfills their charter. It should be fairly obvious in my example that it is not in the best interests of the shareholders to quite literally give away profits.
Re: Thoughts on Bluesky
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
you're just factually wrong on this, sorry.
How am I wrong? If I'm wrong it's that even more vague what a PBC needs to legally do to support its public cause, but in reality many PBCs end up with donating a certain % of their profits. But my understanding is that there are also other ways to support your public cause. We don't know what Bluesky Social PBC has committed to in their certificate of incorporation.
A standard C corp (and more relevantly its officers) is legally obligated to maximize profit for shareholders at the expense of any mission.
For a B-corp if the investors sue the board or CEO for breaching fiduciary duty for not maximizing profit, the response is "we were following the mission (and you knew we would be following the mission going in), GFY"
Re: Thoughts on Bluesky
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
How am I wrong? If I'm wrong it's that even more vague what a PBC needs to legally do to support its public cause, but in reality many PBCs end up with donating a certain % of their profits. But my understanding is that there are also other ways to support your public cause. We don't know what Bluesky Social PBC has committed to in their certificate of incorporation.
A standard C corp (and more relevantly its officers) is legally obligated to maximize profit for shareholders at the expense of any mission. For a B-corp if the investors sue the board or CEO for breaching fiduciary duty for not maximizing profit, the response is "we were following the mission (and you knew we would be following the mission going in), GFY"
Who cares about profit? We're in the VC world now, where many companies grow quickly without making a cent of profit and then get sold off. How does a B corp help here?
Re: Thoughts on Bluesky
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are right that it's not specifically required do donate a certain percentage of your profits. It's even more vague than that. It basically just means that you need to commit to a certain "public benefit" in your certificate of incorporation: "The Certificate of Incorporation of a benefit corporation commits the company to spending some of its profits or resources (or both) in support of a specific public benefit.…
I fully agree that a PBC isn’t a panacea. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re confidently asserting incorrect things. I don’t expect that you’ll change your mind, so I’m not trying to convince you, I just want to make sure that the facts are laid out.
That I change my mind about what?
What I'm saying is that very likely Bluesky will grow for a few years without making a cent of profit, and be acquired by another company. And this has not much to do with if they are a PBC or LLC or whatever...