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The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

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Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#111

Post by wavemode »

rgbrgb wrote: post #53
Lerc wrote: post #27

Taking investor money means users will required to pay, one way or another. Without an explicitly capped profit, I can't see how this doesn't eventually lead to exploitation of the users. I would like to see a donation/optional subscription model with tiered features as is seen in Patreon/Kickstarter etc. with the distinction that the tiers are community wide instead of being bound to the individuals donating. Displa…

Income bar / donation thing sounds extremely stressful and precarious if you're paying anyone a salary. Capped profit is interesting since it doesn't limit the business model, just the likelihood of enshitification.

Running a startup AT ALL is extremely stressful and precarious if you're paying anyone a salary. 90% of startups die in flames. Stress and danger are table stakes, I would think.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#112

Post by urbandw311er »

reso wrote: post #109

I'm not sure why this post focuses so much on the angel investment. There are probably 10 reasons why Ello failed, starting with the fact that bootstrapping social network userbases is hard, and ending with users won't pay for social networks. None of these are directly related to the fact they built the site with investor money and not volunteer hours.

I think it’s fair critique for the post to focus on the VC (not angel) investment — the expectations of VCs and pressure to deliver a profit could easily have been a significant factor in the decision made by the CEO to focus on substantial revenue growth.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#113

Post by edm0nd »

paulddraper wrote: post #98

> I figured I’d publish a short list of things Ello will never do: > ... > 2. Tolerate hate. Ello has many tools, some visible and others not, that help keep this network positive. Geez, it's hard to take anything said as authentic with a statement like that. How can you talk about things without "hate"? "I hate shoveling snow." "I hate terrorists." "I hate this political candidate." "I hate Taylor Swift music."

It's universally known that that means things like racist imagery/text content, not content like "I hate cake" or Tswift.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#114

Post by zemvpferreira »

jeffbee wrote: post #102
paulddraper wrote: post #98

> I figured I’d publish a short list of things Ello will never do: > ... > 2. Tolerate hate. Ello has many tools, some visible and others not, that help keep this network positive. Geez, it's hard to take anything said as authentic with a statement like that. How can you talk about things without "hate"? "I hate shoveling snow." "I hate terrorists." "I hate this political candidate." "I hate Taylor Swift music."

How about "I hate reductive hackernewses who fail to engage constructively with the discourse and instead turn to gotcha language that 9-year-olds think is terribly clever"?

He's right though. "Not tolerating hate" is a paperthin principle, that would stand up to as much scrutiny as everything else Ello stood for, in hindsight. re, it was all bullshit and the warning signs should be called out as such so we know next time someone tries to bullshit us.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#116

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

Lerc wrote: post #27

Taking investor money means users will required to pay, one way or another. Without an explicitly capped profit, I can't see how this doesn't eventually lead to exploitation of the users. I would like to see a donation/optional subscription model with tiered features as is seen in Patreon/Kickstarter etc. with the distinction that the tiers are community wide instead of being bound to the individuals donating. Displa…

    Most people won't pay, but if nobody pays there is no service
Wouldn't this be at risk of Bystander Effect?

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#117

Post by Andrex »

SamBam wrote: post #81
tytso wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was definitely a certain amount of "I told you so" vibes, but I don't blame the author. It appears that he was attacked by a lot of Ello founders and fans for raising some cautionary notes. And as it turns out, he was right and they were wrong. We would all like to have a model where users don't get charged money, and yet are not the product. But I haven't seen a model that works to date. In some cases, I don't…

I believe GP was referring to the Ello founder Budnitz, who said that line, as the "dick." I agree. He was responding to perfectly justified -- and accurate -- criticism by saying how sad it is to be a person with such views of the world.

Yes. The author of the article knows how to write enjoyably.

The CEO he was quoting is the subject of my schadenfreude.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#118

Post by singleshot_ »

steveklabnik wrote: post #83
gwern wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested about the public benefit corporation part here. Did the PBC status wind up changing anything at all here? How does a PBC sell itself or get acquired? How is a PBC supposed to terminate or wind down? If they violate their charter as Ello may have, who exactly enforces it or file a lawsuit, and what is their compensation?

Nobody should trust my opinion, I am not an attorney, let alone one specialized in this area. In my understanding, a PBC is effectively the same as a for-profit company with regards to these sorts of things. Unlike a non-profit, a PBC has stock, which it can sell, so that's how it would get acquired. I believe that there were even some PBC SPACs back when that was fashionable. > If they violate their charter as Ello…

Where in that document are you seeing that non P.B.C. corporations are required to maximize shareholder value?

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#119

Post by [deleted] »

singleshot_ wrote: post #118
steveklabnik wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody should trust my opinion, I am not an attorney, let alone one specialized in this area. In my understanding, a PBC is effectively the same as a for-profit company with regards to these sorts of things. Unlike a non-profit, a PBC has stock, which it can sell, so that's how it would get acquired. I believe that there were even some PBC SPACs back when that was fashionable. > If they violate their charter as Ello…

Where in that document are you seeing that non P.B.C. corporations are required to maximize shareholder value?

[deleted]

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#120

Post by steveklabnik »

singleshot_ wrote: post #118
steveklabnik wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody should trust my opinion, I am not an attorney, let alone one specialized in this area. In my understanding, a PBC is effectively the same as a for-profit company with regards to these sorts of things. Unlike a non-profit, a PBC has stock, which it can sell, so that's how it would get acquired. I believe that there were even some PBC SPACs back when that was fashionable. > If they violate their charter as Ello…

Where in that document are you seeing that non P.B.C. corporations are required to maximize shareholder value?

This document only talks about PBCs, so it wouldn’t be in this document. I am using that phrase because that’s how people refer to fiduciary duty (and similar things) when speaking generally. Obviously there is a lot of complexity in the rules around corporate governance.
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