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Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

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Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#131

Post by DannyBee »

roughly wrote: post #116

There’s a thing we tend to do as engineers where we hear a thing and then start thinking through the implications and design, which is normal, but also we seem to assume we’re the only ones who’ve ever thought about it, and therefore our concerns must be unaddressed, and we’re brilliant, so clearly nobody’s ever thought of them before, so we’ve gotta share them. If you’d like to see this behavior in action, this is t…

Yeah, there is just too much here - i started down the path of trying to explain some of the legal issues and problems, and how people often think and deal with them (with pointers to some of the more interesting attempts, etc), since as you say, this is a thing that's been thought about, by many people, many times, but i feel like i'd end up writing 50 comments and so gave up.

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#132

Post by nosefurhairdo »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #114
fsckboy wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> headlines like this always make me a little suspicious. Non profits make a lot of money for their founders without it ever being "profit" or more to the point, profits are not "bad", they are a measure of "good". profits mean you are providing something of value that people want, that without you is otherwise scarce. your profits attract competition/substitution, driving the price down and the value up to consumers…

Profits are bad when they exist due to unethical cost cutting. Profits are bad when they artificially lower the cost of the good by exporting the costs to other people. If a clothing company is profitable because they use slave labor, that is not good profit. If an oil company is profitable because they do not address the environmental impact they have, that is not good profit. If an insurance company is profitable b…

In other words, profits are bad when they necessitate some threshold of negative externalities.

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#133

Post by mcmcmc »

fsckboy wrote: post #108
dwedge wrote: post #8

I'm sure Ecosia are a good company, but headlines like this always make me a little suspicious. Non profits make a lot of money for their founders without it ever being "profit". Ecosia are reporting just over 600K euros a month in wages, I'd love to see the split and what % of that goes to the CEO. You don't need to sell a business if you have plenty of income from it every month - especially if now that can't be ta…

> headlines like this always make me a little suspicious. Non profits make a lot of money for their founders without it ever being "profit" or more to the point, profits are not "bad", they are a measure of "good". profits mean you are providing something of value that people want, that without you is otherwise scarce. your profits attract competition/substitution, driving the price down and the value up to consumers…

Actually economic profit is an indicator of market inefficiency. Demand is what tells you that you’re selling something of value. Extended profits mean competition hasn’t caught up yet. It has nothing to do with good or bad. If there is profit to be made in a market, firms will enter until it reaches an equilibrium where profit is 0, then when it becomes overcrowded and firms are losing money, they leave the market. This is why anticompetitive business practices are so successful at generating profits, and at the same time are so horribly bad for the free market. In an efficient market, profits converge towards zero.

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#134

Post by stephantul »

roughly wrote: post #116

There’s a thing we tend to do as engineers where we hear a thing and then start thinking through the implications and design, which is normal, but also we seem to assume we’re the only ones who’ve ever thought about it, and therefore our concerns must be unaddressed, and we’re brilliant, so clearly nobody’s ever thought of them before, so we’ve gotta share them. If you’d like to see this behavior in action, this is t…

As someone who works at Ecosia, thank you for this. I’m used to people being skeptical about Ecosia’s business model. But this is something else.

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#135

Post by [deleted] »

dwedge wrote: post #8

I'm sure Ecosia are a good company, but headlines like this always make me a little suspicious. Non profits make a lot of money for their founders without it ever being "profit". Ecosia are reporting just over 600K euros a month in wages, I'd love to see the split and what % of that goes to the CEO. You don't need to sell a business if you have plenty of income from it every month - especially if now that can't be ta…

[deleted]

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#137

Post by lentil_soup »

idiotsecant wrote: post #78
stavros wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the only difference I noticed was that it was faster. I still use Maps and have my Google account, but I don't use Gmail (or Google calendar). I made the transition years ago and it was really painless for me.

Transitioning from Gmail was painless? What approach did you take? I think I would have hundreds, if not thousands of services I would need to change email on.

I did it little by little, no need to rush it. Just start changing some main ones and as you log in to the others take the min it takes to change it.

On top of that I moved services to their own custom email like @.com. That way it's all neatly sorted inside Fastmail in different folders (and I know who is selling my data)

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#138

Post by stakhanov »

nbadg wrote: post #118
stakhanov wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, well it sounds like you're deeper in the rabbit hole than I am, then. (I also live in Germany and have a passing interest for the law, though I'm no lawyer). Regarding your last paragraph, where you say that a foundation provides better insulation from founder control, it sounds to me like you answered your own question: Retention of control vs. insulation from control is precisely the distinction here. Foundat…

Control is maybe the wrong word here. GmbHs are required to have one or more natural persons as a Geschäftsführer, which would presumably just stay the founders, so they would retain control of the GmbH. The holding Stiftung would then impose the rules under which the GmbH would issue dividends, and (presumably) also retain the ability to fire the Geschäftsführer:innen, if the Satzung der Stiftung decided to. And of…

I 100% agree with you that a Stiftung like that (possibly with a for-profit company as a subsidiary) would be the right structure if you wanted to maximize credibility around your community-interest status.

This stuff actually gets a lot of attention from lawmakers: For example, in the U.K. you have the “CIC” (community interest company). Some 13 years ago, David Cameron tried pretty hard to motivate enthusiasm for the idea of a “third sector”, something that's not government and not for-profit. In the U.S. you also have the “L3C” (low-profit limited liability company). In Germany, you have the idea of “Verantwortungseigentum” which was on the agenda for the previous government, though they then didn't get around to it, and you had Sahra Wagenknecht making it into a big talking point for her campaign.

But I don't think a lack of legal infrastructure is really the limiting factor here: As you noticed, we do have foundations (Stiftung) of various types, as well as coops (Genossenschaft). In addition, regular partnerships (like KG, OG) have recently been opened up so that their bylaws can now prescribe a purpose that isn't for-profit. A club (Verein) which in and of itself isn't for-profit, can have a sort of dual identity because it can become the proprietor of a sole proprietorship with a for-profit purpose (at least I seem to recall reading that such a thing is possible). Oh, and, of course, a corporation can, in theory, own 100% of its own shares. I recall reading about that, just please don't ask me where. You can basically wipe out ownership that way, without being subject to the stringent rules around foundations.

So, legal structures are as powerful and flexible as they are underutilised: I think it's the psychological side that explains why.

Usually, even if you have very good intentions, your best bet initially is to start your entity as a for-profit. Being able to operate cheaply and without cumbersome decision-making structures beats lofty aspirations for any business that just gets started. Not turning a profit in a given year (and not paying taxes because you don't turn a profit), is an option you always have. (There's no special paperwork needed for that). In fact: Not having any profit to worry about when it comes to your structure is the likely outcome. Having a profit and trying to decide how to make it so that your profits won't corrupt you in your idealism is a problem you would quite like to have! (Again: From the perspective of a founder who is just getting started).

Then, the day comes where you turn a profit quite regularly. And, at that point, once the flywheel has got going, truly giving up control will be psychologically difficult.

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#139

Post by DiggyJohnson »

Blackthorn wrote: post #117
roughly wrote: post #116

There’s a thing we tend to do as engineers where we hear a thing and then start thinking through the implications and design, which is normal, but also we seem to assume we’re the only ones who’ve ever thought about it, and therefore our concerns must be unaddressed, and we’re brilliant, so clearly nobody’s ever thought of them before, so we’ve gotta share them. If you’d like to see this behavior in action, this is t…

That sort of arrogance is absolutely out of control in the tech industry and it's bizarre because I've never seen it at the remotely same level anywhere else.

law and medicine communities definitely have similar qualities in this way imo

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#140

Post by jefftk »

mrweasel wrote: post #124
jksflkjl3jk3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they disclose what percentage of their revenue is donated? If it's just a token amount, then I'd rather not support a marketing gimmick and would prefer to just donate directly to an organization focused on trees. If it's a significant amount, then it seems unlikely that they'll be able to compete with for-profit alternatives that can focus on developing the best product.

I really struggle to understand your confusion. How do you think normal companies work? Ecosia is profitable, they take some percentage of that profit and use to plant trees. In a "normal" company that money goes straight into the pockets of the company owners. Profit is measured after investments into R&D, salary, marketing everything that come with running a business. Sure they could "just" spend more on developing…

> In a "normal" company that money goes straight into the pockets of the company owners.

Only if the company returns money to its shareholders (ex: pays a dividend or does a stock buyback). Many growth-focused companies don't do this -- Amazon didn't do it for its first 22y, Google for its first 17, Netflix for 24, etc.

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