Does anyone use Ecosia every day? How does it compare with DuckDuckGo and Qwant?
I just checked Ecosia, seems to be less censored at a very quick glance, at least in comparison to DDG and Google.
Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)
151–160 of 227 posts
Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)
#152Ecosia have been going a while, and I don't want to be that guy 'just asking questions', but... Is there some sort of independent verification of the trees being planted and their impact? I wonder if there is a study into the effect of their interesting green reinvestment setup vs a traditional for-profit businesses (Google is the obvious example) and their environmental impacts.
This is my main problem with Ecosia as well. I don't believe planting trees is really a good option to help the climate and I have zero trust in tracking progress of those projects in a lot of countries. I would much rather them e.g. investing in solar or sponsoring open source projects.
Since we are all doing it: I'd rather they support nuclear energy.
Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)
#153Trees don't need planting. Trees need a safe place to grow without saplings getting destroyed. But trees absolutely don't need planting. Besides, a healthy forest has to go through pioneering stages first.
I am pretty sure "planting trees" is just an oversimplification and goes beyond just planting if they are actually "helping trees".
Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
If a clothing company is profitable because they use slave labor, the use of slave labor is bad. The profit is not the problem. It wouldn't be any better if the company made no profit.
On the contrary, it will be an incentive to stop.
Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
If a clothing company is profitable because they use slave labor, the use of slave labor is bad. The profit is not the problem. It wouldn't be any better if the company made no profit.
This is a distinction unworthy of merit. The slave labor creates the profit. The only reason it exists is because of the profit.
Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)
#156> [...] my two promises by turning Ecosia into a so-called “steward-owned company”. This model imposes two legally binding and irreversible restrictions on us: I really hope that we'll get a legal precedent for this actually being possible and durable in at least some countries, because that was the promise of OpenAI at some point as well. (That's not to say I have reason to suspect anything bad of the current or any…
"I really hope that we'll get a legal precedent for this actually being possible and durable in at least some countries, because that was the promise of OpenAI at some point as well." Lawyer here - it is basically impossible to do what they (and others) want. There are few (if any?) countries, where either provision would survive bankruptcy, for example. They could always choose to dissolve rather than restructure, b…
It seems to me you could create non revocable trust that gets most of this done, with specific instructions to the trustees. That trust would own 100% of the company, and could issue voting and economic rights akin to shares, with the proviso that the trustee cannot implement a sale.
That said, creditors could still force the sub into bankruptcy in most countries; even then I think the trustee could be instructed to always choose a restructuring rather than a windup if possible. You'd probably put that trust somewhere with UK Trust law.
Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Ecosia isn't an stock based company (AG), it's a GmbH.
A gmbh is basically equivalent to a LLC (US) or a Ltd (UK) from my understanding. A gmbh can still be stock based.
Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)
#158I'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…
So your argument is that people who do good things must be poor or else they actually aren't good people?
Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
> German filings are notoriously opaque vs Europe or UK. German company filings (for-profit and non-profit) are public at the registry of commerce (Handelsregister) but not easy to parse.
And you can view many of them for free at unternehmensregister.de.
You can read ALL of them for free at the source, handelsregister.de - they stopped charging for access in 2022.
Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)
#160I'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…
I'm proud to say that I have worked for Ecosia, though ages ago. Christian, the CEO, is really one of the kindest and most honest people I have worked with. Also 100% committed to the cause, he walks the walk.
Yes I'm just some rando from the Internet, and things might have changed since I've left, but I have my faith in that guy.