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

blog.ecosia.org

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

#71

Post by elric »

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…

Depending on where in the world you are, paying yourself a high wage results in much higher taxes than paying profits in the form of dividends. These taxes may benefit society at large, which may well be in line with their goals.

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

#72

Post by nosioptar »

dmbche wrote: post #4
aswerty wrote: post #3

I really like the idea of Ecosia and Steward Owned companies, but as somebody who wants out of the Ad game completely, uses uBlock Origin religiously and pays for services like email and search. I haven't actually used Ecosia, but am interested in others experiences with it. But I imagine in the HN crowd a lot of other people fit the same profile as myself.

You pay for search and email? What services do you use? May I ask you why, if you're wanting to go into it?

I pay for purelymail after seeing others on HN say they like it. It costs something absurd,like $0.8 per month, and I've never had a problem with it.

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

#73

Post by Gerardo1 »

jksflkjl3jk3 wrote: post #55
andy12_ wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because ad revenue can be used for the non-profit? Ecosia's whole thing is that when you use it, you indirectly help plant trees - "the search engine that plants trees".

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.

But are you donating to an organization to plant trees?

What has the lower barrier of entry: making a point to donate your money, or switching your default search engine?

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

#74

Post by antonkochubey »

elric wrote: post #71
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…

Depending on where in the world you are, paying yourself a high wage results in much higher taxes than paying profits in the form of dividends. These taxes may benefit society at large, which may well be in line with their goals.

Oh but you can pay expenses to a "consulting company" that your wife/brother/daughter/... owns which will keep their profits and pay off dividents

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

#75

Post by ghaff »

hyperbrainer wrote: post #30
iregina wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Fastmaol? Is it inconvenient to not use Gmail?

Not parent, but: The primary inconvenience I see with de-googling is just the sheer number of things that become just slightly harder. For one, Login with Google. Now, I know people de-googling will probably want to have separate accounts rather than SSO anyways, but it is an important consideration. You also lose GDrive and the GSuite in general, which alternatives exist, yes, but IMO not as good. Also, most people…

I do use personal Google Workspace now--in part, because I used to use it extensively at work. But even if I used something else, people casually share GDocs with me from time to time.

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

#76

Post by ghaff »

loufe wrote: post #50
dwighttk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped self hosting when my host got blacklisted and I lost about a year of emails with my grandmother… I just thought she was reading them but not having the energy to respond but when I visited at Christmas I saw that all my emails were in her spam box.

The unfortunate thing is that more than any other service, email feels like the one on which I cannot risk to compromise reliability. This sort of story (thank you for sharing) unfortunately fits with my own experience managing my University's undergraduate society's local email server. Non-stop headaches and complete indifference from every group which affects your setup.

I don't even routinely use my undergrad's email forwarding address. It's probably better than it used to be but, at one time, it definitely caused more stuff to drop in the bit bucket than emailing directly. And I assume, at this point, that my Gmail account isn't going to go away.

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

#77

Post by idiotsecant »

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…

I don't have any special information here, but I wanted to mention that's it's just as exhausting when people approach every single interaction assuming the worst possible intentions as the reverse. It's OK to not be cynical once in a while.

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

#78

Post by idiotsecant »

stavros wrote: post #32
iregina wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Fastmaol? Is it inconvenient to not use Gmail?

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.

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

#79

Post by bombcar »

HenryBemis wrote: post #67
fadesibert wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much that's creating outsized income for the founder... There are between 98 (2022 annual report number) and 120 (ZoomInfo) and 133 (LinkedIn number). German filings are notoriously opaque vs Europe or UK. So that's 637k EUR / 120 employees (although the payroll number jumps around between 450 and ~640 - weird, but who knows, # of employees shifting around or some paid quarterly or on commission?). T…

> That's around 5,300 EUR / month per employee If the salary is 4300 (instead of 5300) per employee for those 120, that would give the CEO the extra 120x1000 per month. I am not implying the CEO does that, I am merely saying that "non-profit" is a relevant term and unless supervised/regulated can become a big earner for one/some/all of the staff. Unless they report all salaries (anonymised) and this would be signed-o…

In the US salaries for the top dogs at nonprofits is reported.

Some trick this with “consulting fees” to companies controlled by the top dogs, but it sat least something.

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

#80

Post by dwayne_dibley »

panstromek wrote: post #54
jksflkjl3jk3 wrote: post #48

Their website is confusing. So it's a non-profit for planting trees.. that's also a search engine? How are those two things at all related or have any benefit to being combined into one company?

yea, I could't figure out what's the idea either.

Same, they really need a better landing page.
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