The idea is simple. A worker-consumer hybrid coop that develops, maintains and hosts a lemmy-like fediverse platform that is open sourced.
There r two pricing tiers- a free and paid tier. If u pay a monthly membership fee, you become a member of the consumer body. If u r hired by the coop, u of course become part of the worker body.
The core of the coop’s workings are direct democratic. Creating, filling and destroying job positions are all done direct democratically. To pass a piece of legislation, either one of the following conditions need to be met:
- Simple passing: Both, worker and consumer bodies cast more than 50% votes each for the given bill.
- Consumer override: If the consumer body casts more than two thirds of the votes for a bill.
Assume that the quality of the platform is as good as Lemmy is right now. Assume that the functionality is similar too.
Would you be interested in being a member? Do u think this is a good idea?
I personally find Lemmy’s current donations based model to be severely lacking from a fundraising point of view. There needs to be a better form of organisation imo.
The direct democratic consumer coop element would bring in more people imo. I’m hoping that the worker coop element prevents worker exploitation.
Do you think this is an absolutely horseshit idea? Or do u kinda like it? Or do u have any suggestions? I’m seriously considering this, which is what made me ask this here. I have a Lemmy client nearing the MVP stage which I was developing with this purpose in mind. Sorry if this is the wrong community for the post.
Oook, i was thinking at the instance moderation level, you’re meaning at the software dev level.
Or fork it, add your own features, and don’t break federation compatibility (activitypub? idk). But I guess we’re talking specifically about features where that’s not possible.
I don’t know how well this would fare, because it sounds to me like you’re replacing the dev lead position with a democracy/hivemind.
Like it or not, software development often follows the Pareto Principle (20% of the devs contribute 80% of the code), and IMO that happens because those 20% think of themselves as responsible for the direction of the project. They feel empowered to have a vision for the project and work towards it over time from their deep understanding of everything going on (because they are responsible for 80% of it).
I think you would effectively be subverting that position and developer mindset. No dev could ever feel that responsibility or empowerment because they aren’t in control of the direction the software is going. They are at the mercy of the vote. They can’t make changes with future decisions in mind because they don’t have control. They might have implemented one feature completely differently if they had known the outcome of a future vote on a future feature.
Best case, people just listen to the devs expertise and let them do what they want. Worst case, the devs disagree with the outcome of a vote and the project, maybe forking it to make their own dictatorship, and a bunch of users will likely follow them.
That would be my main concern with the model, but who am I to say. Maybe it’s never happened because it’s inherently flawed, or maybe just no one has ever tried it. Or maybe it is happening right now somewhere and I’ve just never heard of it.