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I've been thinking that, in addition to the glorious smaller-scale model of #Socialcoop, we need a model #fediverse instance that looks more like a medium-sized credit union. Things like:
- thousands of members rather than hundreds
- professional staff for tech, business, legal, moderation
- less active user participation in governance, but still democratic (e.g., board elections and occasional referendums)
thoughts? @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius
@ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp my thought is: I agree!
@darius @ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp
So where/when do I apply? Am desperate to work on a more values-aligned project than my awful job! 
@darius @ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp
Also agreed— even if the ideal moderation size is hundreds of people, and we have thousands of social.coop sized community servers, we would want this larger structure to be an option for shared democratic control of the parts that really do have economies of scale— hosting infrastructure and other professional services.
@darius @ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp
And #sortition (representation chosen at random) should be part of the governance; if not for an oversight board or improvements prioritization committee, than in a lightweight #VisionsUnite style to share the work of deciding what messages ought to go to the whole polity, to all the people who are members and deserve equal opportunity to influence decisions.
Regular-ish weekly meeting on Visions Unite in two hours (3pm Eastern) if anyone wants to drop in and discuss more https://communitybridge.com/show
(and project home https://gitlab.com/pwgd/visionsunite/-/wikis/home )
@ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius why do we need this? I'm genuinely curious as to your motivation, not necessarily doubting the proposition. Also, wouldn't something like this be a possible later phase of an instance like social.coop? Is the idea behind social.coop to be small and glorious?
@arod @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius could be a future phase of social.coop. But I think it is helpful to have both kinds of coops, available for people with varying interests. Some people want a more participatory space and can tolerate more friction, others want a more polished experience and less input.
@ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius and for the latter camp, what would be the value proposition of this as opposed to mastodon.social or whatever large default instance?
@arod @ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp dot social lacks democratic referendums and a chance to steer the ship via board elections. The value proposition is the chance to have a real input should you want to try for it, I think
@arod @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius more democracy, less feudalism
@ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius I'm not as optimistic about the proposition that it's possible to "provide more democracy" to people who don't want input. Seems more likely that would end up the same way my local credit union is, which is passively manipulated by a small cohort of local politicians but hey, More Democracy! For those folks, let them eat Post or whatever, in my humble opinion.
@arod @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius I disagree. I think there are different forms of democracy and input, and some participation is better than none.
@arod @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius for instance, I have zero interest in daily governance participation in my credit union, but I am still glad it is not Wells Fargo.
@ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius and I still use my local credit union, too, but am not fantasizing about more of the same!
Anyway, thanks for asking for thought and abiding my first extensive social media back-and-forth since leaving Twitter and Facebook last year :)
@ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius I'd posit the recent history of post-Pinochet "democratic reforms" in Chile as a real-world example of the dangers. Fernando Ignacio Leiva gives a great overview in _The Left Hand of Capital_ https://sunypress.edu/Books/T/The-Left-Hand-of-Capital2
@ntnsndr Buy mastodon.lol!
@nemobis how much?
@ntnsndr No idea, hopefully just some reimbursement of past direct costs if their users ask nicely. I'd start from asking the existing moderators whether they still feel like continuing in the job with a different governance (where they'd be members of the coop). A complete regime change wouldn't be sensible anyway.
@nemobis @ntnsndr Interesting transition questions! If a user-owned social-networking co-operative were formed from the top-down, that is if an existing federated instance was purchased, how might the existing user-base be best transitioned to member ownership? Of course the questions are similar, but answers are different if converting to a worker-owned co-operative. #lawfedi #coop #admin
@ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius here's the thing: credit unions make money. Without someway to monetize I think it's going to be hard to scale up
@thedonquixotic @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius As Leo's research has shown, #Socialcoop raises far more money per active user than Twitter or the large Mastodon instances. I imagine a highly affordable subscription model.
@ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius selection bias there is also an issue though. If you're scaling up that means probably a more representative sample of the general population. Not saying it couldn't work it's just hard to get people to pay for stuff they're are used to as "free".
Is subscription compatible with mastodon as it exists currently or would it require some sort of exterior membership/dues administration?
@thedonquixotic @ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @schock @mattcropp @darius
Not sure if Nathan meant to take credit union comparison this far, but I would imagine these instances could still tailor to some specific demographic; similar to how CUss are for certain regions/professions/etc.
In this case, it could be easier to charge for a subscription as the community would be focused to the specific needs of their demographic; something that makes them different from the general population.
@thedonquixotic @ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @schock @mattcropp @darius
Scaling any instance to +100 million would probably face the issues you point out. But there are subreddits for specific interests with millions of subscribers.
@ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp @darius I’ve been imagining for some time social.coop could grow into what you’re describing. Do you think it should be a separate instance?
I suppose for marketing purposes, at least, a domain name other than social.coop might be preferable for people who aren’t specifically interested in cooperatives generally.
Ah I see now I’m not the only one to have responded with this thought 
@harris hehe yeah:)
I wouldn't want to see S.c evolve too much this way any more than I would want my college housing coop to be absorbed into a regional management company. But types have their virtues.
@ntnsndr
Why stop at the Fediverse? Provide the (software) services that Google does. Someday, provide the services that Amazon (marketplace) does. Alternatives targetted at the non-technical (but still concerned) folks.
Where it starts is federated login not owned by ad ad agency, providing access to a variety of services under a coop model.
I'm in.
@ser @ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @LeoSammallahti @schock @mattcropp
> Why stop at the Fediverse?
I mean, you need to scope a project in order for it to actually happen. What you are proposing is a great idea and also very hard to do for a scrappy group of under-funded people
@darius
Recognizing that scale affects resourcing, many of us are running many such services for ourselves, in spare minutes.
I think the point should be focusing on the model rather than the specific services. Talk about (SC) governance and how new services are integrated, released, and supported. Establish a voting policy to decide which service(s) to add next, rather than dictating what is offered.
2¢
@ser@ap.ser1.net I mean, I have spent the last decade of my life supporting tech coops of all kinds. But one at a time:)
@ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @schock @mattcropp @darius
Gonna think about this more but some quick thoughts.
People are more likely to pay money if they can: 
influence how the money is used
the money is used in ways that provide them exclusive benefits
SC is focused on 1. These instances (and hopefully SC too) would be more focused on 2.
Credit unions provide similar services to their specific demographic.Coop instances would vary in services tailored to their specific demographic.
1/2
@ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @schock @mattcropp @darius
So one question could be: what could the tailored member-exclusive benefits be?
Photography instance could enable members to post high quality images, membership fees would pay for storage space. "Video/voice message only" instance to post video/audio files, etc.
Region based instances provide discounts to local businesses, interest based instances to firms that provide relevant services (bicycle instance for bicycle shops), etc.
2/2
@LeoSammallahti @ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @schock @mattcropp @darius I for one want participation and standard services without having to join proprietary ad-spammers and data-miners who act behind my back. That would be kind of a “natural” exclusivity. I pay to 1. have a say; 2. to be left alone
@tanoujin @ntnsndr @jalcine @emi @schock @mattcropp @darius
Social Coop attracts a lot of people who value democracy as a kind of end to itself.
But I think that coops could also succeed where the democracy is more of a means to another primary end.
Think it would be cool if SC members could get stuff like discounts on subscriptions to cooperatively owned online newspapers, or access to shares coop software (like we already have with Meet Coop & MayFirst).
@LeoSammallahti mastodon.lol simply gave "donor" badges to donors, shown on their profiles.