Convener: Johannes Ernst (@j12t@j12t.org, @j12.org)

Participants who chose to record their names here:

• @anca@mastodon.xyz
• James Marshall (@jamesmarshall@sfba.social)
• Julian Lam (@julian@activitypub.space)
• Anthony Zone (@ozoned@btfree.social)
• William (@wjmaggos@liberal.city)
• Aaron Klemm (@aklemm@mastodon.social)

Notes

Some possible criteria:

1. prevents the project from turning into what we hate about “Big Tech”
2. prevents “Big Tech” from taking over the project (eg acquisition)
3. prioritizes the needs of users over the wants of purely financial investors
4. is more than a specialized niche project, and
5. still produces comfortable salaries for its employees and
6. reasonable returns for its investors.

Some concepts being posited:

• A company that produces only Open Source Code is harder to enshittify

• BlueSky is a Public Benefit Corporation, meaning that they can make decisions not only in the financial interests of the company & its shareholders, e.g., they can prioritise their social good mission instead of financial interests, but they have VC’s that will need to get back their investiment and much more.

• Corporate structures matter (for funding sources, operating proesses, stakeholders)

  • Public Benefit Corporation
  • Publicly traded companies with shareholder restrictions / voting restrictions
  • Non-profits
  • Co-ops / worker or community owned cooperatives / platform coops

A non-profit structure does not guarantee against enshittifications / sellouts, as an example, Mastodon has publicly stated that Eugen actually privately held the Mastodon brand, its associated properties, and the social network — Mastodon had to buy these from Eugen as part of a €1M one-time payment to Eugen.

• https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/the-future-is-ours-to-build-together/

• So prior to this, Eugen could have theoretically sold “Mastodon” but not the non-profit/legal entity.

• Johannes: The people who create governance processes typically try to advantage themselves.

• Diego asks: What if the enshittification starts at the political level?

• Raising capital is inherently linked to the corporate legal structure, I don’t think you can escape that.

• Companies are made up by the people and processes that control them, let’s flip the script and ask “is enshittification a side-effect of the human condition?” in that, is any human truly selfless? Or do we all do things that advance our own interests?

• Johannes: Book Recommendation: “The Evolution of Cooperation” - Answers some deep questions about selfishness and cooperation. These folks ran some experiments with results that optimizing for cooperation is better for you, ultimately. Link

• Another book recommendation: The Revolution will not be Funded