Why Cooperative

The Problem with Corporate Social Media

Social media platforms today face a fundamental conflict of interest. They’re designed to maximize shareholder value, which often means prioritizing engagement metrics over user well-being, selling user data to advertisers, and making decisions that benefit investors rather than the community.

When a platform is owned by shareholders seeking returns, users become the product rather than the customer. This creates perverse incentives that lead to algorithmic manipulation, privacy violations, and the spread of harmful content.

What Makes a Cooperative Different

A cooperative is owned and governed by its members. In our case, that means the users themselves. This structural difference changes everything:

• No acquisition risk: A cooperative can’t be bought out by a hostile acquirer or taken private by a billionaire with an agenda
• Democratic governance: Major decisions require member input, not just board approval
• Aligned incentives: The platform succeeds when its members thrive, not when it extracts maximum value from them
• Profit distribution: Any surplus goes back to members or is reinvested in the platform

How Governance Works

Members participate in governance through several mechanisms:

Voting Rights

Each member gets one vote, regardless of how much they use the platform or when they joined. This prevents concentration of power.

Elected Board

The board of directors is elected by and from the membership. They set strategic direction and hire management.

Working Groups

Members can participate in working groups focused on specific issues like content policy, algorithm transparency, or community standards.

Annual Assembly

Once a year, members gather (physically and virtually) to review the cooperative’s performance, vote on major decisions, and shape its future direction.

Addressing Common Concerns

“Won’t this be slow and inefficient?”

Cooperatives can be quite agile. Day-to-day operations are handled by professional staff, just like any company. Member governance focuses on strategic direction and major policy decisions, not micromanagement.

“What about scaling?”

Some of the world’s largest organizations are cooperatives. Mondragon in Spain employs over 80,000 people. Credit unions serve hundreds of millions of members globally. Scale is achievable.

“How do you attract investment?”

Cooperatives can raise capital through member shares, bonds, and grants. We don’t need venture capital because we’re not trying to deliver 10x returns—we’re trying to build sustainable infrastructure.