Writer Underwriting Writer

localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu

48 points·aspenmayer··5 comments

This is so amazing to see. I'm reminded of traditional apprenticeship structures and guilds. I think it would be really amazing if we could build modern worker-owner cooperatives, worker compacts, and other mutual aid and mutual self-help structures to invest in ourselves and our fellow workers in a postive-sum future. If the work is worth doing, it's worth funding and perpetuating.

Things like Patreon and GitHub sponsorships are subscription based. I wonder if something that includes a compounding interest bearing component could help make these funding mechanisms more stable for those who benefit from them? Does anyone have any ideas in this space?

I'm confused, couldn't a Patreon owner take their money and invest it if they want compounding interest?

They certainly could, but what happens if they lose all their Patreon subscribers, Patreon goes down, they are banned from the platform or lose access to the platform, or their account hijacked?

For the purposes of discussion, assume that the Patreon user is operating in good faith and complying with applicable laws and Patreon terms of service, but were banned because of an insider threat, for example.

Patreon is fine and good, but is also a single point of failure. If you lose access to the platform, there is no portability or escape hatch. You're fully locked in, or in the worst case scenarios I outlined above, locked out.

This is really very inspiring. As this sort of writing become increasingly less valuable (in terms of income), I wonder what if more people would be interested in these sorts of endowment models.

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