I think in principle it sounds like a good idea. However, I’d caution against overlooking the administrative overheads that a formal governance structure would impose.

A cooperative would need oversight, accounting, legal and a ton of other instruments or functions to operate. Currently the hosting costs look like they’re about $500 a month, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that a formal organization that governs the day-to-day operation of beehaw can have overheads that easily go up to 10x or more over the hosting costs.

Right now, in my mind, beehaw is essentially a bunch of cool dudettes/dudes that are hosting a BBQ party in their backyard. They only have one rule, you are welcome as long as you’re nice to everyone. You can also choose to help chip-in for pizza and beer if you like, that will be very welcome. Otherwise, the cost of hosting this party comes out of their own pockets.

Now we have some generous folks who are happy to chip in a fiver or tenner here and there to keep the party going, that’s great. However, some attendees are now starting to get a little uncomfortable since the party is growing and the F&B pot is healthy. What if the hosts were to spoil the party by selling the rights to it? What if they start monetizing the party through other nefarious means, or begin to compromise on their “be nice” principle and let everyone in?

Perhaps we will need to elect a bunch of hall monitors to make sure this doesn’t happen. And let’s get in an accountant or two to make sure the F&B money is actually used to buy pizza and beer. In fact, let’s get a couple of lawyers to come in and make sure everything’s above board. Oh wait, since legality is now a concern, we better look into insuring ourselves against litigation risks. In the process of doing all these, let’s also have a group of elders to meet once a year and certify that the party is indeed running against what the hosts promised it would be.

But it all started only because a small bunch of cool people decided to have a free party in their backyard, and all they wanted was for people to be nice to one another.

The thing is, there’s a thousand other backyard parties out there and anyone unhappy with the way this party is organized is very, very, very free to go to other parties. In fact, they are actively encouraged to. That’s the whole point of these parties in the first place, go to one that you’d enjoy and have fun in.

Not sure if I’m rambling or making any sense. But to be honest, I wouldn’t blame the admins if this gradual enshittification is not what they signed up for.

It’s certainly an area that has been thrown around and I can certainly see the benefits. I, personally speaking, worry though that democratic models at such an early stage can be abused. I also worry about money being a barrier for entry as that could keep out good people that simply don’t have the means - I don’t know that I could spend a membership fee as a student with no job because of all this volunteering work…

I think a solution where the community gets some kind of codified constitution is a good one, but it requires both a knowledge of organizational law and a understanding of what makes the community great. If things get nailed down too soon, or get something wrong, it could really mess BeeHaw up. Maybe it’s a good long term goal.

I do wish people would not use start-up terminology like ‘runway’ - it’s a aviation metaphor, and implies an eventual ‘take off’ which is usually the point at which a start-up goes public or is sold by the capital investment firm to take their sky-high profits.