4 ms·

For folks wondering about whether this will happen, I would highly recommend also reading the Board's "Statement of Opposition." Pretty clear no. Shareholder va

For folks wondering about whether this will happen, I would highly recommend also reading the Board's "Statement of Opposition." Pretty clear no. Shareholder value, etc. While this might be a decent option for a medium that could be considered important for public discourse, it's certainly not going to goose your stock price and I'm guessing even every Twitter user contributing a few bucks won't get you to a sale price that might work for the board.

naravara 10y ago
> I would highly recommend also reading the Board's "Statement of Opposition." Pretty clear no. Shareholder value, etc. While I agree there is no shareholder value involved, I think there is some scope for thinking of the platform as a public utility and putting it under some framework other than a publicly traded corporation. It could operate either as a Foundation, a Public-private partnership, a federal agency perhaps as a subsidiary of the Library of Congress, or some other system of governance that makes it operate more as a public trust than a corporation. It's function is definitely more akin to a public utility than a product produced for market, after all, so why not? I'd say most online stuff still has too many returns to innovation to where the opportunity costs of nationalizing them outweigh the benefits. But clearly Twitter isn't doing a great job of staying afloat as it is.
- sailfast 10y ago
  I agree that from a societal value perspective this argument exists, but if I were someone concerned with the overall market cap / share price value of the company in dollars I would likely not want to see that happen in the near term in the hopes that other options might garner greater value on the open market.
  - WorldMaker 10y ago
    Kickstarter's reincorporation as a (New York) Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) is an interesting precedent in this space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_corporation
- M2Ys4U 10y ago
  >It could operate either as [...] a federal agency perhaps as a subsidiary of the Library of Congress [...] Because Twitter is a US-only thing, right? Don't forget about the enormous _global_ user base who would definitely not be served by making it directly controlled by the US government.
  - naravara 10y ago
    Are they any better served by it being incorporated in the US and managed by a US based board of directors and mostly US based shareholders? I suppose there might be some other sovereign wealth funds and investors from China, Gulf States, UK, etc. in there too but still, hardly representative of its actual user base. I agree that that would probably be the worst option of the bunch, but it's just an example of other ways a platform can be governed that's not a for-profit corporation.
    - lallysingh 10y ago
      So far they're not as deeply bound by US National Policy as they may be if they're full-on nationalized.
- eganist 10y ago
  Public Benefit Corporation is one potential route.
- riffic 10y ago
  Twitter is not a public utility.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- m_mueller 10y ago
  I don't know how common this is in the US, but in Switzerland we have a form of incorporation that's quite common and would match ownership by users, which is quite different from public ownership: A cooperative ("Genossenschaft"). The biggest retailers, some of thr bigger banks snd insurances as well as lots of shared land ownership works this way. According to Planet Money at least in banking in the Midwest it used to be common in the US. I think this could be attractive for services that can be considered internet infrastructure, like Wikipedia, Twitter and (in an ideal world) even Google. Users gain a lot of value from a platform stopping the growth play and going for stability through pleasing their existing user base and expanding in an 'organic' way to users that want more of the same. I could also see this becoming a common thing for blockchain based services since Ethereum contracts would make this a very easy thing to do.
jbeales 10y ago
I totally missed the "Statement of Opposition" - a testament to the amazing design of the paper I guess - but it's pretty dripping with sarcasm.

naravara 10y ago

> I would highly recommend also reading the Board's "Statement of Opposition." Pretty clear no. Shareholder value, etc. While I agree there is no shareholder value involved, I think there is some scope for thinking of the platform as a public utility and putting it under some framework other than a publicly traded corporation. It could operate either as a Foundation, a Public-private partnership, a federal agency perhaps as a subsidiary of the Library of Congress, or some other system of governance that makes it operate more as a public trust than a corporation. It's function is definitely more akin to a public utility than a product produced for market, after all, so why not? I'd say most online stuff still has too many returns to innovation to where the opportunity costs of nationalizing them outweigh the benefits. But clearly Twitter isn't doing a great job of staying afloat as it is.

sailfast 10y ago
I agree that from a societal value perspective this argument exists, but if I were someone concerned with the overall market cap / share price value of the company in dollars I would likely not want to see that happen in the near term in the hopes that other options might garner greater value on the open market.
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  Kickstarter's reincorporation as a (New York) Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) is an interesting precedent in this space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_corporation
M2Ys4U 10y ago
>It could operate either as [...] a federal agency perhaps as a subsidiary of the Library of Congress [...] Because Twitter is a US-only thing, right? Don't forget about the enormous _global_ user base who would definitely not be served by making it directly controlled by the US government.
- naravara 10y ago
  Are they any better served by it being incorporated in the US and managed by a US based board of directors and mostly US based shareholders? I suppose there might be some other sovereign wealth funds and investors from China, Gulf States, UK, etc. in there too but still, hardly representative of its actual user base. I agree that that would probably be the worst option of the bunch, but it's just an example of other ways a platform can be governed that's not a for-profit corporation.
  - lallysingh 10y ago
    So far they're not as deeply bound by US National Policy as they may be if they're full-on nationalized.
eganist 10y ago
Public Benefit Corporation is one potential route.
riffic 10y ago
Twitter is not a public utility.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
m_mueller 10y ago
I don't know how common this is in the US, but in Switzerland we have a form of incorporation that's quite common and would match ownership by users, which is quite different from public ownership: A cooperative ("Genossenschaft"). The biggest retailers, some of thr bigger banks snd insurances as well as lots of shared land ownership works this way. According to Planet Money at least in banking in the Midwest it used to be common in the US. I think this could be attractive for services that can be considered internet infrastructure, like Wikipedia, Twitter and (in an ideal world) even Google. Users gain a lot of value from a platform stopping the growth play and going for stability through pleasing their existing user base and expanding in an 'organic' way to users that want more of the same. I could also see this becoming a common thing for blockchain based services since Ethereum contracts would make this a very easy thing to do.

jbeales 10y ago

I totally missed the "Statement of Opposition" - a testament to the amazing design of the paper I guess - but it's pretty dripping with sarcasm.