Following the sale of the popular route-planning platform Komoot to private equity, Josh Meissner examines the troubling mechanics of the community-powered service beyond its friendly brand image. Using Komoot as an example, he explores the broken relationship between corporate capital and our communities. Amid the tension, discover a way forward that’s available to all of us…
It sounds like the way Komoot was sold off was unusually harsh: Can't argue with that. A company selling out to private equity is a risk. Going bankrupt is also a risk, since most startups fail....
It sounds like the way Komoot was sold off was unusually harsh:
The founders handled the transition horribly, even by tech industry standards, and the pain and disruption it creates in our lives is real.
Can't argue with that. A company selling out to private equity is a risk. Going bankrupt is also a risk, since most startups fail. It can be done in an orderly way or abruptly, leaving employees and customers scrambling.
It's certainly a good idea for employees to prepare for such things, no matter how cheerful a spin management puts on things. Things might look good now, but you'll want to build up an emergency fund, just in case.
But I don't agree with this:
To boost engagement and capture groups of users, capital co-opts our human instinct to connect with one another and contribute to a “community” and sells it back to us.
This is sort like saying that, because all the content on Tildes comes from the community, Deimos didn't really do anything. I think that goes too far? Building and maintaining the infrastructure is important.
An online community is a shared effort between the maintainers and the membership. Without the community members, it would be a ghost town, but if nobody builds the infrastructure, it's not going to spontaneously come into existence.
And it just goes into an anti-capitalist rant from there.
I think (informed) people are extremely wary of start-ups trying to establish platforms, because that's all that anyone nowadays seemingly wants to do. Be the place where everyone goes and then...
This is sort like saying that, because all the content on Tildes comes from the community, Deimos didn't really do anything. I think that goes too far? Building and maintaining the infrastructure is important.
I think (informed) people are extremely wary of start-ups trying to establish platforms, because that's all that anyone nowadays seemingly wants to do. Be the place where everyone goes and then just skim off the top without really doing anything. This becomes problematic when the platform's goals do not align with the goals of the users. Take Tinder, or another swipe-based dating platform, they're all owned by the same group anyway. That's a platform that everyone uses and still hates, and it's actively making society worse because its goal is to keep users on the platform, and thus dating, while the users want to stop dating and find a partner in the shortest amount of time.
It sounds like the way Komoot was sold off was unusually harsh:
Can't argue with that. A company selling out to private equity is a risk. Going bankrupt is also a risk, since most startups fail. It can be done in an orderly way or abruptly, leaving employees and customers scrambling.
It's certainly a good idea for employees to prepare for such things, no matter how cheerful a spin management puts on things. Things might look good now, but you'll want to build up an emergency fund, just in case.
But I don't agree with this:
This is sort like saying that, because all the content on Tildes comes from the community, Deimos didn't really do anything. I think that goes too far? Building and maintaining the infrastructure is important.
An online community is a shared effort between the maintainers and the membership. Without the community members, it would be a ghost town, but if nobody builds the infrastructure, it's not going to spontaneously come into existence.
And it just goes into an anti-capitalist rant from there.
I think (informed) people are extremely wary of start-ups trying to establish platforms, because that's all that anyone nowadays seemingly wants to do. Be the place where everyone goes and then just skim off the top without really doing anything. This becomes problematic when the platform's goals do not align with the goals of the users. Take Tinder, or another swipe-based dating platform, they're all owned by the same group anyway. That's a platform that everyone uses and still hates, and it's actively making society worse because its goal is to keep users on the platform, and thus dating, while the users want to stop dating and find a partner in the shortest amount of time.