Good to know a publicly-traded company known to censor content to be more advertiser-friendly and with notoriously predatory content discovery algorithms designed to elicit emotions to keep users coming is apparently not-for-profit if it happens to be unprofitable during the ZIRP period. Or is Facebook also not-for-profit?
If anything, Musk is less profit-oriented. Someone looking to profit off the platform wouldn't be actively driving off advertisers. But I suppose that because we must all believe that Elon Bad, he must also be the evilest capitalistest person in the whole world, and everything before him was sunshine and roses.
Obviously your post has nothing to do with Twitter being for-profit before the acquisition and Musk prioritizing profit less than his predecessors, but I'll bite.
By complying with government regulations when displaying content in their respective regions to avoid getting the entire network banned there, right. While this hit piece from a notoriously biased outlet would like to equate this with ye olde Twitter's regular practice of of suppressing or deleting content worldwide at the whim of the US government, it's obviously more transparent and fair to comply with censorship locally and provide a reason for the missing content. Reeks of "it's okay when we do it".
> Twitter being for-profit before the acquisition and Musk prioritizing profit less than his predecessors
Being unable to turn a profit is not the same as not prioritising profit.
If he’s so unconcerned with making a profit, then why weasel out from paying rent, the fired employees, and all the rest? Why be so adamant about a payed subscription? Why complain of advertisers leaving?
More importantly, why does a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” kowtow to an autocratic government if he’s not even concerned with profit? And why does he keep banning his own critics?
> ye olde Twitter's regular practice of of suppressing or deleting content worldwide at the whim of the US government
Here are eight more sources and a study. Surely they won’t all be “notoriously biased outlets” writing hit pieces, or is the definition for that “writes something negative about Musk”?
In fact till mid-1993, with a few unimportant exceptions (Clari-Net, early "retail" ISPs like Netcom) the entire Internet, which was already the largest network of computers by a comfortable margin, was non-profit.
Interesting reference. Non profits cannot hoard money. I believe it becomes taxable and they can lose their non profit status (i am not an expert)
Though, hoarding seems like a mischaracterization. Per the article linked, the cash burn rate is on the order of $100M/yr, having $150M in the bank is 18 months worth of funding.
The biggest gripe I read in the article is the "high" expenditure rate and how necessary it is. It seems like reasonable people may disagree on whether that spend rate is excessive.
If the expenditure rate were lower, I'd agree it would be hoarding.
There are no limits on a nonprofit's ability to raise and maintain cash reserves; there are limits on how and to whom funds can be disbursed and (to a lesser extent) the kinds of activities that can be used to generate funds. But a nonprofit can sit on an endlessly-growing hoard of cash if that's what they (and their donors) want to do.
HAHA, apparently my comment is the number 1 result from google to the question: "can a nonprofit hoard cash", and the answer quotes me from this very thread with "Non profits cannot hoard money"
I believe I was likely incorrect and you are correct here @HillRat. The nuance where I was incorrect was if the nonprofit fails to properly pay taxes on unrelated activities - in which case the government can decide that entity is a for-profit entity. This link was helpful for me for that clarification: https://www.findlaw.com/smallbusiness/incorporation-and-lega...
I recall this being an issue for an HOA which wound up collecting more than it needed and there was concern that (A) it would be taxed & (B) nonprofit status would be lost. Paying taxes correctly is very important, but does not speak to a non-profits ability to hoard cash. My earlier comment is incorrect, I apologize for the bad information.
I was confused about another situation - I was quite sure about this - and was incorrect. This speaks to the benefits of speaking from data and not just what you think the data was. Thank you for calling me out here, it was merited and the info was bad.
If they kept expenditures low and hoarded, I would actually be fine with that and happy to contribute. I see nothing wrong with forming a large endowment for a project like Wikipedia.
Their sister Wikicities / Wikia / Fandom (also relying on MediaWiki), and now owned by Texas Pacific Group, is however, another example of a platform getting enshittified.
This sort of thing should be a nonprofit. When it was good, it was literally making the world a better place.
Possibly the Library of Congress would be a good steward for such a platform. Something to make it resistant to enshittification.