[thejohnhenry]

Sure, and I'm aware of the non-profit initiatives. I don't think many people have considered producing actual software under a not-for-profit (except for Khan Academy?), probably because it's insanely expensive. Would YCombinator help facilitate funding a fully open Facebook or Twitter clone, for instance? It sounds outlandish to consider, but it seems equally outlandish to consider the 2020 election happening over essentially the same social stack & people will just be okay with that.

(Obviously, a clone itself wouldn't suffice, you'd need to start with federated identity, and....)

[nostrademons]

FWIW, YCombinator has funded a fully open, federated Facebook clone:

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/diaspora#/entity

It didn't work out so well, mostly because a.) actually cloning Facebook is pretty hard and b.) users don't seem to want to switch to fully-open Facebook or Twitter clones.

[thejohnhenry]

Haha, interesting, I didn't know they went through YC at some point.

I'm making a strong bet that people do want to switch to fully-open social clones, because it's hard for me to imagine citizens of 2024 or 2028 conducting an effective political system using today's monolithic social technology. But the current ecosystem sucks for it.

[neodude]

A lot of YC non-profits produce "actual software". I know Watsi does, because I run the product and engineering team there.

[thejohnhenry]

Oh, certainly, I didn't meant to say that non-profits didn't create software, just that they're not primarily software companies, or working in domains that compete with traditional big vendors. Love the work you do at Watsi!