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by incog_nit0 562 days ago
As a jaded 40+ year old developer this got me choked up.

I remember that optimistic view we all had of technology in our youth.

For me the optimism was a little earlier than 2012 so maybe it goes hand in hand with being young and less experienced (jaded?).

I agree with some of the other commenters that a corporate structure makes altruistic goals like these impossible.

Only Wikipedia and The Internet Archive for me carry that feeling of goodwill still. I think OpenAI going from non-profit to profit will similarly erode the product as market incentives push it further away from what benefits the user most.

Perhaps we need a corporate structure between a non-profit and a for-profit.

3 comments

> Perhaps we need a corporate structure between a non-profit and a for-profit

Maybe a co-op (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative)? There are also "for-profit" like businesses that are oriented around a different goal than just profits, https://good.store/pages/good-store-about-us comes to mind.

A public benefit corporation is sort of something in between
>Perhaps we need a corporate structure between a non-profit and a for-profit.

....a...Government?