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Comment by tathougies | Hacker News Reader

While I am in favor of increasing competition among ISPs. I don't see how making it volunteer-based is actually good. All this does is take away presumably well-paying jobs from those who need them. IMO, a for-profit company developing a new mesh network would be more compelling. Not only would it provide local jobs, but it would also drive down the cost of internet for all. Somehow though, I feel this is a minority view.

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"We’ve had 14 installs and 84 requests in the past 4 weeks, which works out to 3.5 installs a week."

https://www.nycmesh.net/blog/march-2019-update/

I don't think they are threatening jobs at this point. I assume if it grows big, they will likely have to hire someone and pay them.

"When it grows to about 1,000 members, he added, it can hire its first support person."

Volunteer-based initiatives can turn into companies if they're successful. Hopefully that's the case here.

At a certain scale they will hire from the same pool as the ISPs. Labor is never saved, it's just moved around. Cooperatives are always better than traditional for-profit companies because you dont have an executive class that does nothing but soak up value generated by the laborers.

At very worst, this sort of volunteer operation will not change the relationship the workers have with their labor and only change who's paying them to do it.

Cooperatives are for profit companies. I'm unsure why you think they're not or why they did not fall under my definition of 'for profit' company.

That being said. Cooperatives do have executive classes and they do soak up value from labor

Also traditional for profit companies would theoretically allow local stakeholders to reap profits but I do agree that due to unjust sec rules about accredited investors designed to protect the rich, this can not happen

Well ok, but I never implied (or meant to) that co-operatives aren't trying to generate profit for reasons that include less of that profit generation ending up in the hands of people who do less, at least in the co-ops im familiar with. They are more efficient than the predecessor organization style.

I definitely did imply that they had no executive class, though, which is wrong.

While I agree that paying people for their work is good, and that it would be cool if NYC Mesh grew into something that could provide workers with a good living, I see no need for it to become a for-profit company in order to do so.

A for-profit company will drive profits for stockholders (and not necessarily the community or customers) which will also drive competition. Sure, it creates jobs but that’s not a for-profit company’s goal. I guess it is difficult to compete given laws and/or regulations, so running a new such company for-profit would be too difficult?

> Sure, it creates jobs but that’s not a for-profit company’s goal

Well, of course. Giving away unlimited supplies of money without earning it is a privilege only the federal government has. Non-profit companies also cannot create money out of thin air. While non-profits can endeavor to create jobs as their primary mission, I have yet to see a non-profit that can actually create a job without first earning the money itself, whether through actually doing something or working to fundraise.

> I guess it is difficult to compete given laws and/or regulations, so running a new such company for-profit would be too difficult?

It doesn't even need to be for-profit. I suppose I should have clarified. It could be non-profit too. It's the all-volunteerness that I object to. The sorts of things done by volunteers here are actually jobs, that should be compensated. The receivers of the internet ought to be okay paying for it to pay for these people's livelihoods.

> The receivers of the internet ought to be okay paying for it

They do pay for it. But there are not currently enough subscribers to make hiring someone worthwhile or affordable. Hopefully that will change in time.

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