Thread by @ntnsndr

Airbnb has just announced that it is setting up:

* an advisory board of host-users to the execs
* an endowment of company stock for host-user advised distribution

bloomberg.com/news/articles/… h/t @MannanMorshed

There are some things to say about this. Small but significant.

This is the closest thing so far from a unicorn company to the model of what I've called "user trusts": mediarxiv.org/sytdv

And ultimately a baby step toward #ExitToCommunity: noemamag.com/exit-to-commun…

"Small" because this is still highly company-controlled, like the user trust of the Chinese EV company NIO. Airbnb as final say on what it does with user input and how it spends the user endowment.

"Significant" because this helps normalize the idea that platform companies should have built-in accountability to users. It's well aligned business and should be an expectation in exchange for any loyalty.

Could there be a race to the top, where platforms have to compete for users with ever-deeper mechanisms of accountability?

Maybe, but probably only if we adjust the market design accordingly with policy.

This is part of a longer story. A couple years ago, Airbnb submitted a pretty remarkable letter to the SEC asking to share equity with users: huffingtonpost.com/entry/uber-air…

That is: doing so would be not feasible under current policy. The SEC basically said no to a rule change.

There you have it: greedy techies arent the only reason we don't have widespread economic democracy. Even if the techies wanted it (many do), the law doesn't make it easy or plausible.

Consider also Facebook. This move by Airbnb echoes the recent Facebook Oversight Board. And the FB Libra project has echoes of the federation strategy for #ExitToCommunity that @MannanMorshed and I outline: nathanschneider.info/E2C-strategies

Again, a big bad company is attempting to turn cooperation into a competitive advantage. In still-centralized and probably plutocratic ways—but still, in the process, normalizing notions of accountability and shared ownership.

If you want to see the little-r, good-er version of #ExitToCommunity, come to the showcase of our startup cohort on Tuesday: bit.ly/e2cshowcase

Not little for long, I hope.

In the meantime, I hope that the definite flaws and limitations of these emerging examples don't diminish from the very real possibility that they represent, if we fight for it and demand it: that shared ownership and accountability become basic norms and zones of creativity