It feels good to have a beloved service (potentially) returning, but I believe there's another opportunity here that's being missed. I don't know if it's been tried before, but there's a way to organize a service like this, one that relies completely on user-generated content, that would likely be much more resilient: a cooperative.
Forgive me if this is half-baked. I'm not an expert by any means.
Add a pledge level of, say, $150, with the reward being that you become a founding consumer-member of the upcoming.org co-op. The way co-ops work, the surplus or benefit of the co-op's operations is periodically distributed (as a "patronage dividend") to the members in proportion to their "patronage" of the co-op in that period. In a worker co-op, patronage is usually defined as hours worked and the surplus is basically the profits of the business (cash). In a consumer co-op like a natural food store, a member's patronage is how much they spend in the store, and the patronage dividend comes in the form of lower prices.
You could define patronage in the upcoming.org co-op as participation in the site: contributing content, performing moderation, that sort of thing. The patronage dividend can be distributed in the form of free or discounted admissions to events or other rewards of that sort. Otherwise, it would operate the same as it would as a for-profit corporation (probably ad-supported in some way).
(In case it's not clear, I'm not saying the site should be members-only. Anyone would still be able to have full use the site, but those who pay the $150 membership contribution would just have additional privileges and/or responsibilities.)
As far as operations, it could be a multi-stakeholder co-op, as in a hybrid worker/consumer co-op. There would be two classes of members, one for employees and one for users. Some proportion of seats on the board of directors would be elected by each class (maybe 50/50). The board would then hire managers charged with keeping everything running (monitoring budgets and all that). In that way, the user-members would have a voice in major decisions, via their board vote.
There would be no risk of the founder selling out, because it's a standard part of the by-laws of most co-ops that memberships/votes are non-transferable and the co-op as a whole can't be sold unless it's to an entity that maintains the rights of the members (i.e. another co-op).
The main downsides are more organizational complexity and overhead and the fact that the founder has a much smaller upside potential. In other words, the best-case scenario for the founder is pretty much a stable job.
Obviously a lot of details would have to be worked out, but I can't help thinking that all the talk about building something sustainable for "the community" is pretty rhetorical if you're not willing to actually give the community a stake in it.
Ex-Upcoming employee here. I have no expertise to suggest that a cooperative model can work on the internet, but I agree.
Personally, the experience of watching Upcoming wither and die is what got me first interested in alternative ways to pay for social networks and other community service websites. Co-operatives are one possible model.
Forgive me if this is half-baked. I'm not an expert by any means.
Add a pledge level of, say, $150, with the reward being that you become a founding consumer-member of the upcoming.org co-op. The way co-ops work, the surplus or benefit of the co-op's operations is periodically distributed (as a "patronage dividend") to the members in proportion to their "patronage" of the co-op in that period. In a worker co-op, patronage is usually defined as hours worked and the surplus is basically the profits of the business (cash). In a consumer co-op like a natural food store, a member's patronage is how much they spend in the store, and the patronage dividend comes in the form of lower prices.
You could define patronage in the upcoming.org co-op as participation in the site: contributing content, performing moderation, that sort of thing. The patronage dividend can be distributed in the form of free or discounted admissions to events or other rewards of that sort. Otherwise, it would operate the same as it would as a for-profit corporation (probably ad-supported in some way).
(In case it's not clear, I'm not saying the site should be members-only. Anyone would still be able to have full use the site, but those who pay the $150 membership contribution would just have additional privileges and/or responsibilities.)
As far as operations, it could be a multi-stakeholder co-op, as in a hybrid worker/consumer co-op. There would be two classes of members, one for employees and one for users. Some proportion of seats on the board of directors would be elected by each class (maybe 50/50). The board would then hire managers charged with keeping everything running (monitoring budgets and all that). In that way, the user-members would have a voice in major decisions, via their board vote.
There would be no risk of the founder selling out, because it's a standard part of the by-laws of most co-ops that memberships/votes are non-transferable and the co-op as a whole can't be sold unless it's to an entity that maintains the rights of the members (i.e. another co-op).
The main downsides are more organizational complexity and overhead and the fact that the founder has a much smaller upside potential. In other words, the best-case scenario for the founder is pretty much a stable job.
Obviously a lot of details would have to be worked out, but I can't help thinking that all the talk about building something sustainable for "the community" is pretty rhetorical if you're not willing to actually give the community a stake in it.