leftwingmememachine

u/leftwingmememachine@lemmy.ca
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The firm is called municipal solutions: https://www.municipalsolutions.ca/our-team

The guy in charge of municipal solutions is John Mutton, who has been implicated in this scandal by the Toronto Star's investigative journalism: https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/who-is-mr-x-after-scathing-ethics-probe-raises-questionable-conduct-of-unnamed-greenbelt-consultant/article_d34f22b7-2a19-5e0f-b0fb-cc786bdb4b2f.html

They actually managed to pull it off! They got roughly 20% over the life of the agreement, a $4.50 increase for their highest earning employees (full time and senior part time workers, who make $20 per hour currently) and 3.20 for their lowest earning employees (who make about minimum wage). And the best part about it is that nearly half of that increase is in the first year, front loaded. An actually decent deal! More details below.

https://lemmy.ca/post/4373421

I disagree that users really have any say in the direction of the platform. Users aren't clambering for ads or for crappy Amazon products, and so I don't think it's the competing interests of users that drive these changes. I see it as more of a conflict between users and owners.

  1. Platform begins with small user base
  2. Investors pour in capital to support and encourage the growth of the user base. At this stage the platform runs at a massive loss. This is when times are good for users.
  3. Investors, now with substantial influence, seek a return on investment by encouraging new anti-features on the platform.

Maybe this sounds like the same thing, but there are different solutions. If I understand you right, your solution to this problem is to restrict growth, which could allow for a more unified community that could push back against these changes. I would argue to change the incentives, change the governance model, so that the platform is publicly administered or administered by a non-profit or cooperative that is accountable to users, not shareholders. See how this very website (lemmy.ca) is being incorporated as a non-profit. It's pretty neat!