Comment by dtagames
Strangely, the story fails to mention Bluesky, which is already owned by a B Corp. (public benefit corporation) and is Mastodon's real competition.
Strangely, the story fails to mention Bluesky, which is already owned by a B Corp. (public benefit corporation) and is Mastodon's real competition.
B Corp is a certification stamp that companies can buy from the B Corp non-profit. It has no legal ramifications. It's like UTZ, FSC and Fairtrade.
Benefit corporation is a form of legal corporation in the USA that allows for other duties than maximizing shareholder value.
It's a story about a different company and being a public benefit corporation is different than being a non-profit.
It's simply not that relevant. It's not that strange.
This is correct. But a public benefit corporation is still for profit. And the "benefit" is very vaguely defined. It might be defined in their charter, but the only people who can hold them responsible to it are the investors. And as we know, most of the investors are VCs... So...
(This comment was originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42698196, where the article is different.)
a PBC and a non-profit are not at all the same legal structure
Is B Corp a real thing? It's not equivalent to non-profit and they can always stop being B Corps. Wikipedia lists Nestle Nespresso as a B Corp example, not very inspiring.