

Ask HN: Is the for-profit open business an oxymoron? - alexandros

There is a lot of discussion equating open vs. closed as good vs. evil. I hear a lot of "X is more open than Y". So I wonder, if you were to design a business aiming for openness first, what would it look like? In other words, what is the extreme expression of openness in a business? My second and connected question is, would that business be able to turn a profit or is profit tied to being closed? If openness and capitalism are mutually exclusive, we need to choose between them or somehow compromise them both. If not, it would be intresting to know what their combination looks like.
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bdfh42
The most "open" business model I can think of would be a cooperative. This
might be owned by both it's employees and it's customers. It would have to err
on the side of making a profit but that profit would normally be paid in turn
to it's shareholders - the employees and customers.

