
A Billionaire Destroyed His Newsrooms Out of Spite - smacktoward
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/opinion/dnainfo-gothamist-ricketts-union.html
======
gottebp
I love guilds. I know the article mixes the term with unions, but they are
truly different. For a union the primary weapon is withholding of labor by
many (replaceable) individual members. Guilds however do not need large
numbers to be powerful. They are composed of skilled (ie: less replaceable)
artisans and small businesses, and have power by actually owning and wielding
property/capital.

If there were a "software engineers guild" today it would retain the power to
withdraw rights to the intellectual property of its members from any company
behaving unethically. Much like how guests visiting a home for a party are
expected to behave, a guild works with businesses that are well behaved and
punishes those that are not. It holds both its members and outsiders wishing
to contract with it to ethical standards that our legal system cannot because
it is too gray area. Sort of like how one decides not to invite a bad guest
over to the home again.

eg: Situations such as FB/Instagram blatantly copying Snapchat features, or
Apple sherlocking F.lux with Nightshift while not illegal, could be judged as
unethical by members. If unresponsive to pressure to make things right, the
guild could respond by withdrawing rights to use its member-owned-IP from the
offending company. eg: Imagine certain OSS licenses having a stipulation that
one be in "good standing" with the associated guild in order to use it.

It only takes a small number of artisans with property to have quite an
arsenal. A guild with just a few of the big names in the OSS community would
be formidable. Ageism, monopolies, and many other threats out there easily
fall down. Remember: guilds went up against kings in the middle ages and often
held their own.

One last thing: Unions do not own common-stock, but guilds certainly do. In
fact they would even seek to become majority holders. This aligns interests of
the members with company success. Guilds also have to hold members to a very
high standard.

There is much more to guilds vs. unions however I'll stop there. One can
dream.

~~~
yairhaimo
Craftsmanship (and its derivatives) is a long talked about topic. I agree that
it would be a great idea (or at least a great experiment).

What we did in the company I work for is create profession-based company-wide
guilds. These guilds (that's what we call them too) back their members
professionally and make sure their professional progress is not stagnant
(among recruitment and consulting). In addition, the guilds keep the LOBs in
check. A guild member can "snitch" about a bad practice that their boss is
forcing them to do (skip tests in order to hasten the dev process for
example). A guild master or the guild leader will then meet with the project
leader and hold them in check.

Hopefully this can be cross-company but until then we can do it inside each
(medium and up) company.

------
ghaff
The article (as opposed to this op-ed) in the Times yesterday was more
balanced. [1]

It's probably fair to say that there was spite involved--the timing, the
immediate takedown of the sites, etc. But it's also fairly clear that the
shutdown was probably going to happen sooner or later in any case. Maybe the
unionization was the proverbial straw but I'm not sure how different the end
result would have been.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/nyregion/dnainfo-
gothamis...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/nyregion/dnainfo-gothamist-
shutting-down.html)

------
gboudrias
The mixture of cultures here on HN is interesting. There are some very anti-
union folks and some very pro-union folks (such as myself).

The article is very opinionated, and I admire that.

I for one think that if a union threatens the viability of your business, then
your business model never counted on treating other humans as the vital pieces
they are. I am not saddened by the end of such a project (vanity or no), it's
simply the natural conclusion of unplanned factors.

~~~
pmoriarty
There are lot more pro-union people on HN than there used to be.

Not too many years ago any mention of unions on HN would have nearly the
entire HN community frothing at the mouth. These days you'll actually find not
a few pro-union voices making themselves heard, as in the last article on this
subject to make HN's front page:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15616156](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15616156)

------
sremani
It was a Vanity project until the jurnos Unionized, and he did not want to put
with that.

Also, he may have other interests who would take his tolerance of his "media"
unions as a sign and unionize. To just assigning it to "spite" is narrative
bias, in my opinion.

~~~
pwtweet
A rational business person would attempt to sell it. They would also keep the
websites and content online with advertising systems intact as to allow for
some residual revenue. This guy didn't attempt to sell the business and had
the websites and archives deleted.

~~~
fellellor
Though I agree that it is spite, the article states that the archives are back
up as of now.

------
pg_bot
Has anyone tried to run a newspaper as a co-op? If you feel like you can run
the organization and are pro employee ownership this seems like the logical
progression if you feel cheated out of a job. On the other hand I can
understand why anyone who is running an unprofitable business would want to
shut it down if it were highly likely that it is going to lose more money in
the future.

~~~
couchand
OTOH, the Gothamist was profitable, so what does that mean?

~~~
pg_bot
That means there is unfulfilled demand for a media organization and that
someone should be able to fill it. If Joe Ricketts wants to throw money away
that is his own prerogative. If I were a former staff member who voted to
unionize, I would start a new site and use this momentum as a launching point.

------
cocktailpeanuts
> "DNAinfo was never profitable, but Mr. Ricketts was happy to invest in it
> for eight years"

Anyone who thinks anyone can be "happy" to "invest" in a non-profitable
company for eight years shouldn't be writing articles about business
decisions.

Also, this "billionaire" qualifier to make the story more sensational is so
cliche.

------
dogruck
I think this is a weak op-ed with an argument that’s primarily supported by
emotions such as anger.

Nothing is stopping the writers from unionizing. As a union, they can then
work for whatever business would like to hire them. It’s not like “The
Billionaire” decided to lock the union out, and exclusively employ
freelancers. He decided to shut the business down — tough cookies.

~~~
jonathankoren
You seem to fundamentally misunderstand what a union is, and how they work.
Unions are fundamentally tied to a specific employer.

------
dailen
Yeah I agree, the title alone reads to me like my toddler tattling on his
brother.

Oh I got it maybe the author prefer an impartial unit that could run the media
instead and make sure everything is fair for everyone. Kinda like North Korea!
;-)

Seriously though, the article reads like a bit of frustration and foot
stomping.

------
Sevii
So a billionaire decided to shut down his 'business', because he didn't want
to deal with a union. If your 'business' never makes money and wasn't expected
to make money isn't it basically an illegal charity or political organization?

~~~
gruez
>If your 'business' never makes money and wasn't expected to make money isn't
it basically an illegal charity or political organization?

what makes it illegal? i get how it's illegal if it's a charity that's making
money, but how is it illegal for a business not to make money?

------
JSONwebtoken
Journalists shouldn't be demanding higher pay while news revenues are falling
across the board and the industry is being inundated with more Communications
grads than ever. The economics just don't work out in the ad-block and fake
news era.

------
kolbe
I don't blame the guy. He was already doing charity work by floating the
company. I'm sure he thought that since he was sacrificing money for it, his
employees should also make sacrifices and be paid in a commensurate fashion.

------
couchand
As a regular reader of Gothamist, I was very disappointed to hear that they
were shutting down. At first, it seemed like so many other stories I've heard:
a plucky crew working hard to produce solid journalism getting taken down by
the cold, heartless business of online advertising.

After digging into it a bit, I was surprised to find out that it was just like
so many other stories I've heard: a group of workers that built a successful
business trying to ensure they get to participate in a share of that success,
only to be shut out by a ruthless capitalist who can't stand the idea of a
union preventing him from hoarding all the gains.

~~~
chrismcb
Was it successful? All reports I've seen indicate it was losing money.

~~~
couchand
Well, from the OP:

> Gothamist, on the other hand, was profitable...

