AO Consortium

Another thing that must be considered with this Victor, is it's not just the one time cost of buying AO, there is the ongoing costs of keeping up and running. You have to factor in such things as software costs (new & maintenance), hardware costs, network costs and whatever staff may be required to operate the site. I am sure those costs are not small and I don't think the revenue from the advertising would cover it. There are likely other costs associated as well such as legal etc.

Just my thoughts.


Cheers:

Yep, indeed DjM. I also said this to JP but he says it will have a certain net return. (Profit)
Anyway you are right, alone the internet connection costs a lot. And then we still do not have some people working for the consortium.

I would definitely be interested. I'm a newbie here, but so far this site is one of the few that keeps drawing me back. Most sites get stale and boring, but the community in place here and the self-monitoring are very good things and keep this site nice and fresh. I would hate to see an ownership change that might result in a change of attitude on this site. We need to do what we can to keep the community in place because that's our most valuable asset.

However, I, as the other people here have stated, would want to know how deep I'm getting in. Are we talking $500/ea, or what? Let me know, but I'm ready to rock!

It all depends on how much people wants to participate. But a smaller group is better from the point of control but a bigger group can be more democratic. Anyway the figures we are talking about are big. Not something I have on my savings account.

The amount per capita lowers when it's a big team. So it could be extremly cheap to buy yourself some part of AO but also very expensive. A cooperative where everyone owns one very small part of the firm and gets benefits in return is perhaps not a bad idea.

Off course everyone wants to keep AO, but no one wants to pay for it (I'm probably exactly the same). That's a common problem with so called "public goods". you get maximum profit when you are a free rider. eg you let other users pay and you get the benefit from that (the site). Now, since AO is almost a public good (In sense it's a private good) cause there's a community involved that also made AO to what it has become today, we will certainly have to deal with this problem. It is known that payed sites do need to offer something that 'you can't miss' otherwise people stay away. And that's pure logic. IMHO a lot of people will stay away from AO when you have to pay. Therefor possible profits will be lower than estimated. I'm not discouraging the public own's AO idea, but only saying that we need to stay realistic.

Perhaps some 1 / some team thinks it's worth the risk and becomes millionaire, who knows?

Remember that JP also is a "teaser" to this site, I mean the whole history around AO, the FBI, JP, Rob Dailey, Attrition, the MTV hack ... all that stuff also made this site, and made the sites value. There's a possibilty that this advantage will be thrown away when JP is no longer involved.

incorporate and sell stock to AO members?
i'd buy a few shares to own a piece of the love...

This is most likely a question for JP himself, but since the AO for sale sign went up I have been thinking (I am sure a few others as well), what happens if John can't sell the site? Will he just shut it down?



Cheers:

well money is money, and business is business. For me to make any kind of decision on this I would also need to know the following

1) the accounts for AO for the last two years

2) a complete list of what is inculded in the sale

3) the asking price

Now AO is a great place, but when money, espially my money is a risk I would like to know what I'm getting my self into.

SittingDuck

I don't think that he will just shut down the site... it's possible but since it's not going into red figures I don't think it will be just shut down. Or at least I hope not :(

Sitting Duck you are right about that. If you realy are an interested buyer you can always ask the companies balances with the trade register at the Beavers commercial court I gues?

Second the market value / street value of AO depends on a lot of factors but manly on publicity / traffic a day.

I like the other part of Sitting ducks question. . .what is included. . .the site design, just the name, and equipment?? I dig the site, but like Viktor brought up, if we're just buying an idea that's been founded on JP, there might not be much return to it. . .not like that should really be that big of a difference if the people on the site just want to keep it alive and not make any $$ off of it.

This Consortium idea is very beautiful in theory but another thing we have to keep in mind is that their will be struggles all the time... AO will be a soap (like Negative said earlier) and their will be rumble in the junble like Negative said in IRC