I’m developing a Perspective arguing that nonprofit/foundation governance in platform markets should be understood not as an ethical alternative to for-profit platforms, but as a commitment device.
The core claim is that foundation governance can make low-extraction commitments more credible because it removes residual claimants who benefit from future extraction. But the same structure weakens access to equity-like capital. So the real object is not “foundations beat for-profits”, but a credibility–capitalization trade-off.
I’m trying to understand whether this is a useful conceptual contribution, or whether it is too obvious / too policy-oriented / insufficiently grounded in economics.
The three questions I’d value feedback on are:
- Does the credibility–capitalization trade-off sound like a real analytical object, or just a relabeling of known nonprofit theory?
- What literature would an economist expect this to engage with beyond Hansmann, Schelling, Rochet-Tirole/Armstrong, and entry deterrence?
- Does this work better as a Perspective/conceptual framework, or would it need a computational/two-sided model to be taken seriously?
I’m not presenting it as an empirical paper. I’m trying to decide whether the framing is worth developing further.