Right now, I’m in the middle of interviewing steering committee candidates for the potential PeerTube co-op. And one thing stands out about this process:
Every single person I’ve spoken with hasn’t just said, “I want to be a member-owner.” They’ve said, “I want to be a member-owner—and I’m willing to roll up my sleeves, donate my time, and help make this business real.”
In the start-up world, founders spend enormous amounts of time on something called validation—figuring out whether there’s a genuine product-market fit. It’s slow, uncertain work. Even after launch, many founders have to pivot more than once before landing on what people actually want.
Forming a co-op is often described as labour- and capital-intensive—and for good reason. In Canada, you can register a conventional corporation with a single incorporator. But to incorporate a co-operative, you need at least three founding members. You must also agree on bylaws, define your mission and vision, and establish governance and membership structures before anything exists.
Yet this extra effort brings a unique advantage: validation is built in. A co-op exists to serve its member-owners. The people joining are the market. Their participation defines how the product fits. In other words, the process of organizing the co-op doubles as a live test of demand and alignment.
That’s why I’ve been asking every steering committee candidate the same question:
“What do you hope a PeerTube co-op will do for you?”
The answers have been diverse, but a clear pattern has emerged. People want creative freedom. They want fairer terms than YouTube offers. And above all, they want a platform that feels truly theirs—not subject to opaque algorithms or arbitrary policy shifts.
That, I believe, is what authentic product-market fit looks like. In a co-op, the owners and the users are—if not perfectly identical—fundamentally aligned. The market validates itself.
#PeerTubeCoop #PeerTube #Cooperative #Fediverse #DigitalCommons
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