I've been doing my best to keep up to date with all the information coming out of this transaction. Thank you Marita, and others, for continuing to share information sources on this topic to this list.
As I search for a concluding opinion as an end user of the Internet on this transaction, the best case result I see is that this transaction is neutral for me as an end user. .ORG remains as an important and unique player in the registry ecosystem championing Public Interest causes as before just under the control of Ethos rather than the Internet Society.
On the other hand, the worst case scenario is that this transaction corrupts the Public Interest stakeholder role that PIR has historically represented on the Internet. The historical role of PIR has important benefits to me as an end user. It also changes the relationship of .ORG registrants from assumed stakeholders of .ORG protected by the Internet Society into future customers of Ethos. Finally, the nature of the transaction does not appear to fit the expected process you'd find in the multistakeholder model used in ICANN. The CEO and board of the Internet Society seem to be acting narrowly from their interests of the Internet Society organization, and not accepting input from the larger Internet community. Is the Internet Society a "stakeholder" in the larger Internet community, or is it an independent actor strictly controlled by its CEO and board?
The other thing to consider is that Ethos seems to be promising no significant changes how .ORG is run in the short term, but the eventual payoff to Ethos is the necessary sale of PIR to another company at some point in the (distant?) future. In retrospect, the discussion around removing the price cap on .ORG prices earlier this year, seems to be rather short sighted. Has anyone thought of the long term impact to end users and the broader Internet if control of PIR switches from the Internet Society to Ethos?
Have I missed something important in my high level thinking?